1. The 21st Century Context for
Standards-Focused Project Based Learning

2. Create a Balanced Assessment Plan Stage 2
A balanced assessment plan for a project will include a variety of assessments closely tied to the outcomes—the content standards, learning skills and technology skills, or as they are called in the Buck Institute materials, the Habits of Mind and skills.
PBL moves students and teachers away from traditional paper and pencil tests and toward more authentic assessment practices. The authentic practices being measured are collaboration, communication, problem solving, and teamwork. Thus these performance based assessments are more diverse.

3. Balanced Assessment Plan
Formative assessments that allow you to give feedback as the project progresses – Classroom Assessments for Learning
Classroom Assessments of Learning that provide students with a culminating appraisal of their performance

4. Align products with Outcomes.
Planning effective assessments requires that you work backwards to align the product or performances for the project with the outcomes.
Once the outcomes for the project have been decided…Refer to the slide.
Products are the presentations, papers, exhibits or models that are completed during a project. What products will prove adequate evidence of student learning and achievement?

5. Align Products with Outcomes
This requires:
Identifying culminating products for the project
Using multiple products and providing feedback to students
Using artifacts – evidence of the process of student thinking – to assess learning skills or habits of mind
Introductory remarks: Every outcomes must be assessed. Students must be given the opportunity to demonstrate-through their products- what they are required to know and do.

6. Establish Performance Criteria
How well do the students know the content?
What is their skill level?
How well did they apply their knowledge and skills as they prepared their product?
After you have determine the products, you must then define the performance criteria to assess each performance or product. To do this, review the performance descriptors for the content standards and objectives. Read the identified objectives carefully and determine the learning targets for each objective. Design rubrics that allow you to answer the three questions on this slide.

7. How will products allow students to demonstrate their learning?
If the project asks students to demonstrate proficiency in three areas, each outcome must be assessed and included in one or more of the components of the products for the project.

8. For example, You have identified: Four (4) content objectives
Three (3)learning skills objectives
Two (2) technology tool objectives
You may first decide the products students will produce:
Exhibition
Research paper
Journal
Assessing the quality of student work in these products requires different methods. The presentation (Exhibition such as a video or an oral presentation requires then to demonstrate content knowledge and presentation skills) and the research (topic encompassed by the content standards)can be assessed using a performance rubric. Journals can be assessed formally or informally. Additional content outcomes can also be assessed through an exam. If we do all of these, we have an effective assessment plan using a culminating product, multiple products and artifacts along the way.

9. Culminating Products Research papers
Report to school staff or authentic audience
Multimedia shows
Presentations at school-wide assemblies
Exhibitions in the school or community
Websites
Public service announcements
A culminating product is due at the end of the project and often represents a blend of content knowledge and skills that gives students an opportunity to demonstrate learning across a variety of topics and skills. Culminating assessments are presented during high stakes instances, preferable with an audience beyond the classroom walls. Students go above and beyond “show and tell” and demonstrate in-depth learning.
Exhibitions include performances, portfolio defenses, presentations, displays, and student-led events. Exhibitions lend themselves to different types of assessment. When students are asked to reflect, or self-report, following the exhibition, they have an opportunity to explain how their thinking changed as a result of their participation.

10. Advantages to using exhibitions
Participant involvement in establishment of criteria
Demonstration of progress toward different goals or criteria
Teamwork that provides emotional support and feedback
Exercises in meta-cognitive training
Students as knowledgeable practitioners
Multiple assessors
When used as culminating assessment, Exhibitions have a number of advantages.
Students can help plan exhibitions and establish the criteria by which they will be judged. Preparation for the exhibition can become as important as the event itself. Multiple exhibitions over time enable students to demonstrate their progress toward different goals or criteria. Exhibitions are good exercises in meta-cognitive training, such as planning, goal setting, self-monitoring, knowing when to seek help, keeping to a schedule. With exhibitions students are treated as knowledgeable practitioners who have information to share with others. The teacher’s assessment is supplemented with assessment by peers, evaluation by local experts, student self-assessment and the judgment of parents and other community members. Assessment criteria can be used to provide feedback as students practice their performances.

11. A systematic set of checkpoints for project products will not only help keep students on schedule, but it will also help them refine and improve their work.
Multiple products are due during the early, middle and final stages of the project. Multiple products give students more opportunities to improve over time and to meet the project outcomes. Multiple products give the teacher more control over the process, giving the teacher an early look at whether students are meeting the goals of the project or encountering problems.
Multiple products also provide specific content checkpoints at which students and teachers can assess student progress, determine alternative directions, provide scaffolding, or make realistic estimates of the amount of time necessary for project completion. Remember these checkpoints can also include quizzes, short assignments or tests.
Keep in mind multiple products give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning and proficiencies. It helps them refine and improve their work. Each activity the students engage in should yield information and build skills that will result in a succesful product. If the activity does not meet this criteria, it is busy work.

12. Examples of multiple products
Proposals
Outlines
Plans
Blueprints
Drafts
Edited drafts revised drafts
models
Product critiques
Videos
Final versions of papers
Field guides
Biographies
Websites
When we are designing a project we must carefully plan our activities and products. For example, a research paper based on interviews of various people may be a culminating product for a project. However, we, the teachers, and the students must be sure the students know how to conduct a formal interview. While the interview is an activity, it may result in designing an interview plan—another product for the project.

13. Artifacts Notes Journal entries E-mail/Telephone records
Records of conversations, decisions, revisions
Interviews using a structured set of questions developed by the students
Short reflective paragraphs describing the progress of a project
Task chart
Project Team Contract
Meeting notes
The power of effective PBL design lies in the ability of projects to pull students through the curriculum by engaging them in complex, relevant problem solving. This may initially be uncomfortable for teachers and students who are not comfortable with the ambiguity. There is a creative stage in which students investigate, think, reflect, draft and test the hypotheses. All of this takes place in a collaborative setting and this can be noisy and disordered. However, this is the way the world works and that is what makes it valuable. It is important that we guide them through the process with a set of tools and that we evaluate the methods they use as they engage in the process. The process then becomes part of the content of the project. We need to look for artifacts of the process—evidence that the process of planning, questioning and probem solving has occurred. Artifacts can be used to evaluate learning skills and technology tools, or as the Buck Institute would say, habits of mind.

14. Know What to Assess Unpack the content standards and objectives
Series of specific statements of what needs to be learned
Think about unpacking the task(s)
Define the “habits of mind” or learning skills and technology tools by specific statements or indicators
These statements become the basis for the assessment process and guide students in what they should learn.

15. ASSESSMENT PRACTICES Exhibitions of work Variety of assessment tools
ACADEMIC RIGOR
ADULT RELATIONSHIPS
AUTHENTICITY
ACTIVE EXPLORATION
APPLIED LEARNING
ASSESSMENT PRACTICES
Exhibitions of work
Variety of assessment tools
Professional standards of performance
Student involvement in creating criteria for project (rubric)

16. TRADITIONAL ASSIGNMENT
RESEARCH PAPER
Required Elements:
Select a disease to study
Go to library and do research
Write ten pages
Use proper essay form
Include a bibliography

17. PBL ASSIGNMENT HEALTH PROJECT Required Elements:
Develop family medical histories
Write proposal to study health issue of personal or community interest
Keep research log, including citations
Produce a newsletter
Develop lesson plans and materials for underserved population
Present to real audience

18. TRANSFORMING PRACTICE
Traditional Assignment
Student works alone
Context is school
Assessment by teacher only
PBL Assignment
Student works alone and in teams
Context is family and community
Assessment by real audience and teacher

19. WHY ASSESS? What role does assessment play in project-based
teaching and learning?
We have placed a copy of a well-written brochure on Classroom Assessment for Learning on the Teach 21 site. This publication is also found in the folder titled “General Sessions” on your computer. This is a publication created by Lisa Youell. There are two clinics focused on Classroom Assessment for Learning on the clinic schedule. I highly recommend that you come to understand the assessment vocabulary that accompanies a balanced assessment system.

20. PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT
Help students become aware of areas of need
Formative -- help students along the way, ongoing
Proof of learning, growth
Feedback helps create better product/project
Opportunity to test depth of understanding
Helps to define lesson design and performance
Helps teachers determine what to reteach
Allows for natural adult connections
Helps to share the workload
Checkpoint for integration

21. DESIGN FOR ASSESSMENT Traditional Approach: Outcome-Based Approach:
CONTENT
PLAN
INSTRUCTION
INSTRUCTION
PLAN
ASSESSMENT
ASSESS
Outcome-Based Approach:
OUTCOME
PLAN
ASSESSMENT
PLAN INSTRUCTION
INSTRUCTION
ASSESS

22. BALANCED ASSESSMENT COLLECT EVIDENCE AT VARIOUS STAGES OF THE WORK
USE A VARIETY OF METHODS:
Tests
Product assessments
Performance assessments
Self-Reports

23. FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT START END In-Process Feedback: WHEN? WHO?
Key considerations:
Frequency, Timing, & Who Gives Feedback
This slide is designed to help open up the key design considerations when planning for those formative, along-the-way assessment experiences.
Frequency: How often do students need feedback? How often is logistically possible?
Timing: Do students have enough time for revisions? Does the feedback come far along enough in the process that they actually have something to look at?
Who Gives Feedback: Options include the teacher (of course), peers (requires some training and maybe a rubric) and adult experts (a great option)
The line a the bottom provides a visual representation of where formative feedback may come during a project process.
START
END

24. Curricular Priorities and Assessment Methods
Traditional quizzes
and tests (selected response)…….
Quizzes and tests
(constructed response)…….
Performance tasks and projects…
Performance tasks and projects
(complex, open-ended, authentic)……...
Worth Being Familiar With...
All Students Should
Know and Be Able to Do...
Certain types of assessment methods lend themselves to specific curricular priorities. Let us look at this visual. In our work with the development of instructional guides, standards-based units, and now standards-focused PBL units, we help our teachers understand how the classroom assessment for learning is a critical component of the instruction process.
Enduring
Understandings

25. With the PBL units, the template requires a more detailed assessment plan. You will see that we ask the author, or designer, to think about the major group products, as well as major individual projects. You see that we have assessments cited that represent all three circles within the 3-circle audit. The teachers must consider what rubrics will be used to assess student performance and you see rubrics for collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, oral communications, written communication, content knowledge, etc.
Reflections are very important with Project Based Learning.

26. PBL FRAMEWORK Stage 3 PROJECT ASSESSMENT CURRICULUM & EVALUATION
DESIGN
Stage 3
ASSESSMENT
& EVALUATION
RESOURCES & CONSTRAINTS

27. The Rigor/Relevance FrameworkD G T A X O N M Y
Evaluation 6 5 4 3 2 1 C
Assimilation D
Adaptation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application A
Acquisition B
Application
Understanding
I offer this visual to capture our goal for 21st century curriculum in our West Virginia schools. Our goal for the 21st century learner is to move both learning experiences and assessment into the D Quadrant of the Rigor and Relevance Framework. This Framework is a tool developed by the staff of the International Center for Leadership in Education to examine curriculum, instruction and assessment. The Rigor/Relevance Framework is based on two dimensions of higher standards and student achievement.
First, there is the continuum of knowledge that describes the increasingly complex ways in which we think. The Knowledge Taxonomy is based on the 6 levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The low end of the continuum involves acquiring knowledge and being able to recall or locate that knowledge in a simple manner. The high end of the Knowledge Taxonomy labels more complex ways in which individuals use knowledge. At this level, knowledge is fully integrated into one’s mind. They can take several pieces of knowledge and combine them in both logical and creative ways. Assimilation of knowledge is a good way to describe this high level of the thinking continuum. Assimilation is often referred to as a higher-order thinking skill. At this level the student can solve multi-step problems and create unique work and solutions.
The application Model, or the second continuum, is one of action. The five levels of this continuum describe putting knowledge to use. While the low end is knowledge acquired for its own sake, the high end signifies action-sue of that knowledge to solve complex real-world problems and to create projects, designs, and other works for real-world situations.
Awareness
Apply
across
disciplines
Apply to
real world
predictable
situations
Apply to real-world
unpredictable
situations
Knowledge
Apply in
discipline
APPLICATION MODEL