Chapter 9

Amber Hobson

Chapter 9 

Making Assessment Meaningful

Projects open the door for rigorous learning experiences, as students not only master new content but have opportunities to apply what they have learned. Projects usually take much longer than a normal lesson would so as teachers you want to make sure that you are assessing the students adequately.  As a teacher you need to make sure that your students are not falling behind and you not even realize it. Through out the project there should be many different ways of assessment. Assessing your students project work requires deliberate strategies to take stock not only of what they have created, but also the teamwork, effort, and creativity that went into the project. 

One important part of assessment is knowing where to start assessing them, and when to stop, and all the spots in between. One way of doing this is establishing anchors. By doing this you can really know where the student is starting with the project, and if they are on track of the goal by the endpoint. In a project-based classroom all students may not be starting with the same thing so it is important to know where each of the students is starting. There will be times when you work with groups, and individually.

There is much more to assessment than just a multiple choice test at the end, projects are not the same as a regular lesson so you need to make sure that you are grading what really matters. There are many ways to do this, you can create rubrics at the beginning, and have the students involved with this so they know exactly what the goal is for the project. There are also many opportunities for using technology.  Also you should always have discussion throughout the project, always ask students to report to each other, and ask students what did you learn? Students can share their work in many different ways to the class and receive feedback on their projects. 

A great way to incorporate all of the information the students learned in a project, is to have them create a new lesson on what they have just learned. They can use what they learned during the project and apply it to a new context. Also having students get feedback from professionals is something that is a good assessment for students because students will really listen closely to their opinions. Then you can also have your students take it a step further by encouraging students to submit their best work to a competition or enter for publication. These are very motivating opportunities for students who are ready for the challenge of real world assessment.