3.2.2 Effects of PBL on Gifted Education and Best Practices

How do I motivate my gifted students in the classroom throughout the semester? How do I keep them on track: engaged and focused? How do I prepare them for future? Or how do I gear them up with required skills of the 21st century workforce? These are some significant questions that all teachers are searching for ways to answer. While mastering important academic content in the classroom, teachers’ main concern is also promoting student engagement. This concern has paved the way for a shift in the learning process in education settings from passive learning (Zukin &Snyder 1984) to active learning (Grabinger &Dunlap, 1995). The main goal of this shift was the enhancement of student involvement during the learning process. Along with this shift, in recent years, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education has begun to play critical role for countries in global arena (Sahin, and Ayar and Adiguzel, 2014; Sahin, 2013). However, Lacey and Wright (2009) pointed out that there is a shortage in meeting this demand. In this vein, Harmony Public Schools (HPS) has developed their own STEM education program that incorporates both project-based and inquiry-based approaches, with a title “STEM Students on the Stage (STEM S.O.S.TM)”. The main goal of this program is not only to increase the student’s knowledge and interest in STEM but also to produce self-motivated and self-regulated learners (Harmony STEM program, 2013). The purpose of this program is defined in Harmony STEM Program Handbook (2013) as “to maintain the focus on standards-based and student-centered teaching while enriching and extending the learning of students through PBL projects. The goal is to promote not only collaborative skills and student ownership of learning, but also to promote student success in state and national standards” through student projects (Top and Sahin, 2015:3). The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of project-based learning on students’ academic achievement, who have participated in PBL at 8th-11th grades in HPS that implements the STEM Students on the Stage. METHODS Data: Data used is collected by the researcher from STEM S.O.S.. The study focused on 8-9th graders in 2017-2018 academic year. The data included map test results and STAAR test results. Analytic Strategy: To answer the research question, we run univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses. We used a linear multiple regression for analysis of factors associated with academic achievement among students at Public Harmony Schools.

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