How PBL Lessons Work as Formative Assessments

Project Based Learning (PBL) is not an idea. It's a process placing the focus of instruction on content rather than on test taking skills. New assessments and ways of measuring effective instruction, teaching, and education are needed, but standardized tests are here to stay---so why not use a type of instruction proven to be effective, and adapt standards criteria to the instruction rather than adapt the instruction to the test? When PBL lessons are aligned to academic standards, they improve lower-level skills as assessed on standardized tests and bump students into the higher-level thinking that is missing in typical teach-to-the-test criteria.

Project Based Learning lessons are structured like formative assessments. The assessments are formed according to the content taught within each lesson, and by default, the effectiveness of the PBL lesson is also assessed. If students are successful on the project outcomes, the process and progress within the lesson is working. The lesson then provides data to inform instruction and helps form a rationale for the specific changes needed.

Formative assessments of student progress within a PBL lesson can be informal observations, holistic rubric assessments, and formal evaluative documented types like status-of-the-class monitoring, and checklists and formal tests. The final assessment in a PBL lesson is the final outcome as assessed using a set of questions similar to these:

• What is produced, solved or created? 
• Is it effective? Is it beneficial? Has the problem been solved?
• What processes were taken to lead to student success?
• How well do the students measure up to standards?
• What evidence shows student learning?

In developing these PBL lessons / formative assessments, some backward planning, creating and/or gathering of similar assessments, and criteria for expected outcomes is required. Of course, standards alignment criteria needs to be analyzed assuring skill requirements are covered.

Formative assessments can be done within the PBL instructional processes of lessons saving time and money by utilizing school-site assessment teams to evaluate the effectiveness of it all. By doing this, instruction can be better differentiated to meet student academic needs at a particular school. What it takes to make it work are organizational structures that allow PBL to happen, budgets specific to funding the materials needed, and administrative personnel at the national, state and local level who have flexible mindsets and believe in the expertise of teachers. It also takes a set of positive, forward-thinking teachers who love inquiry rather than following programmed pacing guides that guarantee instruction only gets differentiated  at the lowest level.

Project Based Learning (PBL) as formative assessment works well at a school district level, but formative assessments in general often fail at the national level because of the high cost involved in hiring professionals to score them, the time it takes away from instruction to administer them, and the slow turnaround in getting the results in time for the teacher to make productive use of them. The results then become an over-priced stack of paperwork showing only that an assessment has been made.

If formative assessments are part of the instructional design, then less time is taken away from instruction, results are quick, and money is saved. Money spent on standardizing formative assessments can be put toward authentic assessment types at the school site level, monitored by school districts who report findings to state departments of education, who then report results nationally. PBL is the perfect vehicle for this type of assessment. It's good teaching with built-in assessments that prepare students and provide rapid results on all levels. At a minimum, it enables the spending of funds on the study of instruction that actually works rather than on developing more testing materials that lower expectations.

National education policymakers want an expedient, efficient way to evaluate learning. They look only at results. So let the policymakers have their tests that measure lower-level thinking. Leave the formative assessments to the educators.

Formative assessments measure higher-level thinking. When they become part of the instructional design, they help improve learning because the educational focus is based on actual student need.

Project Based Learning is an instructional model that covers both content and assessment at the same time for all levels of learning. Results from this type of instruction show academic growth in higher-level content knowledge as well as improvement in standardized test scores.

For materials to use to get started, visit Kate Parker's TeachersPayTeachers website for Project Based Learning units. These units are filled with lessons designed to educate students and assess learning.

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Recommended Reading:

Edutopia -"Put to The Test: Confronting Concerns About Project-Based Learning"
Andrew K. Miller "PBL and Standardized Tests? It Can Work!"

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Illustrations:

1. No-Work Spanish
2. IMGArcade
3. Business2Community

Close Reading, Constructed Response and The Comprehension of Content

Brief constructed responses are four to five sentence paragraphs with content grounded in evidence. All constructed responses are text-dependent. They require students to think beyond the recall of facts and use analysis, synthesis and evaluation citing evidence from the text to support their responses. Students have to think critically about what they read to produce a coherent written response, and through close readings of the text cited, they improve their comprehension of the content.

However---

Some teachers feel uncomfortable teaching students how to write, but the short format of a constructed response along with a list of useful transition words and phrases help alleviate some of that fear. It's important to remember that a well-written constructed response requires Close Reading. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) identify three elements important for reading comprehension that are also important to the process of Close Reading. 

A constructed response includes all of these ideas and details.

CCSS - Key Ideas and Details for Reading

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Expeditionary Learning provides an important list of elements for what happens during Close Reading. This list is important to keep in mind when helping students write constructed responses. 

Things Close Readers Do

• Get the gist of what a text is about
• Use the text to answer the question
• Reread the text
• Gather evidence (quotes) from the text
• Annotate text
• Focus on key vocabulary
• Discuss to clarify  thinking and deepen understanding 
• Use the text to gather evidence for text-dependent questions

Two Ways to Understand the Essentials of a Constructed Response

There many ideas for building a constructed response, but these two are quick and easy to use and understand.                                                              

1. RACE

• Restate the Question
• Answer the Question
• Cite Evidence
• Explain the Answer

Here is how educator Julie Faulkner taught the RACE approach to her students:

The following sample response asked students to analyze the tone of William Carlos Williams’s poem “This is Just to Say.” They were provided with the one hint that when writing about a poem or short piece, it is important to reference the author and title in the opening sentence. 

Sample constructed response using RACE:

In William Carlos Williams’s poem “This is Just to Say,” tone is a crucial clue in determining his sincerity.  I don’t think his apology was all that sincere.  He says, “They were delicious.” To further describe the plums that he ate, instead of saying he was story, he rubs it in that they were “sweet and so cold.”  Thus, his tone was insincere and he obviously enjoyed attempting to aggravate his wife.   

Sample response deconstructed using RACE:

In William Carlos Williams’s poem “This is Just to Say,” tone is a crucial clue in determining his sincerity.	Identify and mention the key word in the prompt/question and rephrase the question/prompt
I don’t think his apology was all that sincere.	Answer the question. This ultimately becomes the thesis for the response.
He says, “They were delicious.”	First evidence using a citation from the original poem with a signal phrase.
To further describe the plums that he ate, instead of saying he was story, he rubs it in that they were “sweet and so cold.”	Second evidence using a citation from the original poem with a transition word and clear analysis.
Thus, his tone was insincere and he obviously enjoyed attempting to aggravate his wife.	End the response by restating the key word or your answer for the key word. This example does both and gives a tiny bit more closure.

2. Yes MA'AM

This is another approach from Sarah Ambler that illustrates the 4-part constructed response and offers suggestions for transition use. 

M--Me

The first sentence of the response should reword the question and state a personal opinion or direct response to the question.

A--Author
The first "A" prompts the student to look at what the author said and to include a detail from the text to support his answer. 

A--Author
The second "A" reminds the student that a constructed response requires multiple supporting details from the author.

M--Me
The response ends with the student (me) explaining or interpreting the significance of the evidence.

Text-Dependent Questions, Essential Questions and the Constructed Response

Example of a Text-Dependent Question

• Could people live on Earth if there were no Sun? Why or why not? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. 

Example of an Essential Question from the Project Based Learning Unit Time Travelers - The Colonial X Factor - GoTeachGo.

• How would the world be different today if our colonial settlers had better information and tools?

The text-dependent question assumes students have read what they needed to read to answer in detail the question. The essential question is broad and more thematic, but it can be made to be text-dependent. 

Adapt it this way:

How would the world be different today if our colonial settlers had better information and tools? Why do you think this way? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

For more information about text-dependent questions, examples of constructed responses, and the comprehension of content via writing, visit these websites:

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Be sure to visit TeachersPayTeachers to examine lots of great PBL units of study from GoTeachGo that incorporate all the critical thinking skills necessary to write well-written constructed responses.

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RECOMMENDED READING:

These articles offer information on how writing improves reading comprehension and by extension, comprehension of content.

1. Writing to Read:       Steve Graham and Michael Hebert Vanderbilt University
2. Reading Next
3. EducationWeek: Writing Can Improve Reading Skill, Study Finds

These articles offer resources for text-dependent questions and some with examples for instructional use.

1. Text-Dependent Question Resources
2. TextDependent Questions Using Paired Passages
3. TextDependent Questions
4. Text Dependent Questions – ISBEPowerPoint Presentation
5. Engaging the Adolescent Learner

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