A Collaborative Model for Helping Middle Grade Science Teachers Learn Project-Based Instruction

TLDR

Project‑based instruction, grounded in constructivist theory, offers many opportunities to transform classrooms into active learning environments. The study describes a collaborative effort with middle‑grade science teachers to make project‑based instruction concrete and accessible by delineating its key features. The authors propose a collaborative model in which teachers, university personnel, and experts jointly plan, enact, and reflect on projects that center on authentic driving questions, while students collaborate, create artifacts, and use technology, and the model explicitly addresses the challenges of implementing project‑based instruction. Cycles of collaboration, enactment, and reflection enabled teachers and university personnel to develop richer conceptions of project‑based instruction’s features and challenges and to learn strategies for aligning practice with theory.

Abstract

We describe our collaborative work on project-based instruction with middle school teachers. Grounded in constructivist theory, project-based instruction affords many possibilities for transforming classrooms into active learning environments. To make the theory concrete and accessible to teachers, we delineate features. Students' investigations are organized around a driving question, which is authentic and encompasses substantial content. In attempts to find answers to the questions, students collaborate with each other, develop artifacts, and use technological tools. Because project-based instruction entails considerable changes in classroom practices, we detail associated challenges in enactment. Derived from the teacher development literature, our model for supporting teachers focuses on a dynamic interplay of collaboration, enactment, and reflection. Teachers collaborate with peers, university personnel, and experts in content and technology to discuss information and ideas. They plan and enact projects, reflect on their experiences, and return to the group to share experiences and strategies for meeting difficulties, as well as for supporting each other. Through cycles of collaboration, enactment, and reflection, teachers and university personnel gain new visions of instruction, develop rich conceptions of the features and associated challenges of project-based instruction, and learn strategies for enacting practices that are congruent with theory.