01-02-2023
31-01-2026
The WAY project aims to deepen knowledge about the development of self-regulated learning in secondary school students through their involvement in peer observation during lessons. The project's title summarizes not only the close connection between the self-regulation of student learning and peer observation that the team intends to study, but also the importance of student voice and participation.
The project follows the trend that current times demand of educational systems: better prepared, active and participative students who are able to use metacognitive skills to self-regulate their learning.
Promoting these skills requires a shift towards differentiated and innovative pedagogical practices, customized according to students' needs, taking their feedback into account. This common umbrella articulates the team researchers' previous research on developing critical thinking skills, student autonomy, peer observation, and student voice.
Although Portuguese schools are making efforts to promote pedagogical practices to develop these skills and student participation, these efforts do not address the proposal behind the project, which links peer observation with the development of self-regulation skills in learning, while at the same time seeking to provide opportunities for student participation in changing pedagogical practices. If, on the one hand, peer observation can effectively develop observation, reflection and self-analysis, enabling students to self-regulate their learning, on the other hand, asking them to give feedback to the teacher on what they have observed creates moments of participation and dialogue centered on classroom activities, allowing students' voices to be heard.
This is the innovative approach that WAY intends to follow, which is based on the team's previous interventions and projects, which have been developed in successive iterations of continuous cycles of design, analysis and evaluation of Design Based Research (DBR). DBR was chosen because the aim is to study a specific learning environment, which evolves over several iterations, and to develop new artefacts, practices and their support, which can be generalized to other learning environments. This intervention is therefore seen as another cycle of DBR, which is intended to continue with subsequent cycles.
In short, the project aims to develop a peer observation program in the classroom with students from the partner schools, to study its contribution to the development of self-regulatory learning skills and to provide opportunities for students to participate in changing teaching practices. The specific objectives are:
Validate and apply a questionnaire to assess learning self-regulation skills;
Implement the peer observation program;
Monitor students' self-regulation learning skills and their perception of the participation opportunities provided;
Validate the peer observation program for the development of learning self-regulation skills;
Evaluate the program's potential to provide opportunities for student participation in changing teaching practices;
Disseminate the program to the educational community by sharing the project's products.
The hypotheses on which the project is based are: 1) Students who observe how their peers approach and carry out tasks in the classroom develop self-regulation skills; 2) Students' awareness of and reflection on what they observe contributes to the development of their self-regulation skills; 3) The act of giving feedback to teachers on what is observed is perceived by students as an opportunity for their voice to be heard; 4) The peer observation program is a viable educational strategy with the potential to be used in other schools.
In addition to pursuing the objectives and verifying the hypotheses with secondary school students, we will try to assess the feasibility of peer observation with students in the 3rd cycle of basic education, also from a perspective of continuous cycles of DBR, and with the aim of extending the program to younger students in the future, believing that greater self-regulation of learning could be beneficial in the transition to secondary education.
The project involves the four partner school groups, located in different places on the coast and inland, rural and urban, in the north and center of Portugal, as well as a team of researchers from three Portuguese universities, who bring to the project the complementarity of the subjects they have been researching.
IDEAFor - Identity, Democracy, School, Administration and Training
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, IP (FCT)
Ref.: 2022.01025.PTDC
LEAD, Universidade Aberta
CIIE, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto
UTAD
AE Camilo Castelo Branco
AE de Ribeirão
AE de Canas de Senhorim
ES de São Pedro
Com a colaboração da Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde (IPP)