Abstract
Project-based learning is an active method that develops the maximum involvement and participation of students in the learning process. It requires the teacher to energize the learning scenario by promoting the cooperation of students to investigate, make decisions and respond to the challenges of the project. It also requires activating an evaluation system that promotes awareness, reflexivity and a critical spirit, facilitating deeper learning. This case study aims to understand the functioning of cooperative work established during the application of the method, as well as to know how the evaluation process progresses in the perspective of a group of teachers of secondary education that set up this methodology in their classes. The data obtained from interviews with the teachers involved in the study, teachers’ notebooks, and open-question questionnaire applied to high-school students are analyzed. Although the students were organized in small groups in order to develop their collaborative skills, intragroup frictions and conflicts were not sufficiently addressed or supervised in time by the teachers, thus resulting in an incomplete development of the synergies and collaboration necessaries to the project. From the point of view of the evaluation, the importance of the implementation of training and shared evaluation systems is well recognized, although a more traditional evaluation model, which does not sufficiently address the project development process prevails, and the value of the qualification on the final product achieved still weights.
Highlights
As a result of the crisis scenario that began in Spain in 2007, the need to incorporate to the Secondary Education stage some subjects with economic contents, was posed in order to introduce and make students understand the socio-economic circumstances in the world
Teaching methods have been incorporating some learning methodologies that aim to make students able to solve, with involvement, the problems presented to them (Martín and Rodríguez, 2015). Some of these methods orient learning towards a competitive character such as cooperative methodologies, gamification or project-based learning (PBL) (Hernández March, 2006)
Based on the contributions of the various authors cited above, who understand cooperative learning as an active methodology that allows students to achieve academic goals and social objectives, promoting the learning for all the students without exceptions, the present study aims to achieve the following objectives: Understanding the functioning of cooperative work present in the development of the operational dynamics of the PBL launched
Summary
As a result of the crisis scenario that began in Spain in 2007, the need to incorporate to the Secondary Education stage some subjects with economic contents, was posed in order to introduce and make students understand the socio-economic circumstances in the world. Teaching methods have been incorporating some learning methodologies that aim to make students able to solve, with involvement, the problems presented to them (Martín and Rodríguez, 2015). In order to do this, students analyze the topic raised, think about it, organize themselves, search for information, work as a team and make decisions. It is, intended to promote knowledge of the contents as well as the management of skills and attitudes, learning to mobilize those resources said in situation and to solve problems (Perrenoud, 2008)
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