August 17, 2020

AJE Special Issue: Changing the Grammar of Schooling | Exploring opportunities for social-emotional and literacy learning in elementary-grades project-based instruction by Miranda S. Fitzgerald

Full-length article “Overlapping Opportunities for Social-Emotional and Literacy Learning in Elementary-Grade Project-Based Instruction” by Fitzgerald published by the American Journal of Education available here.

On a bright April afternoon, a third-grade teacher and her students walked to an open area on their school campus to play a “bird migration” game, in which the students, taking on the role of migrating birds, navigated a series of stations. When students stopped at the different stations, they read and responded to a series of prompts, which described – and illustrated with photographs – situations that facilitate migration (e.g., a strong favorable wind, bird feeders) or pose obstacles for migrating birds (e.g., habitat destruction, predators).

The next day, the teacher asked students to report on their experiences and the information they learned while playing the game, part of a third-grade project-based learning (PBL) curriculum in which students were working toward answering the driving question: How can we help the birds in our community survive and thrive? The teacher asked, “What was the point of that game?”

“Going on a migration, and one of the things (that I learned is) that birds can’t see glass so they just run right into glass,” one student responded.

The teacher invited other students to share obstacles they encountered as they played the game as well. The teacher asked: “What are some of those obstacles or difficulties that birds face on their path of migration?” Almost every student threw a hand into the air.

“Predators,” one student responded.

“If they’re a water bird, they might deal with oil spills,” another added.

As the lesson continued, the teacher introduced an informational text about bird migration that was designed to deepen students’ learning from the migration game. The teacher paused frequently to engage students in discussing the ideas in the text and to make connections to their prior knowledge and experiences from the unit of instruction and their lives.

This vignette illustrates characteristics of curriculum materials and instruction that are at the heart of my study, “Overlapping opportunities for social-emotional and literacy learning in elementary-grades project-based instruction,” in AJE’s special issue “Changing the Grammar of Schooling.” These characteristics include teachers and students interacting with one another and with ideas in the context of PBL, supported by a broad array of text sources for the purposes of collectively building knowledge, engaging in inquiry, and fostering social-emotional learning (SEL) within meaningful learning environments. The vignette is constructed from data collected from one third-grade classroom engaged in an integrated PBL curriculum unit from the Multiple Literacies in Project-based Learning (ML-PBL) curriculum[1]. The ML-PBL units are designed to integrate science, English language arts, and mathematics learning goals, as well as to create opportunities for and support students’ SEL. In each unit of instruction, students pursue a Driving Question that is both meaningful to them and anchored in real world problems. Aligned with the focus of the special issue, PBL is one of a range of efforts that has tried to move schools and classrooms away from the traditional grammar of schooling.

Changing the Grammar of Schooling

The “grammar of schooling” refers to the established institutional forms of schooling and rules that have organized instruction for generations, such as teaching as transmission, textbook-centered instruction, and siloed curricula, among others (Tyack and Tobin 1994). PBL, fostering SEL, and using literacy tools of reading, writing, and oral language in the service of disciplinary learning are examples of a range of reform efforts that seek to challenge the century-old grammar of schooling by transforming classrooms into spaces that are more purposeful and student-centered, and provide more equitable opportunities to learn.

Integrating the Language Literacies, Disciplinary Learning, and Social-Emotional Learning in Project-based Learning

In my study, I constructed a case of one third-grade teacher’s enactment of an elementary PBL curriculum unit that challenges features of the grammar of schooling through the integration of learning goals in investigation-based science, language literacy, and SEL within an elementary-grades project-based science curriculum. Insufficient documentation has made it difficult to understand how many instructional reforms unfolded in classrooms of the past (Cuban 1993), and careful analysis of efforts to challenge the grammar of schooling by scholars has been limited. Thus, my study provides concrete images of how this kind of teaching and learning unfolded in one third-grade classroom.

The integrated design of the ML-PBL curriculum called for bridging three bodies of literature – PBL, SEL, and integrating literacy and disciplinary learning – each an example of a reform-oriented approach to instruction, to examine the potential, challenges, and synergies among these instructional approaches. For example, while SEL interventions often stand alone, some SEL researchers have suggested that SEL skills and competencies might be best targeted by meaningfully integrating SEL and academic learning (Jones and Bouffard 2012). Scholars have argued that integrating SEL into academic curricula is essential for meeting the goals outlined in the CCSS for English language arts (CCSS: Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO] 2010), as these goals require students to engage in effective collaboration, communication, and reflection, which demand social and emotional competence (Weissberg and Cascarino 2013). Further, though evidence is limited, research suggests that PBL may improve students’ social and emotional competencies (Kaldi et al. 2011). Baines et al. (2017) identified collaboration, expression, reflection, and ownership as SEL elements that are essential for engaging in PBL in K-12 classrooms. Literacy researchers have long-illustrated the promise of these elements for fostering literacy motivation, engagement, and learning (e.g., Guthrie et al. 2004). To investigate the ways in which one project-based science unit that integrated opportunities for students to use SEL and literacy tools in service of disciplinary learning was taken up on one third-grade classroom, I used the four elements of SEL in PBL described by Baines et al. (2017) as lenses of analysis.

Examining Synergies: What is the potential of integrating SEL and Literacy in PBL?

I examined the question: How does one teacher’s enactment of an integrated elementary-grades PBL curriculum provide opportunities for SEL and literacy learning? My analyses revealed that the third-grade teacher’s enactment provided multiple and overlapping opportunities for students to learn and use social-emotional skills and literacy tools of reading, writing, and oral language in the service of disciplinary learning during PBL. I organized my study’s findings around the four key elements of SEL in PBL: collaboration, expression, reflection, and ownership. I briefly describe each element and share examples of my findings.

Collaboration: PBL’s focus on solving problems that are meaningful to students calls for collaboration among students, teachers, and community members (Condliffe et al. 2017). The third-grade teacher in my study provided students with opportunities to collaborate on meaningful literacy tasks as they worked toward answering the unit driving question. She modeled how to empathize with others during collaborative work, actively supported student collaboration, and facilitated whole-class discussions to debrief small-group collaboration.
Expression: PBL’s emphasis on creating artifacts to answer a driving question heightens the need for students to be able to communicate their ideas in multiple ways (Baines et al. 2017). The teacher provided opportunities for students to express their ideas orally, during a variety of interactive read alouds and class discussions, and through both written and visual modes of communication as they created artifacts. She also provided feedback to students throughout the unit focused on how to clearly articulate their ideas, using multiple representational forms.
Reflection: Opportunities for reflection are essential for supporting students to make connections across experiences during inquiry-based instruction, such as PBL (Puntambekar et al. 2007). The teacher provided opportunities for reflection by supporting students to identify patterns across project experiences and to make connections among texts and experiences within and across PBL units, summarize their learning during whole-class discussions, and reflect on their learning processes as they created artifacts to answer the driving question.
Ownership: Students’ sense of ownership in PBL can be supported by engaging students in experiences that are relevant to their interests, providing opportunities for choice, and solving meaningful problems (Baines et al. 2017). The teacher’s enactment of the PBL curriculum provided opportunities to support students’ investment in their learning by making connections to the local community and by engaging students in asking their own questions, addressing real problems (e.g., helping birds in their community survive and thrive), and feeling a sense of belonging in science by highlighting students’ role as ornithologists in the PBL unit.

Understanding Efforts to Change the Grammar of Schooling

Uncovering the complexity of the teaching and learning process to understand the ways in which efforts to challenge the grammar of schooling unfold in classrooms requires the close study of how teachers and students take up reform efforts. The close study of teaching is necessary for providing rich illustrations of classroom instruction, as well as for revealing the opportunities and obstacles of enacting educational reforms that deviate from the ways in which schooling is typically done. This work is especially relevant for educators and curriculum designers seeking to: (a) teach in ways that move away from the grammar of schooling, and (b) design opportunities to learn that are different from those typically provided in K-12 classrooms.

[1] The study described in this article is part of a larger project focused on the design and study of an elementary-grades PBL curriculum, entitled Multiple-Literacies in Project-Based Learning, led by Joseph S. Krajcik (Principal Investigator), Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar (Co-Principal Investigator), and Emily Miller (Co-Principal Investigator).

References

Baines, AnnMarie, Angela DeBarger, Kristen De Vivo, and Nathan Warner. 2017. “Why Is Social and Emotional Learning Essential to Project-Based Learning?” LER Position Paper 2, George Lucas Educational Foundation, San Rafael, CA.

Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). 2010. Common Core State Standards. Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.

Condliffe, Barbara, Janet Quint, Mary G. Visher, Michael R. Bangser, Sonia Drohojowska, Larissa Saco, and Elizabeth Nelson. 2017. Project-Based Learning: A literature Review. New York: MDRC.

Cuban, Larry. 1993. How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890-1990. New York: Random House.

Guthrie, John T., Allan Wigfield, Pedro Barbosa, Kathleen C. Perencevich, Ana Taboada, Marcia H. Davis, Nicole T. Scafiddi, and Stephen Tonks. 2004. “Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction.” Journal of Educational Psychology 96 (3): 403-23.

Jones, Stephanie M., and Suzanne M. Bouffard. 2012. “Social and Emotional Learning in Schools: From Programs to Strategies.” Social Policy Report 26 (4): 1-33.

Kaldi, Stavroula, Diamanto Filippatou, and Christos Govaris. 2011. “Project-Based Learning in Primary Schools: Effects on Pupils’ Learning and Attitudes.” International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education 39 (1): 35-47.

Puntambekar, Sadhana, Agnes Stylianou, and Jessica Goldstein. 2007. “Comparing Classroom Enactments of an Inquiry Curriculum: Lessons Learning from Two Teachers.” Journal of the Learning Sciences 16 (1): 81-130.

Tyack, David, and William Tobin. 1994. “The ‘Grammar’ of Schooling: Why Has It Been So Hard to Change?” American Educational Research Journal 31 (3): 453-79. Weissberg, Roger P., and Jason Cascarino. 2013. “Academic Learning + Social-Emotional Learning = National Priority.” Phi Delt