Creating Equity-Infused Project-Based Learning: Design Principles and Critical Lenses

• In Event: Project-Based Learning of the Future: From Equity-Adjacent to Equity-Infused

Abstract

Purpose
Given the learner-centered focus of PBL, it has always been uniquely positioned to advance educational equity; however, PBL has not always been explicitly part of the pedagogical approach in schools (Author, 2022; Cheng et al., 2021). This presentation will present a design framework for designing equitable PBL curricula that engages each and every student in meaningful learning experiences that are relevant to the world beyond the classroom, affirm and sustain all students’ identities, and focus on the development of the whole child.
Perspectives
Equity infused design calls upon curriculum designers, as well as teachers and the broader educational system, to embrace and enact a series of anti-oppressive, culturally sustaining, and asset-based approaches that center on students, their identities, and their experience (Gay, 2018; González et al., 2005; Nasir, 2012; Paris & Alim, 2017). Specifically, this includes a focus on culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017), culturally responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994), funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005), historically responsive framework (Muhammad, 2020), culturally responsive teaching (Gay, 2018; Hammond, 2015), Indigenous and land-based perspectives (Bang et al., 2014; Barajas-López & Bang, 2018), and culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy (Hollie, 2011).
Methods & Data Sources
This paper is part curriculum review and part theoretical in nature, examining PBL curriculum, literature, and educational theories that can inform equity in the design of PBL curriculum. Data for this paper was pulled from a literature review of design principles and related curricula for project-based learning curriculum.
Results
Design principles are often used as a tool to help curriculum designers organize and center qualities they would like the developed curriculum to embody. In PBL, design principles have been used to emphasize aspects such as student agency, authenticity, and collaboration (Author, 2020, 2022). We describe a set of Design Principles that can support the creation of content-rich, student-centered experiences. These Design Principles are grouped into three categories: Learner-Centered Approaches, Course Structures, and Curriculum Supports. In order to move PBL from equity adjacent to equity infused, we argue that it is not enough to simply add equity as another design principle. Instead, we highlight pedagogical commitments, or Critical Lenses, for designers to consider to ensure that all students are valued, engaged, and included. These commitments provide a frame through which curriculum developers can interpret the Design Principles to ensure they are not producing or reinforcing inequities. The four Critical Lenses presented in this paper include: Commitment to Equity, Identity Development, Student Engagement, and Social and Emotional Learning. All of these lenses overlap and come together to define how to enact the Design Principles in curricula, while Commitment to Equity also encompasses the other three, representing the constant eye toward equity that should occur in PBL design.
Scholarly Significance
Designers should consider the perspectives they use as they design a curriculum for deeper learning and equitable development of the whole child. The perspectives designers use become operationalized in the developed curriculum, influencing the ways teachers implement the curriculum and, therefore, what students will experience in the classroom.

Authors

• Gavin Tierney, California State University - Fullerton
  Presenting Author

• Gina Olabuenaga, AdaptiveX
  Presenting Author

• Rochelle Urban
  Presenting Author