Practice-Based Coaching for Project-Based Learning (PBL): Bringing Practice-Based Teacher Education to PBL

• In Event: 67.067 - MTCC Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 67.067-12 - Investigating How Instructional Coaching Supports Teacher Learning and Development Across Disciplines Using Core Practices

Abstract

Objectives: Project-based learning (PBL) appears to support student learning and engagement (Harris et al., 2015; Parker et al., 2013). To date, however, studies of PBL have primarily focused on understanding student outcomes of curricular interventions. Little is known about the influence of PBL-specific instructional coaching. As PBL gains in popularity, its proponents would be wise to learn from past curricular and policy implementation efforts (Coburn & Woulfin, 2012). Without aligned instructional coaching, curricular innovation is likely to fail in implementation (Kraft, Blazar, & Hogan, 2018).

Theoretical Framework: We ground our study of PBL coaching in research on practice-based teacher education (PBTE) (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009). PBTE draws from sociocultural perspectives on professional learning to conceptualize the work of teaching as a professional activity made up of culturally and historically situated practices (Chaiklin & Lave, 1996). PBTE contrasts with competency-based teacher education, which resulted in mechanistic and de-professionalizing approaches to teacher learning (Zeichner, 2012). Coaching in PBTE draws on research about how professionals use the predictability of routine activities (e.g., discussion facilitation) to complete uncertain and complex tasks (Feldman & Pentland, 2003). In PBTE, practices become the skeleton of instruction from which sophisticated professional judgement can hang. Coaches use “core practices” as the anchors of their coaching rather than treating lessons as the units of analysis for instructional improvement.

Methods: We report on Year 2 of a 4-year study in which we are developing and evaluating a practice-based coaching model to support teachers implementing PBL. In Year 1, we conducted a descriptive analysis of the instructional practices (as captured in videos, interviews, and survey responses) of PBL experts and practitioners. We used this analysis to develop an observation protocol of PBL instruction. Using this protocol, we are currently scoring a dataset of 92 videos of classroom instruction taken in the classrooms of veteran high school teachers from multiple regions of the US. The teachers all identify themselves as engaging in PBL instruction and have agreed to undergo practice-based coaching on PBL. The question we bring to this phase of the study is: What patterns of teaching PBL exist in the enactments of teacher participants?

Results: Emerging analyses reveal extreme variation in scores on the PBL observation protocol. While all participants claim to be “doing PBL,” at the level of instructional practice there are very few shared characteristics of their instruction. Teachers with the same commitment to PBL ranged from scores of 1 (the lowest score) to scores of 4 (the highest score) in the practices across all four domains of the protocol: disciplinary work, authentic work, iterative work, and collaborative work. Few patterns existed in the presence or quality of any practices.

Implications: Our findings suggest that if the move towards PBL in schools and districts is to result in meaningful instructional improvement, reshaping curricula around projects must be paired with attention to instructional coaching on practices. If curricular innovation fails to reach the black box of instruction, reforms will do little to influence student learning at scale.

Authors

• Sarah Schneider Kavanagh, University of Pennsylvania

• Emily C. Rainey, University of Pittsburgh

• Chenelle Boatswain, University of Pennsylvania