Opportunities and Challenges Within Project-Based Learning: An Exploration of Integrated Civics and Literacy Instruction in Diverse Third-Grade Classrooms

Abstract

At a time when educational policies threaten to marginalize social studies instruction within elementary classrooms, it is imperative for both researchers and teachers to think critically about how to create learning spaces that enable all students to become active citizens. Research suggests that integrated social studies and literacy project-based learning has the potential to provide young students from diverse backgrounds with meaningful learning opportunities. Project-based learning, however, can present instructional challenges to teachers, particularly to those who are new to the approach. To explore both opportunities and challenges that arise from its use, I studied third-grade teachers’ enactment of a project-based civics and government unit that I developed in collaboration with school district teachers and administration. During the 2018–2019 school year, I collected data in a Midwestern state within three schools serving students from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. In this dissertation, I present two manuscripts that address specific instructional challenges that have been identified within project-based research: fostering students’ collaboration and supporting students’ writing development. Addressing these challenges is a crucial step in realizing project-based learning’s potential within integrated literacy and civics instruction. In the first paper (Chapter II), I explore how one teacher created an inclusive community of learners among her group of diverse students. Using an inductive approach, I analyzed observations and video recordings of classroom instruction, interviews with the teacher and focal students, and classroom artifacts. The findings highlight how the teacher modeled care and responsiveness, fostered discussion and collaboration, elicited and supported students’ participation, and encouraged consideration of different perspectives. Analysis of the focal student data suggests that the teachers’ instructional moves created a learning space that supported her students’ engagement with her, with each other, and with the civics and government unit. The findings offer support for further examination of the relational dimensions of project-based approaches to civic education and have important implications for classroom teachers, researchers, and curriculum developers. In the second paper (Chapter III), I explore two teachers’ use of evidence-based writing practices within their enactment of the civics and government unit. The data included observations and video recordings of classroom instruction, multiple interviews with the teachers, and artifacts of instruction and student work. Analysis included deductive coding using a set of evidence-based practices as well as memo writing to test propositions and to search for alternative explanations. The findings reveal that the teachers used multiple evidence-based writing practices, and they highlight how the teachers’ particular classroom contexts informed their decision making around these practices. The findings also illustrate challenges that demonstrate the difficulty of providing writing instruction that meets students’ varied learning needs. In addition to illuminating a need for greater consistency in language and instructional approaches across learning domains, the findings highlight the need for additional exploration of resources (e.g., educative curriculum supports) and professional development opportunities (e.g., focusing on curriculum mapping and strategy instruction) that can best support teachers’ writing instruction within project-based contexts. Together, these manuscripts address opportunities and challenges within third-grade teachers’ enactment of a project-based civics and government unit within diverse classrooms. The findings add to existing research focused on project-based learning, integrated literacy and social studies instruction, and civic education, and they offer insight into how teachers can develop instructional practices that support their elementary school-aged students in becoming active participants in our country’s democracy.