Reconfiguring Teachers’ Pedagogical Roles Through Project-Based Learning in Secondary Sociology: A Qualitative Study in Indonesia

Abstract

Project-based learning (PjBL) is commonly described as student-centered, yet its implementation also changes and expands teachers’ pedagogical work. This qualitative study examines how sociology teachers in Indonesian secondary education reconfigured their roles while implementing PjBL. The study drew on in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and instructional documents involving teachers with experience using project-based learning. The analysis identifies four interconnected roles: facilitator of inquiry, designer of contextual learning, authentic assessor, and manager and scaffolder of collaborative work. Teachers shifted from continuous exposition toward questioning, consultation, project monitoring, contextual task design, formative feedback, and assessment of both process and product. Implementation was constrained by limited instructional time, uneven student readiness, research-skill gaps, and group-work difficulties. The findings show that PjBL does not reduce the importance of teachers; instead, it relocates pedagogical authority toward the orchestration of inquiry, collaboration, assessment, and contextual sociological learning. The findings show that student-centered project learning depends on active teacher orchestration through planning, scaffolding, monitoring, feedback, and reflection.