Satisfaction From Shifting Practices in Project-Based Learning: Strengthening Relationships of Teachers With Individual Students

• In Event: Expanding Opportunities for Equity-Based Practice: A Collaborative Study of Implementation

Abstract

Problem. This study builds on Coburn’s dimensions of scale (2013) to explore individual teachers’ shifts in their “Depth of Practice” as they enact a Project-based Learning (PBL) science curriculum. In combination with the work of the collaboratory, this work creates unique insights into the challenge of scale by combining analyses of individual teacher experiences with the systems perspective.

Teachers work in inequitable school systems. These systems reproduce barriers between individuals, and marginalize students who do not share the euro-centric and elite class background of those who hold powerful positions in the system. Thus, we focus on teachers’ “depth of practices” while working in this system, asking how teachers experience working towards particular PBL practices that support the disruption of the inequities perpetuated in school systems.

Theoretical Framework. We come to this work with two frameworks. First, PBL practices
include the interactive, social learning that takes place in classroom communities during science learning (Lave, 1988), including valuing student questions, connecting projects to community-based problems, and supporting the collaborative construction of artifacts. Second, we use theories of equity in systems. We understand equity in two ways. As positioning teachers as intelligent architects of their own practice (hooks, 1994); and as moving beyond access to building humanizing relationships with students (Ladson-Billings, 2009) in ways that enable students’ community cultural wealth (Yosso & García, 2007).

Methods. In this project we follow 10 teachers from 2 diverse schools in deeply conservative communities, as they engage in professional learning (PL) around enacting a popular reform-based PBL science curriculum. Data includes observations of 13 PL-sessions and 75 classroom teaching, as well as extensive and repeated interviews (86). For this paper, we focus on episodes in the interviews in which teachers discussed what motivated them--what enabled their intentional focus on developing PBL practices-- when enacting the curriculum. We analyzed these excerpts for themes that highlight: 1.) conditions that enabled the teachers to sustain in the challenging work of shifting their practice and, 2.) teachers’ relationships with their students.

Findings. Preliminary findings suggest that teacher satisfaction was an enabling condition for depth of practice--it facilitated intentionality and investment in the challenge task, deepening their practices. Further, teachers experienced PBL practices as “making sense [to them] as professional[s].” One teacher focused on students' engagement and interest displacing focus on what the student can’t do, “Finally! This is what learning should look like as active, creative and exploratory” and creating space for students to share their sensemaking approaches. And, finally, these PBL practices fostered creativity, collaboration, and connection to communities, which appeared to strengthen relationships between individual students and their teacher, further increasing teacher satisfaction, and creating a self-supporting cycle.

Significance. This work suggests that teachers may be personally motivated by deepening relationships with individual students. Further, these relationships support teachers to experience satisfaction in their work, thereby enabling their continued efforts towards deepening their PBL practices. Consistent with our theoretical framework, we propose this as a key leverage point for supporting more equitable, humanizing, classroom experiences for teachers and students.

Authors

• Emily Miller, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Leema G. Berland, University of Wisconsin - Madison