Ideas of and Attitudes towards Projects and Changing Practices: Voices of Four Teachers

The paper reports a study of the project practices of four Indian middle school teachers, elicited through semi-structured interviews of individual teachers. The teachers also responded to a proposal to modify four aspects of existing project practices, viz. subject integration, assessment, group work, and management of resources. The aspects were derived to be significant from the recommendations of the Indian National Curriculum Framework (2005), and based on research literature on project-based learning (PBL). The study found that teachers largely used projects as motivating exercises before teaching, or an activity for applying what was learnt. Hence, they associated fluid meanings to projects, like tasks given as home assignments, gathering information, or a scrap-book activity. Teachers felt too burdened with work for conducting projects within school hours, and sought systemic changes before the researchers' proposal for changing practices could be implemented.