High School Teachers’ Perspectives on Shifting towards Teaching NGSS-Aligned Project Based Learning Curricular Units

To meet the demands of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), teachers need to reconsider their current instructional practices, shifting from learning about scientific ideas to making sense of phenomena and solving problems using three-dimensional learning components. Project-Based Learning (PBL) provides a framework for creating NGSS-aligned curricular materials that supports this shift. In this study, high school chemistry and physics teachers collaborated with science education researchers to develop PBL-aligned units that were later enacted in their classrooms. Results found several emerging concepts regarding shifting toward PBL: (i) the units helped students build toward the NGSS 3-dimensional learning goals, (ii) using the driving questions was important in providing lessons with coherence and relevance, (iii) students were meaningfully using scientific practices, mostly the practice of developing and using scientific modeling, (iv) students collaborated and shared ideas to make sense of phenomena, and (v) students' artifacts contributed to their learning and to the assessment of their learning by the teachers. Teachers reported encountering several challenges when shifting to PBL, mostly for those of which it was their first interaction with the PBL approach and the NGSS. These ideas were further supported with students' data, obtained from real-time reports, indicating students' increased engagement in the modeling practice and increased opportunities to collaborate and share ideas with other students during most of the PBL units. This study demonstrates that engaging teachers and students with PBL curricula can support successful integration of the NGSS learning goals, as perceived by the teachers and reported by students.