Received: 18 July 2022 Revised: 28 September 2022 Accepted: 5 October 2022

DOI: 10.1111/ssm.12557

INNOVATION TO PRACTICE

Promoting social and emotional learning competencies

in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
project-based mathematics classrooms

Yi-Jung Lee

Department of Curriculum and

Instruction, University of Arkansas, Abstract
Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA In this Information Age, mathematics learning has shifted from independent to
collaborative, and the ability to utilize both intrapersonal and interpersonal
Correspondence
Yi-Jung Lee, University of Arkansas, skills in learning has become essential. To cultivate multiple intelligences in
Fayettteville, AR, USA. mathematics classrooms, integrating project-based learning into mathematics
Email: yl049@uark.edu
instruction can be a promising approach. In this study, we analyzed 15 elemen-
tary interns' project-based mathematics (PBM) lessons and observed their imple-
mentation at two public elementary schools in the southern United States. The
findings revealed that the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) PBM lessons conducted by the interns shared five common features:
(a) enhancing empathy and social awareness, (b) solving real-life mathematics-
related problems, (c) utilizing personal strengths to enhance the utility of mathe-
matics, (d) supporting wide-ranging and collective mathematics learning, and
(e) cultivating personal responsibility in mathematical problem solving. We fur-
ther discussed how these STEM PBM lessons guaranteed an opportunity to fos-
ter students' social and emotional learning competencies in mathematics
classrooms. We conclude that PBM provides a practical way to effectively engage
students and enhance learning purpose in elementary classrooms and recom-
mend this innovative pedagogy to both novice and veteran elementary teachers.

KEYWORDS
communication, cooperative learning, learning processes, problem solving, projects/
applications, teachers and teaching

1 | INTRODUCTION difficulties becomes challenging when mathematics disposi-

When mathematics learning is perceived as an embodiment
of intrapersonal intelligence, mathematics performance
is closely associated with the logical-mathematical intelli-
gence reflected in standardized assessments (Shearer, 2018).
This perception limits mathematical exploration and of-
ten ignores the socioemotional aspects of learning (Lee
et al., 2019). Consequently, promoting students' positive
mathematics identity or helping them overcome learning
tion and achievement are related exclusively to learners'
intrapersonal skills (Allen & Schnell, 2016). The mathemati-
cal content goals addressing the domains of numbers and
operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data anal-
ysis and probability in Principles and Standards, the first set
of standards published by the (National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000), have remained similar in
the Common Core State Standards (National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief

Sch Sci Math. 2022;122:429–434. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ssm © 2022 School Science and Mathematics Association. 429
 19498594, 2022, 8, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssm.12557 by Kennesaw State Universitaet, Wiley Online Library on [14/07/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
430 LEE

State School Officers [NGA & CCSSO], 2010). However,

how students construct mathematics knowledge has chan-
ged in the 21st-century project-based environment, as illus-
trated by the anticipated 60% of U.S. employees who will
work as contract employees across multiple project teams
by 2025, striving to solve all kinds of social problems
(Boss & Larmer, 2018). In this article, we present the fea-
tures of mathematics-focused, project-based lessons
designed and implemented by elementary interns and
explain, through example lessons, how students' socioemo-
tional learning can be promoted in project-based mathemat-
ics (PBM) classrooms.

2 | PBM L ES SONS

To respond to learning-style changes in the project-based

Information Age (Buck Institute for Education [BIE], 2021)
proposed gold-standard project-based learning (PBL) with
seven essential elements for developing high-quality pro-
jects: a challenging problem, sustained inquiry, authenticity,
student voice, and choice, reflection, critique and revision,
and public product. PBL integrates rigorous knowledge and
hands-on activities in which students experience both indi-
vidual and collaborative learning through analyzing situa-
tions, exploring resources, and optimizing products to solve
relevant real-world problems (Craft & Capraro, 2017). More- F I G U R E 1 Student-created popsicle-stick egg grabber
over, PBL relies on core strengths in social–emotional learn- measured with base-10 tiles

ing (SEL), including self-awareness and social-awareness,

positive relationships, and responsibility (Collaborative for
Academic, Social and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2020),
that are considered to “make for successful adults”
(Markham, 2011, p. 41). Researchers have confirmed that
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
PBL positively influenced students' mathematics achieve-
ment and affective engagement (Han et al., 2015; Lee
et al., 2019). The STEM PBM classroom has the advantages
of PBL and encourages students to apply specific mathemat-
ics knowledge to complete projects that solve real-world
problems. Every PBM lesson in this article was developed
based on BIE's (2021) gold-standard PBL and invites stu-
dents to solve real-life problems with appropriate grade-level
mathematics knowledge introduced in the Common Core
State Standards (NGA & CCSSO, 2010). The tasks in PBM
lessons could be as simple as using measurement to solve a
space-management problem or extended to an interdisci-
plinary exploration involving multiple mathematics
concepts.
In spring 2021, a cohort of 15 elementary interns was
recruited to participate in planning and implementing
lessons at two public elementary schools. These student
teachers were in the last year of their Elementary Educa-
tion Master of Arts program and enrolled in the PBM
course required for the STEM graduate certificate at a
southern U.S. university. The lesson design involved
identifying mathematics and PBL components with fel-
low educators and the course instructor before imple-
mentation. During PBM class time, semistructured
observation forms were filled out by the researcher, men-
tor teacher, and/or fellow interns. The collected PBM les-
sons and field notes were then analyzed through constant
comparison that identified and categorized the teaching
and learning practices documented in the observation
notes under emerging themes. Although different PBM
lessons provided various learning experiences to students,
we were able to report five common features emerging
from the implemented PBM lessons, which could be con-
sidered supporting evidence for school educators in estab-
lishing a PBM learning environment.
3 | FEATURES OF ELEMENTARY-
L E V E L P B M L E SSO NS
All the implemented PBM lessons were based on either a
U.S. holiday-themed event or a real-life context with a

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challenging problem, constituting a fundamental differ-
ence between a PBM lesson and a conventional mathe-
matics lesson. Below, five features observed in PBM
lessons are presented.
3.1 | Enhancing empathy and social
awareness
The PBM lessons in this study provided an environment
in which elementary students could demonstrate under-
standing and empathy for other community members
through designing useful devices. For example, the first-
grade students in the “Grabber” lesson completed an
Easter-themed project that underscored empathy (i.e., for
children who cannot bend down to pick up an Easter egg)
and social awareness (i.e., with your help, everyone can
have fun on this holiday) in one class period. Students also
had to share the responsibility to help peers collect Easter
eggs with the designed egg grabber. We observed that one
student in a pair operated the product and reported on its
effectiveness in terms of strength, length, and angle while
the other subsequently revised and extended the length of
the grabber in the unit of 10 (see Figure 1). In addition to
discussing measurement, geometry, and operations in base
10, students collaboratively improved the device for a
classmate with limb injuries: “Sarah needs to stay in her
wheelchair, so we should make the grabber longer for her
so she can lift the egg off the ground” and “How about
doubling the length of the grabber handle and seeing if it
works?” Both students contributed specific mathematics
knowledge (e.g., doubling the length) to this project and
took responsibility for ensuring the utility of the egg grab-
ber with the intention to help other students succeed in
Easter egg hunting.
3.2 | Solving real-life mathematics-
related problems
The second-grade “Timer” lesson was implemented for
three class periods to address a consequence of the corona-
virus disease 2019 pandemic in everyday life: washing
hands for the recommended 20 s (Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention [CDC], 2021). Through working on
this timer design project, second graders were invited to
apply measurement knowledge by answering the guiding
questions: “How can we precisely measure 20 seconds
while washing our hands?” and “How does your timer
work and help us?” In addition, students' self-management
skills matured through demonstrating self-motivation,
goal setting, and organizational skills in this hands-on pro-
ject (Zins et al., 2007). In the observation, we heard the
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431
following from students: “We need to use the timer
because we could count too fast or too slow” and “If the
timer is too far away, people might spend time starting it
and won't wash their hands for the full 20 s. Can we
design a waterproof timer?” Situating a problem in real-life
settings not only allows students to connect mathematics
with the real world (e.g., the relationship between distance
and time) but also promotes their emotion and behavior
management skills in terms of how to interact with the
device properly to achieve the goal: in this case, following
beneficial health measures to protect community
members.
3.3 | Utilizing personal strengths to
enhance the utility of mathematics
In the PBM classrooms, we encouraged students to recog-
nize the value of their existing knowledge and ongoing
work while exploring mathematics concepts. In the “Val-
entines” lesson, third graders spent two class periods cre-
ating a box to hold cards for Valentine's Day, a holiday
event in U.S. schools. This lesson reinforced utilizing per-
sonal preference and knowledge as strengths by measur-
ing the dimensions of the box with rulers, determining
which face should be used to show card accumulation,
appropriately partitioning the box face, finding the area
of a rectangle, applying the distributive property, and rec-
ognizing area as additive. The concept of volume is nor-
mally introduced in fifth-grade mathematics lessons;
nonetheless, when students received differently sized
Valentine cards, it sparked natural discussion about vol-
ume measurement in students' conversations via ques-
tions such as “If I want my box to hold as many cards as
possible, how should I rearrange them in the box?”
3.4 | Supporting wide ranging and
collective mathematics learning
When mathematics learners are unable to assimilate
taught content knowledge, they experience struggles and
frustration (Stuart, 2000). Algebraic learning is relatively
abstract for elementary students, and previous research
has shown that many have trouble understanding equiva-
lent ratios and demonstrate overreliance on computa-
tions in proportional reasoning (Siegler et al., 2010). To
address this difficulty, the “Mural” lesson invited fourth
graders to create a mural project involving 2D scaling
within three-class periods. In this class, this scenario was
announced: “The school principals have asked us to cre-
ate a mural of them to put in the school cafeteria. They
want it to look just like them! Can you help them create

432
F I G U R E 2 Air hockey table created from recycled cardboard
box and water bottle caps by three fifth-grade students
a mural that is to scale?” Students then began generating
shape patterns matching the scaling rule for their mural
creation, recording measurement equivalents using differ-
ent length units, and managing the presence of geometric
shapes with the accuracy of lengths and directions on a
mural. In completing the project, students were observed to
demonstrate several mathematics practices through making
sense of the equivalent ratios and proportions (SMP#1),
sketching or modeling the scaling relationship (SMP#4),
using appropriate measuring tools (SMP#5), determining
the exact height of the principals on the mural (SMP#6),
and manipulating the length measurement and conversions
structure (SMP#7; NGA & CCSSO, 2010). In this lesson,
students applied proportional knowledge and collaborated
with peers to finalize the mural project with accurate
numerical representations, which reinforced positive rela-
tionship building and effective conflict handling.
3.5 | Cultivating personal responsibility
in mathematical problem solving
The PBM classrooms emphasized social solidarity and per-
sonal responsibility for promoting community members'
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well-being. In the “Upcycle” lesson, for instance, fifth
graders recycled materials from their living surroundings
that were otherwise headed to the landfill and spent three
class periods upcycling them into something practical for
their community members. Three participating students
created a mini air-hockey table (see Figure 2) with a
recycled cardboard box and different-sized bottle caps.
They precisely measured the sizes of the goal, strikers, and
pucks for the team, and each student contributed ideas
and suggestions about the practical and aesthetic aspects
of their project. Their conversations included the follow-
ing: “If all bottle caps people collected are almost the same
size, the goal should also be that size. Everyone can just
bring their bottle caps and join the game on our mini
table” and “Should the size of strikers be smaller for our
air-hockey table made from a small box? It's difficult to
move a large striker in a small box.” In addition to using
measurement in the process, they created a two-column
T-Chart denoted as the areas of hockey table and a goal to
identify and analyze numerical patterns and relationships
by applying operations and algebraic thinking skills. Their
mathematics knowledge, design ideas, and creativity were
recognized and praised by their teacher and classmates,
and the completed mini table was popular among peers.
Students attributed the project's success to team members'
responsible choice-making regarding personal knowledge
and community benefit.
4 | T E A C HI NG M O V E S I N P B M
TH A T PR O M O T E D S E L
COMPETENCIES
In this study, teaching moves that aligned with the math-
ematics teaching practices (MTPs; NCTM, 2014) and pro-
moted SEL competencies were identified in every PBM
lesson besides the emerging five features. In this section,
we first use the kindergarten “Teepee” lesson to enumer-
ate the MTPs. The teacher specified the learning goal of
composing a 3D teepee with marshmallows and tooth-
picks after introducing that teepees were used mainly by
Plains Indians (Brophy & Alleman, 2000). During the
class, the teacher posed purposeful questions to elicit stu-
dents' ideas and reasoning about their teepee construc-
tion and facilitated productive discussion to examine
students' knowledge of shape properties for the built tee-
pees at the individual, small-group, and whole-class
levels. Although students' teepees did not always function
well, the teacher supported student learning by con-
stantly recognizing and appreciating each student's par-
ticipation and contribution. At the end of the class, these
kindergarteners could describe the attributes of the 2D
and 3D shapes used in their teepee and apply

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computational ability to count and compare the number
of vertices and sides of their product, demonstrating their
development in both conceptual understanding and pro-
cedural fluency. These observed student behaviors were
effectively supported by the teacher's MTPs in this PBM
classroom.
We then explain how the PBM lessons and the
observed MTPs promoted students' SEL competencies
through two lessons due to space limitations. First, the
kindergarten “Teepee” lesson promoted students' self-
awareness by valuing individuals' cultural identities.
Children were invited to share their cultural and linguis-
tic heritage, which was a particularly invaluable opportu-
nity for children with a connection to Native American
tribes in the region. Second, the lesson supported self-
management because teepee construction involved a con-
tinuum of improving the product through asking and
answering questions, demonstrating resourcefulness,
managing time, meeting authentic criteria, and persisting
through challenges rather than following step-by-step,
one-size-fits-all procedures prescribed by the classroom
authority figure. Third, the teacher advocated decision-
making responsibility when she incorporated the history
of Thanksgiving, a national U.S. holiday, into the lesson.
Nearly all the students celebrated Thanksgiving annually,
so they showed strong interest in and felt responsible for
learning about its history. Although the teacher had stu-
dents build a teepee as the final product, she accepted
shape diversification with justifications (e.g., triangular
faces are stronger than rectangular faces). Fourth, this
lesson increased students' social awareness through
exchanging ideas and collaborating with partners for the
same learning goal: Use 2D and 3D shapes to build a tee-
pee. Researchers have asserted that young children's ego-
centric thinking can be decreased earlier when they work
on meaningful tasks that allow them to take other peo-
ple's perspectives through reasoning (Hedegaard, 2020).
Last, the teacher supported productive struggles and
encouraged students to compare and contrast different
strategies and products with peers, thereby helping
develop students' relationship skills in intensive but mean-
ingful verbal and literal mathematical interactions.
The PBM also promoted elder elementary students'
SEL competencies in the fifth-grade “Upcycle” lesson.
First, the lesson promoted fifth graders' self-awareness by
respecting recycling habits situated in different living envi-
ronments and cultures. For example, one Asian American
student shared that his family always washed every con-
tainer before recycling it. Being invited to share their per-
spective and attitude toward the recycling issues triggered
students' environmental awareness, from their home to
the school with a potential extension to the community.
Second, the “Upcycle” lesson supported self-management
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433
because it required students to upgrade their product
through identifying useful resources, coordinating labor,
ensuring authenticity, and resolving unpredictable difficul-
ties. All of these practices relied heavily on students' self-
management of time and effort invested into the project.
Third, responsibility in the decision-making process was
advocated through emphasizing final products' functional-
ity. Students watched items that could be reused through
upcycling being taken away by recycling trucks biweekly,
so they felt responsible for improving their living environ-
ment and were eager to brainstorm solutions to pollution
through applying science and mathematics knowledge
(e.g., how to clean, dry and transform a container). The
final products included pen holders, photo frames, and the
aforementioned air hockey table (see Figure 2). Students
provided justification for the authenticity, functionality,
and entertainment of their products. For example, the
hockey-table team concluded that the dimensions of their
product were proportional to a real-size hockey table, and
many schoolmates took turns playing with this product
during recess. Fourth, this lesson strengthened students'
social awareness as the teammates collaborated to create a
beneficial product for the community with collected recy-
cling items. Last, students developed their relationship
skills while interacting with peers and teachers. For exam-
ple, we heard conversations from the hockey-table team
including: “Can you hold this piece for me? I'll return the
favor when it's your turn to install the goal” and “How did
you find the center to install the goal on that side? Can we
work together to make sure that the two goals are
aligned?”
5 | CONCLUSION
In this article, we exemplified each of the five emerging
features using only one grade-specific PBM lesson due to
space constraints, but in practice, all five features were
found in every PBM lesson implemented by our interns.
We then used the kindergarten “Teepee” lesson and the
fifth-grade “Upcycle” lesson to illustrate how the five
SEL competencies were promoted by the teaching moves
observed in these PBM lessons. It is worth noting that the
teaching moves observed in other PBM lessons func-
tioned similarly to those in the “Teepee” and “Upcycle”
lessons. Therefore, we concluded that the five SEL com-
petencies can be supported in almost every elementary
classroom that incorporates PBM lessons.
The PBL approach has been implemented mainly in
science classrooms to parallel real inquiries by scientists
(Krajcik & Czerniak, 2018), so teachers might need sup-
port in developing and conducting mathematics-focused
PBL lessons due to relatively inadequate resources.

434
In this study, our interns invested one-semester efforts to
develop, carry out, revise, and reimplement the designed
PBM lessons in elementary classrooms and successfully
helped their students explore and connect mathematics
concepts in novel, engaging ways (Han et al., 2015; Lee
et al., 2019). In addition, essential 21st-century skills such
as “knowing how to think critically, analyze information
for reliability, collaborate with diverse colleagues, and
solve problems creatively” (Boss & Larmer, 2018, p. 1)
were observed in the participating students' project com-
pletion processes. Our lesson analysis and observations in
PBM classrooms showed that learning mathematics in a
PBM classroom not only helped students see the utility of
mathematics in the real world but also promoted SEL
competencies that have long been advocated at the ele-
mentary level (Mahoney et al., 2018). In conclusion, the
observed PBM lessons provided a practical way to effec-
tively engage students and enhance learning purpose in
elementary classrooms, which was supported by the evi-
dence of students' full participation and functional final
products. We believe that PBM is a pedagogical method
that both novice and veteran elementary teachers can
develop and implement professionally in their classrooms.
ORCID
Yi-Jung Lee https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9492-6714
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How to cite this article: Lee, Y.-J. (2022).
Promoting social and emotional learning
competencies in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics project-based mathematics
classrooms. School Science and Mathematics,
122(8), 429–434. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12557