Project-Based Learning Summative Assessments

Summative assessments evaluate students’ progress with identified success skills/attitudes and academic objectives. Summative assessments should be as objective as possible. Let students know how their progress on the project’s focus success skills/attitudes and academic objectives will be assessed.

Students’ presentations of their findings to audiences and other student products can be used as summative assessments or part of them. If assigning grades, a suggestion is to give them individually, not for an entire group. Assigning and assessing a written product is recommended.

With assessments – be sure what you assess are the projects’ identified success skills/attitudes and/or academic content objectives. For example, if you use a checklist or rubric, what is on the checklist or rubric should be identified skills/attitudes and/or identified academic objectives or steps towards them.

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Other examples of summative assessments are end of unit essays, concept maps, and objective tests. For evaluating students’ essays, presentations, concept maps, or products rubrics and checklists help to keep the assessments objective.

As Heidi Hayes Jacobs writes in Curriculum 21 (2010, Alexandria, VA: ASCD), assessments can incorporate technology, for example, students’ documentaries, podcasts, websites, digital music compositions, on-line journals, e-mail exchanges, and video conferences.

A combination of formative assessments can be used in summative evaluation. Often a combination of formative (informal) assessments  are more reliable about students’ performance than summative (formal) assessments.

Standardized Tests

If your state uses standardized tests of Common Core State Standards from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium ( PARCC) you know that tests do include assessment of students’ inquiry and problem solving ability.  

     Math  A sample math performance task asks 6th graders to figure out what they need to build a community garden to a given set of specifications for $450.  During two test sessions totaling up to two hours, students would have to calculate many figures, including the perimeter, surface areas, and volume of each section of the garden, and make a sketch based on their calculations. They must figure out how much wood and soil are needed and how many tomato and carrot plants to buy, given their cost, the garden’s size, and each plant’s need for space. Finally, they must show how their project will stay within its allotted budget.

 English/Language Arts. A sample task, scheduled to take 105 minutes, asks 6th graders to read an interview with a teenager who started a charity to help Peruvian orphans. It directs them to articles and videos on specified Web pages to learn more about other young people who devote themselves to helping those in need.  The students answer constructed-response questions that require them to describe what they’ve learned, analyze the meanings of key words, and discuss how they evaluated the reliability of their Web resources. They must research and present a five-minute speech about a “young wonder” of their choice, complete with audiovisual representations.

. A constructed-response item for 11th graders asks them to read excerpts from an 1872 speech by women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony and the “Second Treatise of Civil Government” by English philosopher John Locke, published in 1690. They must identify the ideas common to both pieces and discuss how Locke’s ideas support Anthony’s arguments, citing evidence from each to support their interpretations.

  . A selected-response item asks 5th graders to read an article about how scientists track bird migration and to identify the two paragraphs that contain the author’s opinions on the topic. The question taps key skills required in the common standards, such as comprehending “content rich” nonfiction and citing textual evidence for an argument.

Assessing the Project
Also consider assessment of the project itself. As in all teaching, reflecting and noting what is effective and what can be enhanced for next time leads to best practices. Having colleagues with whom to discuss the projects strengths, areas for strengthening, and future plans often produces best insights and plans.   

 Reference

Hayes-Jacobs H. (2010). Curriculum 21. ASCD

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