Friday, April 3, 2015

Chapter 9: Making Assessment Meaningful

One of the best things about Project Based Learning is the fact that assessment takes on a whole new life-form for students and teachers. We have all had that class where we were handed the test we thought, "What?! This has NOTHING to do with what we did!" and as such, were not accurately assessed on our knowledge. Project Based Learning forces teachers to re-think the way that they determine a student's success in a very specific and targeted way. As the text explains, "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. A multiple-choice test at the end of the unit doesn't do the job. Instead, you may need to draw on a variety of assessment strategies" (139).

It is my sincere belief that not only is this form of assessment the most accurate, but the most MEANINGFUL. This form of assessment provides students, teachers and their family with real, concrete understandings of what their children can do well and what they are still struggling with. On a multiple-choice exam, a student can get lucky or unlucky with the content. With a specific rubric that grades exactly what the students have been working toward, there leaves no room for this. Students know exactly what is expected of them from the start, and know the pace and direction to take their learning in.

I also loved how the section in this chapter entitled "ASK STUDENTS: WHAT DID YOU LEARN?" I think that this is an important question that is not asked nearly enough of our students. It is vital that they not only learn what they do, but are able to recall it at the end of the unit and can really conceptualize what all of their hard work means and how it can be applied to their future.

This chapter was about making assessment meaningful, factual and useful for students, teachers and families. I feel like these are important ideas that are often left out, especially when we think about standardized assessment. Students are prompted to also consider their learning and recall their achievements in a way that makes it relevant for the moment and forever.

1 comment:

  1. I agree that project based learning assessments are much more meaningful. I know that feeling when you take a test and everything on the page looks like it was written by aliens, and you wonder why you spent all that time in the class when you know nothing more about whats on the test. I think its important to always set your students up for success when assessing them. Project based learning does that. It gives the students the ability to truly show what they know, and the teacher gets a much larger and concrete picture into the students knowledge. this allows the teacher to give much better feedback to the student, and be that much more influential

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