Teachers Negotiate Equity in Project-Based Learning for and With Students

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

Abstract

Purpose
Reimagining curriculum goes beyond creating equity oriented materials for teachers to use. Instead, models like PBL provide an opportunity to create spaces for co-designing and adapting learning experiences that align with the needs and preferences of teachers and students. We sought to understand whether teachers who participated in a year-long study of PBL in high school language arts engaged in PBL as a means of addressing issues of equity. We were interested in the ways teachers negotiated equity-related tensions within PBL enactment.

Perspectives
Within equity-oriented PBL, learning should feel meaningful and improve student outcomes, and classrooms should be places where students and teachers want to be. These experiences make way for negotiations of equity to occur as teachers and students question dominant narratives. Over a five-year period, educators and researchers worked together to design a year-long PBL experience centered on design principles applied to English Language Arts: authentic making, collaboration, iterative design cycles, social and emotional learning, and universal design for learning (Authors, 2021). These principles grounded the design and enactment of PBL.

Methods & Data Sources
In 2018-2019, 25 ninth-grade language arts teachers participated in professional learning, including introduction to PBL curriculum materials and coaching support. Teachers were asked to enact four PBL projects over the school year. Data sources included end-of-year interviews, observation checklist and field notes from four classroom observations, and teacher memos, in which researchers compiled multiple data sources over the year (e.g., coaching, participation in professional learning, observation notes). Qualitative analysis was used to develop themes and representative case studies of enactment.

Results
The majority of teachers saw the PBL course as a vehicle for achieving equity, sharing for example, the incorporation of student voice, contemporary texts, and student choice to “access the work in their own way and speak to injustices in their lives.” Several teachers noted the importance of adapting to local contexts. Some teachers saw access to resources as a barrier to equity. A few teachers shared deficit views of students in their discussions of equity; for instance, one shared that PBL would be equitable if “students were willing to participate.” However, others worked to negotiate enactments of equity in PBL alongside their students.
We share findings of one teacher in a largely conservative rural district who adapted the curriculum to fit the needs of her students. As her mostly white students questioned her “liberal” perspectives, she worked with researchers to engage students in examining missing narratives in their community (Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2018). Her adaptations resulted in students with historically marginalized identities articulating that they felt “safe and valued;” additionally, students with dominant identities explained shifts in their thinking about topics such as gun control and mental health toward positions that moved beyond their community’s conservative norms, while also describing changes in feelings of belonging.

Scholarly Significance
When teachers perceive PBL to be a vehicle for enacting equity-oriented PBL, they can use design principles such as authentic and meaningful learning experiences to cultivate relationships and negotiate challenges.

Authors

• Alison Gould Boardman, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Kristina Stamatis
  Presenting Author