Teachers' Accountability for Adaptive Project-Based Learning

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an approach to determining accountability of teachers for organizing an adaptive project-based learning (PBL) environment. The environment enables customization on performance of students. The certain phases of teacher accountability are determined. Teachers would be accountable for preparing instructional material, teaching a subject through a relevant sample-project, guiding collaborative performance of group projects, and defining course study results. The first phase associated with holding teachers accountable for preparing instructional materials for teaching of subject while performance of a sample-project by every student and performing group projects and comprises: specification of a subject, specification of the sample-project and group projects, setting initial assessments of studying of a subject. The second phase aimed at holding teachers accountable for promoting development of subject-relevant knowledge during the sample-project performance and fostering adoption of specificity of adaptive PBL by students and comprises: submitting subject material while performance of the sample-project; facilitating learning by doing, assessing of students' knowledge after completion of the sample-project. The third phase aimed at holding teachers accountable for inducing development of higher-order knowledge and collaborative skills of students and comprises: fostering self-formation of knowledge heterogeneous collaborative groups; assigning projects of different complexity levels for collaborative groups; support of forming a structure of project tasks; setting adaptive assessments of knowledge and the fixed assessment of the collaborative skill. The fourth phase pertains to teachers’ accountability for defining results of the adaptive PBL, and includes: assessing student knowledge after completing the sample-project and group projects; assessing collaborative skills; defining complex summative assessment of students.