Deepening Responsive Teaching Practices Through Enacting Project-Based Learning Practices

• In Event: Teacher Change of Practice Across Contexts: Case Studies of Large-Scale Project-Based Science Curriculum Enactment

Abstract

Objectives . Project-based learning (PBL) has been shown to be effective for science learning among
diverse students. PBL practices include valuing questions that students pose, connecting artifacts to the
community, and supporting students to collaborate. PBL practices that center students’ thinking and build
on community are commensurate with practices associated with responsive teaching. This case study
traces a 3rd grade Bilingual teacher’s journey of responsive teaching practices as she enacted PBL.

Can PBL practices build teacher capacity to teach responsively? We ask how teachers can enact a curriculum that is written to promote responsive teaching, and at the same time stray from what is written when confronted with students’ ideas, experiences and tasks to build on students cultural, ethnic, and linguistic knowledge.

Theoretical Framework. We build on theories of PBL (Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006) that projects motivate student learning and two approaches related to responsive teaching, critical pedagogy and developmental psychology. Culturally responsive teachers can develop responsive practices by gaining a socio-cultural competence and understanding their students and the cultural resources they build on when learning (Villegas & Lucas, 2002).

Methods. This case study traces an elementary teacher’s journey as she enacts a PBL curriculum called Multiple-Literacies in Project Based Learning (ML-PBL) (Author & Other, 2019). The methodological approach is descriptive and interpretive while recursively identifying patterns as themes.

Data Sources and Analysis. Data included videotapes and field notes, artifacts, and open-ended and semi-structured interviews with student focus groups and the teacher. Field notes tracked lesson implementation. They involved descriptions of the sequential parts of the lesson and how they were individually engaged, as well as the alignment to the lesson as a whole.

We used open and axial coding for arranging segments of the field notes and related video data of 21 lessons. The codes isolated segments of field notes and video that indicated moves initiated by the teacher or by the students and the enactment that diverged from the lesson as written.

Results. The deepening of Luzmaria’s PBL practices was mutually reinforcing to development of responsive teaching practices. Luzmaria was responsive to both students’ ideas and cultural and ethnic heritage as part of staying true to the intention of the curriculum but diverging from the materials as written. She allowed the students to develop their own science meaning for evidence as a bid for a personal story that is connected to Latin@ culture. In this way she responded to the students’ personal stories in Spanish. In another unit, Luzmaria modified the artifact to be connected to students’ ethnic identities, which involved building a birdfeeder for a local bird but helping to raise awareness of the plight of dyed chicks in Latin-America.

Significance. The usefulness of understanding fidelity to equitable responsive practice, as opposed to fidelity to curriculum as written. The case study demonstrates and supports her students toward enacting fidelity to equitable practices. These deep fidelities are enactments aligned to the principles rooted in the responsive design, even if they diverge.

Author

• Emily Miller, University of Wisconsin - Madison