PROJECTS IN SCHOOL LEARNING: TEACHER EXPERIENCES

According to recent curricular policies guided by National Curriculum Framework 2005, projects have been incorporated in students' formative assessment. However, little care has been taken to survey the teachers' actual project practices and ideas about projects before making it mandatory for all school subjects. Our study explored four teachers' views about projects and some aspects of their project practices through semi-structured interviews and reported here. It is found that although teachers primarily dictated by policy guidelines to conduct projects in their respective subjects, teachers' own views on projects and understanding about learning decides the way projects are structured and implemented. It is observed that teachers do not use projects to teach textbook content. They face several difficulties to implement meaningful projects, however, they also miss some potential opportunities due to their limited view towards projects and learning. The insights from the study helped researchers to structure a series of workshops for teachers from all subjects to develop Project Based Learning module for middle and high school students.