Supplement to Increase the Sample Size of Project PLACE

This grant provides support to increase the sample size of Project PLACE to 50 classrooms. Project PLACE (Project-approach to Literacy and Civic Engagement), funded by the Spencer Foundation, is a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of a project-based approach to teaching social studies and content literacy in second-grade classrooms in low-SES school districts. Teachers in the experimental group are provided with an initial professional development workshop, subsequent follow-up workshops, coaching, and detailed lesson plans for four project-based units, which comprise a total of 80 lessons. The study includes systematic observation of classrooms in both the experimental and the comparison group and administration of pre- and post- standards-aligned measures of social studies, reading, writing, and motivation.