I would imagine that one of the greatest challenges that faces the teacher that wants to begin using Project Based Learning (PBL) is trying to find a way to grade the students. I know from personal experience that the public schools are constantly breathing down teachers necks for lots and lots of grades. Give that teacher between 25-28 students and that means he or she will be spending every evening grading instead of using that time to come up with excellent lesson plans. Such is the dilemma. I can't say that I have a solution to this but I do really like using rubrics to assess projects. I was introduced to rubistar.4teachers.org back during my college days and I continued to use this resource in my own class. This rubric generator is incredibly easy to use and has ready made rubrics for every imaginable subject and they can be altered however you see fit. You can add your own benchmarks and criteria, it's quite amazing.
I know that rubrics are what we talked about in class as being the best way to assess projects, but I was wondering what some of the other ways may be. I do recall some of my teachers that used to have grading sheets with lines of things that they'd be looking for:
3.) Science experiment display is appealing and well put together.
(10 points available) __8__
I remember sheets filled with lines like that and the teacher would just decide how many points the student should earn. Those didn't give enough information or reasoning behind the graders decision. Unlike this old method a rubric is clear, quick, and fair.
Clayton,
ReplyDeleteI also felt your pain on the assessment portion. It is easier to grade 1 for every 3 r 4 studetns, but it is also hard to really assess individual content learned.For instance, what if I wanted them to to be proficienu in calculating percents of whol numbers and fractions. I need to know if they individually can do this. I think in this case I have to give an indivual assessment or some how tie in questions to the project that each person in the group have to answere independently. I think the latter is much more authentic,but it will take a lot of early planning. Once you create it though I would think the hard part is over...
Grading is one issue with PBL and so is time. I think rubrics are the best way to go or at least having very clear expectations for students. Rubistar is a great resource for this. The benefit of using a rubric is that they do cut down the grading time a little. Teachers are not left sitting there just deciding on a grade. I think individual assessment can be handled throughout the project with simple grades like check marks or participation points. Teachers have to keep things simple and definitely use tools that already exist like rubistar.
ReplyDeleteHey Clayton
ReplyDeleteI do agree with what you said about public schools breathing down teachers' necks for grades. Last year, as a HS Spanish teacher, we were told to have 45 grades per semester for each class. Multiply that by 150 (or sometimes 155 or more) students and you go crazy by the end of the year! You almost have to have at least some assessments done as multiple choice. It is good to have a mix, though, as with PBL, so they are assessed in a variety of different ways. And rubrics--that is, true rubrics, like the kind you're talking about (as opposed to a meaningless checklist) are always a better way to go. I'm guilty (even up til last year, I'm ashamed to say) of giving "checklist" rubrics. The ones that really explain what each point value means are much more meaningful to students. I used a web site for it (possibly Rubistar...can't remember) and just modify it for each new project I give.