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

3 Underutilized Classroom Teaching Techniques

Three of the most powerful classroom techniques are often underutilized because they don't seem like techniques at all. They often appear as categories because several strategies are used to facilitate them. They do, however, qualify as classroom techniques, because using them facilitates depth of learning. These three classroom techniques can be used independently or in combination, and they apply well to any kind of lesson or unit of study, especially in Project Based Learning activities, lessons and/or units of study; however, to be effective, they need to be explicitly taught and strategically directed. 

1.       Conversation

Conversation as a classroom technique is more than just chatter. It is focused, directed and purposeful, and it’s monitored for effectiveness. Structures enabling focused conversations include cooperative learning strategies such as Think-Pair-Share and Numbered Heads Together, where students share findings in partners and groups. These types of conversational strategies allow students to refine their own understandings and learn from others what they might not have discovered themselves.

2.       Silence

Silence facilitates thought and reflection. It’s where verbal conversation stops and metacognitive interior contemplation begins. It’s the listening phase and sometimes called “inner talk” or “inner voice”. It’s where students take what they have learned and make it relevant to their own lives and experiences. One way to use silence as a technique is during whole-class student question/answer sessions. When students volunteer or are called on to answer questions, give them time to think of answers---quiet time---and encourage the class to remain patient and allow these students time to think. Thinkers need time to envision what they are asked to do or say, compare what they already know to what they have learned, analyze it for relevancy, and then synthesize it to produce a vocal utterance that makes sense. No small task when asked to comment on content newly learned.

3.       Movement

Movement is critical. It connects silent contemplation and intellectual conversation with physical, tangible realities. It is the application of learned concepts. It turns learning into a physical response which is perfect for most learners, especially second-language learners. Movement works well when applied to the sounds of language and the physical expression and characterization of emotion, and it motivates students to want to learn more by bringing significance to the learning process. It also provides a mental and physical release for those who patiently waited for their classmates to answer questions.

Make These Techniques Explicit

These three techniques get overlooked because they are part of the natural learning process, but they are powerful when used as to facilitate understanding---and they are absolutely necessary to help students develop critical, intelligent thinking patterns that enable them to understand abstract concepts well enough to create useful ideas and solutions. Teach students how to use them to their advantage, and they will thrive. 

Be sure to visit Kate Parker's TeachersPayTeachers website for Project Based Learning units. They are filled with ideas for how to implement these techniques.

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Illustrations:

1. The Street Where You Live
2. The Watchdog
3. Today’s Zaman

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Essential Information About Project Based Learning

Who doesn't like to feel amazing? We live to be helpful and to be relevant. We evaluate and validate our usefulness through our interactions with others---

So why not bring these kinds of interactions into the classroom?

Project Based Learning (PBL) is the best pedagogical approach available to facilitate interactive curriculum and validate a student's self-worth.

Within PBL structures, students collaborate in groups applying what they know and learn to assigned tasks, comparing and analyzing alternative ideas for strength and validity, and blending and synthesizing findings into something useful to others.

Students amaze themselves when experiencing success. With enough collaborative projects, they come to believe they are amazing without always relying on validation from peers.

They learn to trust themselves and their work. 

As a result, they become intelligent thinkers and self-confident individuals able to make things happen for themselves and others. They become leaders with the best of intentions not only for themselves, but for the well-being of others, too.

The Origins of PBL

Project Based Learning (PBL) began in the 1960s at the McMaster University School of Medicine in Canada. The structure enabled flexible thinking and problem-solving within collaborative groups, and enabled a deeper understanding of content while also developing an intrinsic level of self-confidence and self-worth.

These same concepts are applied to PBL structures in K-12 education because according to Jane L. David,  in her article published on the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ACSD), "the core idea of project-based learning is that real-world problems capture students' interest and provoke serious thinking as the students acquire and apply new knowledge in a problem-solving context."

The PBL model has become one that transfers well to any learning environment. Use the information below to begin or update an understanding of PBL, and help move learning into the 21st century. 

Edutopia - The PBL Authority For K-12 Education

The quest for how to implement PBL structures within a district, school or classroom begins with Edutopia. They have developed every "How-to" scenario thought of or asked about by education professionals, and they have initiated many of their own.

These links on Edutopia are great places to start.

1. Project-Based Learning
2. Project-Based Learning - Professional Development Guide
3. Project-Based Learning Workshop Activities

PBL Lesson Structures that Work 

Many lesson plan sites, including Edutopia, offer resources useful to teachers; however, the most comprehensive PBL units of study have been designed by Kate Parker, CFO of GoTeachGo. Kate's units make implementation  of content within the PBL structure easy. You can find these lessons at Teachers-Pay-Teachers. The units provide the essential elements of what makes a PBL unit work:

1. Thematic with Integrated Curriculum Options
2. Each lesson driven by an Essential Question
3. Exhaustive lists of references from various media
4. Rubrics for peer, group and teacher evaluation
5. Visuals such as graphs and photos to accompany each lesson
6. Critical thinking activities 
7. Team building activities 
8. Lesson assessments used as formative assessments of progress toward unit objective
9. Summative assessments both paper and product
10. Product analysis as evaluation success level

The Vocabulary of Project Based Learning (PBL)

The following websites provide comprehensives vocabulary lists particular to Project Based Learning.

1. friEdTechnology: This site provides the following PBL vocabulary with definitions and usage suggestions.

     2.  Quizlet: This comprehensive list of terms has some of the words listed on friEd Technology and more.

Innovations in PBL and Technology

Further innovations and ideas and for technology applications can be found at these two sites.

1. MindSight: How to Reinvent Project Based Learning to Be More Meaningful
2. New Tech Network: Project-Based Learning and New Tech Network

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Recommended Reading

• Education Psychology Review - "Project-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn?"

Graphics obtained from

• Bethany Guillon - LinkedIn
• Edutopia

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Be sure to visit Kate's TeachersPayTeachers site for lots of great PBL units.