Module Six - Assessment

Module 6.1 Assessment Overview

Assessment should be an integral part of every stage of your PBL project. Assessment should be also used to determine prior knowledge, to continually measure progress toward the project objectives, and to measure the final products and extent of student learning. Some appropriate assessment strategies include: rubrics and checklists, charting what students know, want to know, and learn (KWL), walk arounds, journals, and peer review.

Assessment should inform instruction. Assessment tools and strategies should be clear to the student from the very beginning of a project, and students should be encouraged to participate in the assessment process though self and peer review, reflection activities, and the development of the assessment tools.

Assessment needs to be both formative and summative. Formative assessment should be embedded throughout the project and be designed to improve the project as it is being done. Summative assessment helps provide critical feedback for the learner that can be used to improve future projects and learning experiences.

Formative assessment means embedding assessment strategies throughout the project to improve the project and student learning. To be effective, this ongoing assessment must be part of the project planning.

At each step of the project, from establishing baseline information about prior knowledge to evaluating the complete project and helping students to reflect on their own learning process, assessment helps teacher and students develop a deeper, more collaborative relationship. Involving students in the assessment process helps them to develop higher order thinking skills.

Some strategies for involving students in ongoing assessment are:

• Journals - Journals provide a place for each student to keep research notes, log thoughts, ideas, opinions, reflect on his/her own learning, log data from experiments, design, plan, write notes to the teacher, etc.
• Checklists and Rubrics - Rubrics provide the guidelines for the project. It is important that students are introduced to the project rubric from the very beginning. In some cases teachers create the rubric or evaluation criteria prior to introducing the project. However, many teachers find that involving students in creating the rubric at the beginning of a project is highly effective.
• Peer Editing and Peer Review - Peer editing or peer design reviews allow students to work collaboratively to improve their work.
• Walkarounds - A good facilitator defines the task, checks for understanding, then stays close and listens,and points students to the needed resources. A walkaround is a cooperative learning strategy. The key to the walkaround is knowing how to use this strategy to help students improve their projects. Walkarounds can be used to provide assessment information for both individuals and the group. This technique can be used both formally and informally. Informal walkarounds are used to provide immediate help, ideas, and feedback to each project group or team. When used formally the teacher carries a clipboard with a checklist.

Module 6.2 Formative and Summative Assessment

Task 6A: Assessment Reflection Activity

When planning lessons, teacher should ask themselves two questions:

1. What do we want kids to know and be able to do?
2. How do we know they got it?

Generate two lists from the participants: What are the purposes of assessment? What types of assessment do you use?. (Below are possible answers for instructors.) After generating the lists match purposes to types. Then discuss the types used for summative and for formative assessment.

Formative assessment is often done at the beginning or during a program. It provides the opportunity for immediate feedback of student learning in a lesson or at a particular point in a program. The purpose of assessment is to improve quality of student learning and should not be evaluative or involve grading students. Formative assessment is ongoing and could be considered as "coaching for success" with learning spiraling upwards.

Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature, provides accountability and is used to check the level of learning at the end of the lesson or program. Objective testing would be summative in nature since it is based on the cumulative learning experience. Program goals and objectives often reflect the cumulative nature of the learning that takes place in a program. Thus the program would conduct summative assessment at the end of the program to ensure students have met the program goals and objectives. Attention should be given to using various methods and measures in order to have a comprehensive plan. Ultimately, the foundation for an assessment plan is to collect summative assessment data and this type of data can stand-alone.

Formative assessment data can contribute to a comprehensive assessment plan by enabling teachers to identify particular points in a program to assess learning and monitor the progress being made towards achieving learning outcomes.

Authentic Assessment

Traditionally, students are assessed summatively and results fit into a bell curve. Because students are often not required to use what they learn in a meaningful way, they often learn just enough to pass the test by memorizing facts or text. On the other hand, performance assessments, sometimes referred to as authentic or alternative assessment, requires students to use what they've learned and demonstrate achievement of standards.

Assessments can take many forms, but if students are involved in the critical examination of their work throughout the project more learning and better products are the result. Integrating assessment into the projects allows for continual clarification of the major learning goals. Formative assessment is a powerful means of improving student learning. Perhaps the best way to describe formative assessment is to look at an example.

Working with Electronic Portfolio

Start by listening to a presentation about ePortfolios. When the page finishes loading, start with slide 18 and continue to the end.
Type in your responses to the following questions:

Because each artifact the student choses to include in his/her eportfolio should show evidence of meeting standards or learning goals, how will you ask students to reflect on their achievement?

The presenter says that for each entry she requires the students to describe, analyze, and reflect. The web site below details some of the insights gained by the teacher as she looked at the students' eportfolios.
http://www.gbritt.net/portfoliodata.html

Formative Assessment Case Study:

An art docent from the Asian Art Museum presented the Japanese Tea Ceremony to the class. Both student A and student C had participated in a mock tea ceremony. When I saw this picture from their project, I asked them to think about the setting. What does a tea room look like? Where are the cup and utensils?
They, then, looked back at the handouts from the art presentation and took the table out of the room, added shoji and utensils.
On the background information the statement was made: "In the middle of the tea bowl is a painted radish." I asked why the radish was there and they said: "We don't know, but we guess for decoration." I reminded them that we had talked about how symbols usually have meaning. I also gave them an Internet site as a resource.
They then added: "In the middle of the tea bowl is a daikon (radish) which symbolizes long life.
A & C consulted with a professional animator who volunteered to help in the classroom. I was surprised to see in their final production a samurai with a sword on in the tea house. I asked if they remembered that samurai had to leave their swords outside the tea house. In fact, we had talked about how the door to the tea house was so small that the samurai could not get in with their swords on. A & C told me that the reason they put the sword in is because the animator had told them it would make their animation more interesting and show that their figure was a samurai. See the completed animation.

Student A's Reflection:
"I learned that in Japan samurai soldiers had to be good at fighting, but also had to be good at literature, and attend tea ceremonies. I did not do good in critical thinking because we did not follow the Japanese culture. If I did this again I would follow Japanese culture."

Student C's Reflection:
"I learned to make a mind map for research. I like to talk to other people to get better ideas. I learned that the designs have to match your point of the story. If I could do it again I would say why the samurai has a sword in the tea room."

Module 6.3 Assessment strategy for your PBL

In designing your the assessment strategy for your PBL, you should ask yourself:

1. How will your students express what they know in your PBL?
2. How will you evaluate student understanding and achievement?

VIDEO: Beyond Standardized Testing

Performance assessments offer a richer, more holistic approach to evaluating what students know and can do. Edutopia Video

Knowledge Expression Activity Types

Students can express what they know in a multitude of ways.
Here are some examples in the context of a social studies PBL.

(Source: Harris, Mishra & Koehler, 2007)

Evaluating student learning and understanding

Here are four levels of student learning and understanding that can be assessed based upon student performances and work. These levels are similar to Bloom's Taxonomy in the Cognitive Domain.

1.Recall: Student can recall or recognize facts, information, ideas, and principles in the approximate form in which they were learned.

2. Comprehension: Student can translate, comprehend, and/or interpret information based on prior learning.

3. Application: Student can select, apply, and use data, information, and principles to complete a problem or task with a minimum of direction.

4. Analysis, synthesis & evaluation: Student can distinguish, classify, and infer the assumptions, hypotheses, evidence, or structure of a statement or question. Student can originate, integrate, and combine ideas into a product, plan or proposal that is new to him or her. Student can appraise, assess, or critique ideas, theories, and arguments on a basis of specific standards and criteria.

Formative Assessment

In addition to assessing student work and performances at the end of your project, you should evaluate student understanding and learning throughout the PBL experience.

At the start of the project, it is often helpful to assess what students already know about the subject to determine if they have the necessary background knowledge to complete the assignment, and/or if you can make the task more challenging if you have students who know a great deal about the topic already. Pre-tests, free-writes, think-pair-shares, and cartoon-initiated conversations are just a few ways to gather information about students' prior knowledge.

During the project, there are many ways to assess student understanding and thinking. Some examples are:

• whole group and small group discussions
• one-on-one interviews
• progress reports
• student journals, personal reflections and blog entries
• concept maps
• cartoon storyboards
• quizzes

Formative assessment helps teachers to monitor their students’ progress and to modify the instruction accordingly. It also helps students to monitor their own progress as they get feedback from their peers and the teacher. Students also find opportunity to revise and refine their thinking by means of formative assessment.

Recommendations

As you design the assessment for your PBL, keep in mind these these questions:

• How well aligned are your learning objectives and assessment strategy?
• What student performances and work will you evaluate? What criteria will you use?
• What levels of student learning and understanding will you assess? Is there is good mix?

Resources

• Examples of rubrics that can be modified or used to assess project work from the Buck Institute of Education.
• Implementation tools that help students (and teachers) plan activities and keep track of their progress
• A project planning form from the Buck Institute of Education.

References

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M.J., (2007, April). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge: curriculum-based technology integration reframed. Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. (.pdf)

Module 6.4: Module Summary

Formative assessment is often done at the beginning and during a project. It provides the opportunity for immediate feedback of student learning in a lesson or at a particular point in a program. The purpose of formative assessment is to improve quality of student learning and should not be evaluative or involve grading students.

Summative assessment is usually comprehensive in nature, provides accountability and is used to check the level of understanding at the end of the project. Learning goals and objectives often reflect the cumulative nature of the learning that takes place in a project, and should be in alignment with your summative assessment strategy. Conducting summative assessment at the end of the project ensures students have met the learning goals and objectives.

Module 6.5 Additional Resources

• George Mason University - Instructional Design Knowledge Base - Models of Evaluation
• Coastal Plains RESA - Understanding by Design
• Virtual Assessment Center at UMN
• Creating an Assessment Unit (UMN)
• Illinois Online Network: Assessment/Evaluation Resources
• Kathy Schrocks Assessment Rubrics
• BuddyProject.org: Online Assessment Tools