“We’re doing things that are meaningful”: Student Perspectives of Project-based Learning Across the Disciplines

Supporters of project-based learning (PBL) argue that outcomes from the model include better performance in academic (Bell, 2010; Thomas, 2000) and non-academic outcomes (Saunders-Steward, Gyles, & Shore, 2010). The New Tech Network (NTN) is a school improvement network that provides training and development for high school faculty who commit to using project and/or problem-based learning as the primary instruction methodology (New Tech Network, 2017). This study uses qualitative data to investigate student perspectives of PBL across multiple disciplines at the high school level in NTN schools. Results suggest that students find value in the “hard work” they engaged in whilst completing PBL tasks. Moreover, students can articulate the value of their work and its applicability to a “real-world” setting. We argue that for PBL to work effectively, approaches to PBL from an interdisciplinary perspective must be balanced

Teacher Response Process to Bureaucratic Control: Individual and Group Dynamics Influencing Teacher Responses

Educational organizations can be characterized by the institution’s bureaucratic controls and the varied ways teachers respond to these controls. Although different controls and responses are studied in disparate theories and empirical research, the process of how teachers respond is not often studied and integrated in a singular theoretical framework. In this conceptual article, I argue that the teacher response process is characterized by three distinct, nonlinear phases of individual cognition, social formation, and response execution. Within these phases are dynamics and tensions, which are mediated and appropriated by the relationship between the educational institution and teachers

The Role of Teacher Regulatory Talk in Students’ Self-Regulation Development Across Cultures

This study is the first to explore the contribution of different types of teacher regulatory talk—directive, guiding, and autonomy supportive talk—in children's development of self‐regulation across cultures. Teacher‐to‐student talk was analyzed under naturalistic conditions in eight Year 4 classrooms, all situated in different primary schools in England (student N = 25) and Chile (N = 24). Self‐regulation was studied by observing students’ effective metacognitive monitoring (awareness of errors) and effective metacognitive control (effective control of problems) in a series of 11–13 cube assembly tasks. Mann–Whitney U tests showed that English participants demonstrated higher levels of effective metacognitive monitoring and control, and participating teachers a similar level of teacher regulatory talk across cultures. The function that regulatory talk had in predicting students’ self‐regulation, however, tended to vary according to culture. OLS multiple regressions revealed that while guiding talk had the same positive effect across cultures, directive talk had a negative effect in England but null effect in Chile, and autonomy supportive talk had a positive effect in Chile but negative in England. These results indicate that it would be valuable to explore further the culturally adaptive functionality of teacher talk for students’ self‐regulation development