An investigation of teacher experiences in learning the project-based learning approach
Dazhi Yang, Shannon Skelcher, Fei Gao
Abstract
Project-based learning (PBL) has a positive impact on student motivation, students’ perceived learning, and performance. However, many teachers are reluctant to adopt PBL. This mixed-methods study examined in-service teachers’ learning experiences of planning and implementing PBL situated in a graduate level PBL course and sought insight into the challenges and ways to overcome the challenges in implementing PBL in practice. Results indicate that teachers’ confidence about their ability to plan and implement a PBL project improved upon completion of the course. Nevertheless, teachers cited various obstacles, such as a lack of mentoring, planning time and implementation experiences, which had prevented them from complete implementation of PBL in teaching. Possible ways to overcome the challenges in adopting PBL include school support, opportunities for experience and practice with PBL, and peer collaboration. The study also showed that a semester-long course focused on designing and developing a PBL project of teachers’ choice was effective in helping increase their confidence and experience in potential implementation of PBL in classroom practice. This study contributes to the implementation of PBL in classrooms and teacher education as well as teacher professional development on the PBL approach.
Keywords
Instructional approaches; Professional development; Project-based learning; Teacher education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11591/edulearn.v15i4.20302
Refbacks
There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2021 Intelektual Pustaka Media Utama
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .
Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn) ISSN: 2089-9823, e-ISSN 2302-9277 Published by Intelektual Pustaka Media Utama (IPMU) in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science (IAES) .
<div class="statcounter"><a title="web analytics" href="http://statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img class="statcounter" src="//c.statcounter.com/10243437/0/02b261b1/0/" alt="web analytics"></a></div> View EduLearn Stats