The Pros And Cons Of Project-Based Learning

teacher teaches, the other teacher takes attendance, works on grading, or plans the next activity.

Like sequential teaching, project-based learning relies on teachers dividing responsibilities. Project-based learning ( PBL) (Chang & Lee, 2010) is a teaching strategy in which students “acquire and develop core learning concepts through collaborative projects that require the learning and application of contextual knowledge” (p. 961). Although project-based learning does not require the use of technology, in this example, project-based learning, as a team teaching model, relies on one teacher teaching the computer concepts needed in order to complete the technological aspect of this specific project while the co-teacher focuses on the content

Perry described the co-teacher’s role in the classroom as a continuum (2005). The form of collaboration that requires the least interaction with colleagues include methods such as project-based learning and sequential teaching, where one colleague creates the lesson, and the other delivers it (Aliakbari & Bazyar, 2012); whereas a higher level of collaboration might include “planning, teaching, and evaluating” together (Perry 2005). In other words, the teachers must work together to create a course in which they agree upon common goals, objectives, and outcomes. The composition of instructors in the team taught classroom depends on these course goals, objectives, and outcomes. For example, one common team teaching practice used in classrooms that focus on social justice education is to form teams comprised of racially diverse instructors (Garran, Aymer, Gelman, & Miller 2015; Ouellett & Fraser,

If there are special education students within a class, then the logical choice may be to have a special education teacher collaborate with the general education instructor. If an English teacher wants to teach a lesson exploring the price differences of Elizabethan goods versus modern goods, then perhaps a math or economics teacher would be the appropriate team member. Chang and Lee’s (2010) study focused on the use of a computer teacher working with two general education teachers in order to conduct research. In Chang and Lee’s (2010) study, computer teachers and content area teachers, one English teacher and one geography teacher, collaborated over the course of two years to teach sophomores, juniors, and seniors in Taiwan using project-based learning. One tool the teachers used to measure the success of the students were midterm test scores (Chang & Lee 2010). In geography, which had an experimental group size of 89 students, the experimental test group’s scores did decrease; however, their scores decreaesd by fewer than three points, whereas the control groups scores dropped by almost seven points (Chang & Lee 2010). The experimental English group, which was comprised of 42 students, experienced an increase in test scores by almost sixteen points, in contrast, the control group’s score only increased by half appoint (Chang & Lee 2010). This example illustrates the