Assessing Student Projects

The word assessment is one that we hear on a daily basis from teachers, administrators, directors, and curriculum coordinators..  It shows our data, drives instruction, can sometimes dictate our effectiveness, helps us determine interventions, and more.  When it comes to students learning through projects, assessment is not always completed in the proper way in my opinion.

“Evaluation of the end product rarely identifies specific weaknesses and strengths in the inquiry process of students” (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007, p.111). Common practice, which I see with most teachers, is assessing the final product and giving one grade to the students with little or no feedback on the process.    If students do not understand where their strengths and weaknesses lie in the inquiry process, how do they know how to improve themselves.  It is better to have practical assessments on all the stages of the inquiry process.

I think that teachers miss this opportunity for this genuine data and reflection.  For our District, teachers need to add events to our standardized based report cards to show how they assessed that standard.  By assessing the different stages of the process, they can also add each of these as individual events accurately showing the assessment for each standard. 

There is also value in creating different forms of assessment during the inquiry process, instead of just a rubric on the final product.  “Assessment methods, such as conferences, observation, and student journals, indicate what has been learned and what hasn’t”  (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007, p.112).  This also allows you to take action immediately, rather than waiting until the end and having to go back when it is not practical or applicable. 

Some times the assessment of stages in the inquiry process can  be more complex than others.  Students are not always able to show or verbally share parts of this process, one of these being their synthesizing process.   You must take into account that this happens internally, or naturally in their heads. 

The last project that I completed with students involved multi-stages of assessment in different formats.  I completed conferences each week, as well as students having to reflect for each week on the different stages, and doing pre and post assessments that were directly related to these different stages.  This was valuable information.  I worked with students that did not understand the different stages of the inquiry process.  They shared when they were having a hard time locating sources of information.  This is something that may not have happened if my assessment were only done after the projects were created.  I would have seen at that point that they lacked information but at this point, it is too late for that teaching moment.

Resources

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Kuhlthau, C. C., Maniotes, L. K., & Caspari, A. K. (2007). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.