Volume 1 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal for K-12 Educational Leadership - Page 42

40Journal for K-12 Educational Leadership 2017, VOL. 1, ISSUE 1 http://www.dbu.edu/doctoral/edd THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PROJECT BASED LEARNING IN EIGHTH GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, ATTENDANCE, AND DISCIPLINE Cynthia Anne Mika, Ed.D. Introduction and Background School districts are faced daily with the need to prepare students for an ever-changing world outside of the walls of education as well as an increasingly stringent accountabili - ty system. In the past three decades, legislation at the fed- eral and state levels has challenged school districts across the nation to provide a more meaningful education that is preparing students for an ever changing, technology rich workforce (Graham, 2013). Since the turn of the century, jobs have developed from low skilled and procedural in nature, to more complex while incorporating specialized knowledge and skills (Solomon & Schrum, 2007). Federal and state legislation over the past three decades coupled with an ever changing work environment is forc - ing schools to provide a more meaningful education that prepares students for a workforce that relies heavily on 21st century skills (Solomon & Schrum, 2007). According to Rav - itch (2010), all roads of the accountability movement lead back to A Nation at Risk, a report that “sounded the alarm regarding the poor quality of America’s school” (Danielson, 2002, p. vii). Since the inception of No Child Left Behind, state governments have imposed more rigorous curriculum standards, new assessments aligned to the new standards, more stringent requirements for promotion and graduation, rules for ranking schools, mandatory publicizing of test scores, and new systems for rewards and sanctions based on the test scores (Moe, 2003). Schools today are looking for a means to engage stu- dents in learning while maintaining the standards set by the state accountability systems. Taylor and Parsons (2011) ar- gued that “one common prerequisite for engaging learners is ‘relevancy.’ Today’s learners ask that their learning apply to real-life scenarios whenever possible as opposed to being theoretical and text-based” (p. 12). Project Based Learning (PBL) can be the means to promote engagement of learners partly due to the relevance of the projects as they person- alize the experience of the learner by offering the student voice and choice (Boss, 2011). Students who are not engaged in school can develop at - tendance and truancy issues in school. “A middle school or high school student’s decision to not attend school regular - ly, or misbehave, or expend low effort are all consequential behavior indicators of a student’s growing disengagement from school and thus might be strongly predictive of drop- ping out” (Balfanz, Herzog, &MacIver, 2007, p. 224). Project Based Learning (PBL) empowers students to actively partic - ipate in their learning and collaborate with other students (Pearlman, 2006) and students with more engaging plat - forms of instruction are motivated to attend school and ac - tively participate in their learning (Chang & Romero, 2008). Another antecedent of disengagement can be student discipline. Students who are engaged in learning often are less likely to cause discipline issues within the classroom. For students who are struggling with content, “disruptive behavior provides them with an escape from academic tasks” (Howard, 2006, p. 20). PBL is an instructional method that is being implemented across the nation as a means to re-engage the disengaged learner.