Helping Teachers Use Professional Learning Communities to Infuse Project Based Learning into the K12 Curriculum

The experiences from National Science Foundation funded engineering coalitions, and other engineering education projects, can certainly apply to math and science education. Moreover, the projects used in first year engineering courses can be used to bring “reality” to the interdisciplinary project-based learning initiatives in secondary education. Faculty, both high school and college, can work together: When both innovative and complex pedagogies are introduced to teachers, apprehension is often the first response. These innovative and complex pedagogies often require a paradigm shift in re-conceptualizing their role as a teacher. Due to this difficulty, tapping both individual and collective capacity are best within the context of professional learning communities (PLCs), which are characterized by shared norms and values, reflective dialogue, de-privatization of practice, collective focus on student learning, and collaboration. These PLCs set the foundation, so teachers can begin inquiry into their practice in a new way for increased student learning. The integration of Professional Learning Communities and Project-Based Learning serve to address the issues discussed above. Currently, the North Texas STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Center is collaborating with the Waco Independent School District to incorporate Project-Based Learning (PBL) through the development of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in their high schools. While PLCs can with any effort, when implementing Project-Based Learning, they are especially significant due to the amount of time and resources to create projects, both within a discipline and even more between the structure of a PLC, their those in other classes, the