Abstract:

Project Work, due to its interdisciplinary and collaborative nature, places students in the role of protagonists of their own learning journey, developing the ability to work autonomously and assuming responsibility for each other's learning.

The present study attempted, through Project-based learning, to contribute in a grounded way to a reflection on the need to promote strategies in the classroom that allow students to be the constructors of their own learning. Thus, the following research objectives were defined: (i) Describe the different phases of Project Work, (ii) describe the development/planning rules of Project Work, (iii) describe the self-regulation tools used in Project Work, and (iv) describe the project communication process. In this way, it was intended to characterize the different phases of project development as guiding an investigation, the importance of work regulation tools for the acquisition of student autonomy in Project-based learning, as well as the importance of project communication as sharing knowledge in the community.

This is an action-research study and uses qualitative data. Participants include 24 students from a 2nd grade class in primary school participated. Data was collected through: participant observation during the course of the investigation, recorded field notes, semi-structured interviews with the class teacher and a focus-group interview with the participants. Analysis of the data collected indicate that work regulation instruments, as well as, implementation of sharing routines, improve students' conceptions of Project Work, allowing them to manage their work in a more autonomous way which enhance the development of meaningful learning, building the child's own knowledge.

Keywords:

Project work, Autonomy, Pedagogical differentiation, Cooperation.