Designing for Equity: Moving Project-Based Learning from Equity Adjacent to Equity Infused

Project-based learning (PjBL) is an inquiry-based approach that aims to engage students in active, meaningful, and challenging experiences connected to the world outside the classroom. However, PjBL’s student-centered approach has not always explicitly focused on educational equity. The goal of this paper is to provide a PjBL curriculum design framework that goes beyond creating engaging curriculum to providing experiences that are equitable, relevant, and meaningful to all students, while also supporting students’ learning and identity development. To do so, we examined recent PjBL curricula and related literature to identify the PjBL design features leading to impactful and equitable yearlong K-12 curriculum. We present cross-cutting PjBL curriculum design principles and lenses to interpret those design principles.