Making Assessment Meaningful Chapter 9

   There are several methods that a teacher can use to understand students prior knowledge. Not all students are going to start at the same level, so naturally they will not all end at the same level at the end of their learning journey. Also, some students will get more out of projects than other students. For this reason, it’s important to know where your students are starting out in their skill sets and knowledge so that their individual progress and growth can be measured. One way to gauge where each student started is by having them fill out a KWL chart. The student writes down what they know, and what they want to know. A teacher can look back at the students’ answers and figure out how far the student has come in their learning journey. The students can also fill in what they have learned as they carry out the project.
    Teachers can keep track of student progress by establishing “anchors.” Anchors give teachers a picture of where the student started off at and how far they have come in meeting their learning objectives. Teachers can collect students samples as the project progresses as well as have students complete journal entries about what they are learning or struggling with.
    There are several ways that teachers can assess what students are learning. Teachers can collect student samples to use in determining how far along the student has come. Teachers can also give grades for projects based on different categories, such as one on content knowledge, one on communication, another on work ethic, and another on critical thinking. In this way teachers can see the overall effort based on the four separate grades, and focus on what the student needs to work on/improve, rather than looking at one grade and attempting to sort out what needs to be worked on. Even though the way project based learning is set up is untraditional, teachers can still use traditional methods for gauging the students understanding, such as through the use of tests/quizzes.
    Concepts in this chapter relate to our topic because we need to establish anchors in order to see how far our students have come in understanding the material. Assessment should not solely take into account where the students arrived when the project ended, but where the students began and the distance they traveled in their learning. We also need to make sure that we are sharing with our students what our expectations for their learning are. Learning goals should not be kept a secret, students need to know what is expected of them so that they can best meet those goals.