Racial Equity in PBL - Create Beautiful Spaces¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 5 studies (4 causal, 1 review), q2–q3 · 0 of 5 report an effect size

Description¶

For many students, their communities and homes are not always beautiful places. This strategy leverages project-based learning (PBL) to transform the classroom into a space made beautiful by student work — curated displays, exhibitions, and installations of finished projects. Walking into a building made beautiful by their own creations signals to students that their intellectual labor has aesthetic and public value. It is both an equity practice (countering environments that underserved students may experience as institutional or neglectful) and a motivational one: work destined for public display carries authentic purpose Authentic audiences increase the quality and effort of student work. [+M].

Design Implications¶

The strategy connects to belonging research: visible evidence that one's contributions matter to a community strengthens students' sense of social fit, which in turn supports engagement and achievement Brief belonging interventions improve academic outcomes, particularly for marginalized students. [+S]. In project-based learning, the display is not decoration but the final authentic-audience phase — students design work knowing it will be seen, which raises the stakes and quality of production.

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Physical or digital space for display, with adequate lighting, mounting, and curation resources
• A commitment to valuing student work as worthy of public presentation — not only "best" work, but representative work
• Student voice in curation: learners should decide what is shown, how it is framed, and how it is described
• Project designs that culminate in a displayable artifact (Authentic Audiences & Purposes)

Constraints¶

• Requires ongoing resources and labor to maintain; neglected or dated displays can signal the opposite of the intended message [~M]
• Display without student authorship of the curation becomes teacher decoration and loses the ownership effect [-W]
• Aesthetic focus can crowd out learning goals if the artifact becomes the sole measure of success; displays should be paired with Assessment of the underlying learning, not just the product [~M]
• Students whose work is excluded or underrepresented in displays may experience the space as exclusionary — curation must be genuinely inclusive [-W]

Implementation Variability¶

• Rotating galleries that refresh each project cycle, so every cohort sees itself represented
• Digital displays and virtual galleries for schools with limited wall space or for remote/hybrid settings
• Community exhibitions extending beyond the classroom (library, hallway, local venue), connecting to Community-Based Learning
• Student docents or presentation events where learners explain their work to visitors

Target Learners¶

• All grade levels; particularly beneficial for students from underserved communities whose home environments may offer fewer spaces that celebrate their work Brief belonging interventions improve academic outcomes, particularly for marginalized students. [+M]
• Students whose identities are underrepresented in standard curricula; displays of culturally relevant project work affirm that their histories and communities belong in school
• Students with low academic self-concept, for whom public recognition of concrete products provides evidence of competence

Target Learning Goals¶

• Belonging and identity: fostering pride, ownership, and a sense that the learning space reflects the learners
• Communication: preparing work for an audience requires clarity, revision, and presentation skills
• Motivation and craftsmanship: authentic display purposes raise the quality bar for project artifacts

Instructions¶

1. Design the project with a displayable culminating artifact and an authentic audience in mind (Authentic Audiences & Purposes).
2. Involve students in planning the space — layout, framing, labels, and which works are shown — so curation is shared, not imposed.
3. Support revision toward display quality using Feedback and Assessment rubrics that address both craft and content.
4. Install the display prominently and open it deliberately — with an unveiling, exhibition, or Public Display event — rather than letting it appear unnoticed.
5. Refresh displays each project cycle and retire old work respectfully (e.g., students take work home or archive it), so the space stays current and every cohort is represented.

Related Strategies¶

• Exhibition of Learning — the event-based counterpart: displays paired with live student presentation to families and community members
• Culturally Responsive Teaching — shares the goal of making the learning environment reflect and affirm students' identities and communities
• Provide phase-specific teaching practices and environment features that foster student responsibility for learning in each phase of PBL
• Interventions targeting both brilliance beliefs and belonging concerns to foster educational equity

Examples¶

• Expeditionary Learning (EL Education) schools build "crew" culture around public exhibitions of expedition products — museum-style displays of student work open to families and community — as a core design feature (https://eleducation.org).
• High Tech High (San Diego) transforms hallways and galleries into rotating exhibitions of student projects each quarter, with students curating and serving as docents (https://www.hightechhigh.org).
• A teacher reworking a drab corridor into a "gallery of mathematicians" where every student's PBL geometry installation is mounted with an artist-style label and reflection statement.

Key Sources¶

• Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447–1451. doi:10.1126/science.1198364
• Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. doi:10.3102/00028312032003465
• Krajcik, J. S., & Blumenfeld, P. C. (2006). Project-based learning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 317–334). Cambridge University Press.
• Barron, B. J. S., Schwartz, D. L., Vye, N. J., Moore, A., Petrosino, A., Zech, L., & Bransford, J. D. (1998). Doing with understanding: Lessons from research on problem- and project-based learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 7(3–4), 271–311. doi:10.1080/10508406.1998.9672056