Project-based Learning as a Tool for Student-Teachers’ Professional Development: A Study in an Omani EFL Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Project-based learning (PBL) helps students gain a deep understanding of the knowledge they acquire, develops higher levels of learning, and promotes the motivation to learn. Through self-inquiry, self-planning, and investigation, students learn to be independent thinkers and autonomous learners and pursue their learning needs by seeking solutions for real-life problems. The objective of this study was to explore the extent to which PBL approach helped 146 student-teachers at the College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, develop their course design skills. The study utilized a questionnaire with multiple sections. The students were asked for their opinion about the approach, the difficulties they encountered, and suggestions for improvement. The results revealed that the students’ responses were positive. The students enjoyed the project and agreed that it helped them gain many of the principles of courses design, as well as a host of academic skills. The students also reported a few challenges faced during the project such as needs analysis and writing goals and objectives. Teacher preparation programs in other contexts can benefit from the course design and the study findings to introduce change to their courses. Researchers and practitioners can also benefit from the challenges faced in implementing PBL in higher education institutions where one would expect students to be highly independent.

Online project-based learning for teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review

“…As a result, pre-service teachers must have the chance to engage in field experiences consistent with what they have learned in teacher preparation programs (Lee & Galindo, 2021), as this will help for overcoming difficulties in implementing student projects, careful guidance and provision of project-specific models should be considered. Educators should guide students to work collaboratively, avoid conflicts and share resources to improve the efficiency of PjBL (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021). In addition, to overcome the challenges of equipping facilities in the PjBL application, administrative support must be provided at the district level and in the classroom (Lee & Galindo, 2021).…”

“…Teacher training programs can benefit from course design and the findings of included articles. Researchers can benefit from the results of the challenges of applying PjBL in universities to conduct research to overcome them (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021).…”

“…The outstanding development of science and technology and the demand for online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed society's requirements for teachers' professional knowledge and skills. Therefore, higher education-with a decisive role in training responsible citizenship (Hernández-Barco et al, 2021)-has adopted modern teaching approaches that can connect the learning of teachersstudents with real-life problems and their future work (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021;Martinez, 2022;Poonpon, 2021;Tsybulsky & Muchnik-Rozanov, 2023). A particular example of a promising approach that improves student learning in higher education is the project-based learning (PjBL) approach (Guo et al, 2020).…”

“…According to Aksela and Haatainen (2019) and Habibi et al (2022), teacher performance focusing on improving teaching quality can improve students' learning motivation and higher-order thinking abilities. For students, the main challenges are related to skills in using information technology to access information resources and implement projects (Aksela & Haatainen, 2019;Al Mulhim, 2022;Alromaih et al, 2022;Chung & Li, 2021), and authentic challenges such as the abilities to execute the research steps (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021), focus on project participation (Alromaih et al, 2022), and the time management skills (Aksela & Haatainen, 2019;Kamali Arslantas & Kocaoz, 2021;Nava & Park, 2021). During the COVID-19 period, on the other hand, both teachers and students are under great pressure, and limited technology skills, inconvenient online communication, project time constraints, and inexperienced management skills have delayed their work (Poonpon, 2021;Prasetiyo et al, 2023), are also significant difficulties for the implementation of PjBL.…”

The Effect of a Blended Project-Based Training Program on EFL Teachers’ Implementation of Differentiated Instruction in Jerusalem

“…Although it is a dominant approach, teachers found it difficult to understand, design, and develop appropriate projects (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021). The lack of qualified teachers accordingly hinders achieving significant change, especially the lack of product ideas.…”