I can’t say for sure that traditional testing has no place in the 21st century classroom, but I do think it has no place in our primary classrooms, and even junior classrooms. While preparation for exams eventually becomes necessary, I just don’t see the benefits for children so young.
That’s why I love the term “demonstration of learning” that PBL has adopted. For these kids, what you want to know is do they know the material? There are lots of ways children can show what they know, and I would venture to say that without the stress and “one-time shot” of a test you’d probably get a much more accurate assessment of their knowledge. Today I observed some ways of gathering student knowledge that was very relatable to the world in which we live. Groh Public School is a paperless school, even though they are not quite at a 1:1 student to tech ratio yet. Worksheets are rarely seen; the graphic organizer is about as close as you’ll get. My favourite digital tool was the class blog (grade 3). Any writing that the students were submitting was worked on in rough form in a small notebook (yes, with a pencil), but final drafts were published as an entry of the class blog. Once written, students were free to read, comment and give feedback on other students’ work. The teacher also read and commented. A quick use of the “tagging” feature quickly organized entries by task. The “author” feature allowed organization by student. Online publishing is a reality of the current digital world, as is learning to navigate commenting and conversing in such a platform. It made so much sense to have it all in one digital place rather than paper after paper after paper. Chatterpix is an app that lets kids give a picture a moving mouth which plays back a recording of the student’s voice sharing something about that picture. Imagine a student researching a shark. The student draws a picture of a shark, imports it into the app, and then records some facts about the shark. When played back, it looks like the shark is speaking. Similar to this is DoInk. This green screen app lets you use student work (or any photograph) as a background. Then the student videos themselves in front of a green screen, explaining features of the work. When you overlay the two in DoInk, the student actually appears in the work/painting/photograph explaining all the details. Educreations let’s students makes handwritten notes over photographs of their work. Today I observed students marking down area and perimeter of boxes in their recreation of a Peit Mondrian work. The digital format allows students to reproduce the work over and over and measure the boxes in different ways. Assessment itself is being re-written in light of PBL. Many teachers say they struggle with a curriculum and reporting system still stuck in the 20th century. While there are rumblings of change, the current PBL classroom still has to contend with basic education trends that work in opposition to the PBL theories. Most teachers say that PBL assessment relies heavily on observation, anecdotal notes and professional judgement. Grading a final product would rarely reflect the depth of learning achieved; most teachers say their final products lack quality more due to young learners and under developed motor skills. The other problem with traditional assessment is that students have vastly different capabilities. It is widely acknowledged that young students develop at very different rates, which makes it difficult to create standards based on age. PBL champions self-assessment; students need to develop the ability to self-regulate their learning and work and to know when they’ve done the very best they can. The trouble with general standards is that some students just don’t have the capacity to reach that standard, and others are capable of so much more. Teaching self-assessment helps students assess their own work and continue to “bump it up” to the next level, whatever that level may be. Until students are developmentally ready to handle the stress and format of a formal test, I believe the “show me what you know” method of observations and conversation (including student conferences) gives the most accurate measurement of student learning.
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Terri-AnnPersonal reflections on project-based learning. Archives
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