In well-executed project-based learning (PBL), an expertly designed summative assessment is the key to inspiring kids to produce engaging projects. Too many restrictions or guidelines will lead to boring and cookie cutter products. Too few expectations, on the other hand, and the product is no longer rooted in any specific learning goal. Designing a good summative assessment is critical to a successful PBL curriculum. I just finished designing my fourth project ever, and will launch it in class this week. I already know it is going to be a major logistical challenge, and planning it was not easy. We are starting our second unit in science this week and will be focusing on weather and climate. For the summative assessment at the end of this unit, students will be creating short educational videos on climate that will broadcast on Durango TV, along with a brief weather forecast for the next day. This brief weather forecast is the logistical challenge in this project, because each student will need to wait until the day that their video is airing to add the weather forecast to their video. At first, I could not figure out how this would be logistically possible. However, after collaborating with several colleagues, I came to the conclusion that students would finish the educational snippet part of their video in advance, and then leave a relevant still frame at the end of the video to add their audio voice over to for the weather forecast the day before. Since we are using standards-based learning at my school, students need to demonstrate mastery of the project performance outcomes or longterm learning targets in their final product. One of the biggest challenges I had with my last project was that it was hard for kids to demonstrate all four of the performance outcomes in one project. PBL often requires students to dig deep into a specific topic, rather than get a general shallow overview of multiple topics. Because of this, my last project resulted in kids exceeding grade level expectations for one or two performance outcomes, and then totally missing the mark on others. I wanted to find a way to avoid that in this project. I decided that instead of asking them to demonstrate all four performance outcomes in their video project, I would ask them to only address two of them. Then, I will give them a list of alternative creative ways to demonstrate the remaining two in a passion project extension. The passion project extension product will be their choice from a list of options (webpage, presentation, short story, or infographic poster). They will start to work on this passion project once they finish the educational part of their video and are waiting for the day to come to do their weather forecast and send the video to Durango TV. I am curious to see how this plan works out. Will the kids be inspired by the opportunity to present their learning in more than one product? Or, will they feel like they are just completing busy work once the video project is over with? Hopefully, by breaking this project up into two separate products, kids will be able to give a clearer overall picture of their learning during this unit, rather than feel like they are just doing a somewhat related second project.
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Emma BooneFirst year 8th grade PBL math/science teacher and graduate student, wondering a bunch and figuring a few things out here and there. Archives
December 2018
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