January 26, 2023
Thought Leadership

AERA 2023 PBL Symposium

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January 26, 2023
Thought Leadership

PBL of the Future: From Equity-Adjacent to Equity-Infused https://tinyurl.com/2gqqwlgd

Thu, April 13, 9:50 to 11:20am CDT (7:50 to 9:20am PDT), Hyatt Regency Chicago, Floor: East Tower - Concourse Level, Michigan 2

This symposium includes five research projects across diverse disciplines, grades, and contexts, seeking to better understand how project-based learning (PBL) can contribute to aims of equity in education. Learning, equity, and social justice are mutually reinforcing and mutually dependent for high-quality PBL. Each team examines their PBL contexts by first addressing equity and social justice not as an outcome of PBL, nor one aspect of PBL, but rather as integral to PBL-centered environments, individually considering the following: principles for design, teacher implementation, student enactment, and community interface. PBL research and practice needs to be interrogated not just to ensure the presence of equity-oriented educational experiences, but to uncover and address the tensions that arise when commitments to equity are embodied.

AERA 2023 Symposium: PBL and SEL SREE: Observing Equity and Inclusion in Effectiveness Research

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Research

Including teachers in the social justice equation of project-based learning: A response to Lee & Grapin

Adah Miller, E., Makori, H., Akgun, S., Miller, C., Li, T., & Codere, S. (2022). Including teachers in the social justice equation of project-based learning: A response to Lee & Grapin. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 1– 7.

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Research

The Impact of Project-Based Learning on AP Exam Performance

Harnessing a cluster randomized controlled trial, we estimated the impact on students’ advanced placement (AP) examination performance of a project-based learning (PBL) approach to AP compared with a lecture-based AP approach.

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Research Award

Equity-Centered Learning Environments (ECLEs) 

LER funded four research teams who are engaged in ongoing research addressing equity and student-centered learning in educational contexts across the country.

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Research Award

Democratic Knowledge Project

The Democratic Knowledge Project is a project-based learning civics initiative that includes a year-long 8th-grade civics curriculum, Civic Engagement in Our Democracy.

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Research

Mapping Enabling Conditions for High-Quality PBL: A Collaboratory Approach

This paper explores enabling conditions for scaling high-quality project-based learning (PBL) to understand factors that influence how PBL spreads, whether and how it can be sustained and the extent to which it informs meaningful change in schools.

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Research

Designing Project-Based Learning Curricula

This paper provides instructional designers with guidance on how to design high-quality PBL curricula, drawing on the LER research base, the learning science literature, and best practices from the field. To provide developers with guideposts that can inform design decisions, the paper describes a set of design principles that can support the creation of content-rich, student-centered experiences.

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Research

Interdisciplinary Education: Literature Review and Landscape Analysis  

Related to project-based learning, interdisciplinary education can create more relevant learning experiences for all students. This report, produced by RTI International for Lucas Education Research, explores the field of interdisciplinary education through an extensive literature review and landscape analysis. In both parts of the report, RTI examines the definitions of interdisciplinary education; how, where, and why the approach is practiced; and finally the existing research, resources, and structures for interdisciplinary education.

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Research

Motivating Teaching, Sustaining Change in Practice

Miller, E.C., Severance, S., and Krajcik, J. (2021). Motivating Teaching, Sustaining Change in Practice: Design Principles for Teacher Learning in Project-Based Learning Contexts, Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32:7, 757-779 In A Framework for K-12 Science Education, researchers call for teachers to make dramatic shifts in practice – and sustain in these changes in practice […]

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Research Award

Enabling Conditions Collaboratory

The Enabling Conditions Collaboratory brought together four research teams to work towards understanding the conditions that support high-quality PBL.

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Research

Project-Based Learning in San Francisco: Research Study Sparks Middle School Science Curriculum

When the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) was looking for a new middle school science curriculum in 2016, it sought a program that would align with the new Next Generation Science Standards and the district’s equity goals.

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