Understanding your students’ prior knowledge is
important when beginning a PBL project.
You need to know where they are each starting in terms of what they
bring to the class. Everyone will likely
come with a different set of skills and have varying ideas about the
subject. A great way to find out about
your students’ prior knowledge is to do an activity like a K-W-L chart, a small
group or whole class brainstorming, or some sort of pre-assessment. Completing an “anchor” activity like these
will help you see where your students are starting and how far they will need
to go to meet the learning goals you have set for them. I think it is good for students to see where
they began as they finish their projects.
It can be rewarding to see your own personal growth along the way. Also, establishing anchors will help you, the
teacher, provide learning opportunities for all your students and will help you
help all learners to be successful. We
have learned how important it is to have milestones set up along the way in a
PBL project to help with assessment, and I think an anchor activity would provide
a solid beginning for each student.
In your classroom, it is important to pick your
assessments carefully. You want to be sure
you are successfully assessing the learning and looking at whether the learning
goals you established for your students were met. Using rubrics that you develop according to
the goals is a great idea. This way,
students can see so much more than just a letter grade. When creating a rubric, collaborating with your
students is even better. They get much
more meaningful feedback this way.
Online grade books also are a great tool for assessing. These help teachers communicate with students
and parents so everyone can see what is going on all along the way. Good conversations can happen when the data
is readily available. Being able to
measure student understanding goes beyond the traditional tests that we have
all suffered through. As a teacher, it
is important that you set up assessments that truly reflect what learning
happens, what learning goals were met, and what the student’s level of
understanding is. Your assessments
should be meaningful!
This chapter encouraged me to think about my project
and look at where I would assess along the way.
I thought about what I would do at the end for assessment so that I can
get a good idea of what the level of understanding was compared to what it was
at the beginning. Also, I thought about
what I could do at the beginning to gauge where my students are in terms of
prior knowledge. I think I have more
work to do in the overall outline of my project and need to look more closely
at how and when I assess.
I agree that assessments should be meaningful. I can relate when you said that we have suffered through traditional testing. I think there are so many other ways that teachers can get creative and assess students' knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThe part that stuck out to me the most in your reflection was where you talked about assessing students so that they can see "much more than just a letter grade". I think that a rubric of some sort would help them to see all the components that go into creating a project, which would give them more purpose to work for. If they were putting in all of their effort into the project, and all they feel that they're getting out of it is just a grade, they won't be very motivated. I think the teacher can think of other unique ways to assess students as well as give them feedback so that in a way, they can assess themselves. I like where you mentioned having an online grade book. Not only is it a more up-to-date convenient way of keeping track of students progress, but also the students as well as parents could even have assess to the grade so that they can stay informed as well. If the students know that their parents can check their progress at any point of the project, I think they will be even more motivated and determined to work hard and put forth effort within a project based learning.
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