From Getting “Fired” to Becoming a Collaborator: A Case of the Coconstruction of Identity and Engagement in a Project-Based Mathematics Classroom

This article investigates the coconstruction of student identity and engagement in the case of a 9th grader in a project-based algebra classroom that afforded students a great deal of autonomy. The focal student, Terrance, utilized classroom resources to serve both project-related and social functions as he interacted with his peers during multiweek projects. As a result, his positioning within his group and patterns of engagement in the mathematics projects shifted dramatically across the academic year. The article ends with a discussion of student autonomy as a potentially powerful feature of hybrid classrooms.