Unit 2: Evaluating Student Performance
Activity 1: Assessing Project Based Learning
Please see a brief summary of the PBL below. This is for grade 5 students. More information, including example activities, can be found here: https://sites.google.com/moreland.edu/journeytomars
Below are two example activities. Please see the above website for more.
Activity 1.2
Students use art to describe and recognise the geology of Mars such as craters, valleys, volcanoes etc.
Resource: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/art-the-cosmic-connection
Activity 3.4
Students work in teams to create a robotic arm that could be attached to a rover to help perform tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans.
Resource: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/robotic-arm-challenge/
Goal
Since humans first looked upon the night sky, we've wondered what lies beyond. With the launches of Perseverance and Zhurong in the past 12 months, we're discovering more and more. A manned mission to Mars is a realistic future possibility for today's students.
Essential Questions
How can humans prepare for a future journey to Mars?
What will a future journey to Mars look like?
Objective
In this project students will describe what a future mission to Mars may look like, and how humans can prepare to safely travel to, and live on, Mars.
Learning Goals
The rubric below will assess students at the final stage of the PBL. It will take into account all learning aims and will provide students feedback about their accomplishments. The final presentation will consolidate their learning and give a presentation to show their understanding. Students will use their knowledge of Mars and its geographical features (part 1) to explain why they have chosen their research base (part 2) in this particular location. Students will describe how various robots will assist humans to establish the base and how their various skills will help humans adapt to life on Mars (part 3). Students will explain how humans will depart for Mars (part 4) and how they will arrive (part 5). Finally, students will explain what life will be like on Mars once humans land and what experiments and discoveries they hope to make (part 6).
I made sure to write the rubric in student-friendly language and included a ‘yet’ for the lowest score to let students know that while they might not be able to do it now, they will be able to do it in the future if they keep trying.
Final Rubric
Exceeds expectations
Meets expectations
Approaches expectations
Does not yet meet expectations
Research Base
I can:
Robots
I can:
Departure & Arrival
I can:
Life on Mars
I can:
Speech
I can:
Response
I can:
Below are two example activities. Please see the above website for more.
Activity 1.2
Students use art to describe and recognise the geology of Mars such as craters, valleys, volcanoes etc.
Resource: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/art-the-cosmic-connection
Activity 3.4
Students work in teams to create a robotic arm that could be attached to a rover to help perform tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans.
Resource: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/robotic-arm-challenge/
Goal
Since humans first looked upon the night sky, we've wondered what lies beyond. With the launches of Perseverance and Zhurong in the past 12 months, we're discovering more and more. A manned mission to Mars is a realistic future possibility for today's students.
Essential Questions
How can humans prepare for a future journey to Mars?
What will a future journey to Mars look like?
Objective
In this project students will describe what a future mission to Mars may look like, and how humans can prepare to safely travel to, and live on, Mars.
Learning Goals
- Research a topic and present findings.
- Write factual and descriptive texts about a person, place or thing.
- Talk about likes and dislikes with a partner.
- Compare and contrast using comparative and superlative adjectives.
- Integrate information from multiple texts to speak about a subject knowledgeably.
The rubric below will assess students at the final stage of the PBL. It will take into account all learning aims and will provide students feedback about their accomplishments. The final presentation will consolidate their learning and give a presentation to show their understanding. Students will use their knowledge of Mars and its geographical features (part 1) to explain why they have chosen their research base (part 2) in this particular location. Students will describe how various robots will assist humans to establish the base and how their various skills will help humans adapt to life on Mars (part 3). Students will explain how humans will depart for Mars (part 4) and how they will arrive (part 5). Finally, students will explain what life will be like on Mars once humans land and what experiments and discoveries they hope to make (part 6).
I made sure to write the rubric in student-friendly language and included a ‘yet’ for the lowest score to let students know that while they might not be able to do it now, they will be able to do it in the future if they keep trying.
Final Rubric
Exceeds expectations
Meets expectations
Approaches expectations
Does not yet meet expectations
Research Base
I can:
- Use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain why I chose this location.
- Correctly identify and use 4 or more different geographical features on Mars to support my decision.
- Show 3 or more possible weaknesses about the location I have chosen, in order to show that I can think critically.
- Use mostly correct vocabulary and terminology to explain why I chose this location.
- Correctly identify and use 3 different geographical features on Mars to support my decision.
- Show 2 possible weaknesses about the location I have chosen, in order to show that I can think critically.
- Use some correct vocabulary and terminology to explain why I chose this location.
- Correctly identify and use 2 different geographical features on Mars to support my decision.
- Show 1 possible weakness about the location I have chosen, in order to show that I can think critically.
- Not yet use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain why I chose this location.
- Correctly identify and use 1 or fewer geographical features on Mars to support my decision.
- Not yet show a possible weakness about the location I have chosen, in order to show that I can think critically.
Robots
I can:
- Compare and contrast 4 or more different robots and rovers.
- Use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain which robots or rovers I will take to Mars and why.
- Give 4 or more detailed reasons why I chose to use these particular robots or rovers.
- Compare and contrast 3 different robots and rovers.
- Use mostly correct vocabulary and terminology to explain which robots or rovers I will take to Mars and why.
- Give 3 detailed reasons why I chose to use these particular robots or rovers.
- Compare and contrast 2 different robots and rovers.
- Use some correct vocabulary and terminology to explain which robots or rovers I will take to Mars and why.
- Give 2 detailed reasons why I chose to use these particular robots or rovers.
- Not yet compare and contrast different robots and rovers.
- Not yet use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain which robots or rovers I will take to Mars and why.
- Give 1 or fewer detailed reasons why I chose to use these particular robots or rovers.
Departure & Arrival
I can:
- Use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the rockets/spacecraft will depart Earth’s atmosphere.
- Correctly say what specific date the rocket will launch to demonstrate a strong understanding of launch windows.
- Use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the spacecraft will land safely on Mars’ surface.
- Use mostly correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the rockets/spacecraft will depart Earth’s atmosphere.
- Correctly say what date-range the rocket will launch to demonstrate a good understanding of launch windows.
- Use mostly correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the spacecraft will land safely on Mars’ surface.
- Use some correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the rockets/spacecraft will depart Earth’s atmosphere.
- Incorrectly say what date-range the rocket will launch, but still demonstrate some understanding of launch windows.
- Use some correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the spacecraft will land safely on Mars’ surface.
- Not yet use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the rockets/spacecraft will depart Earth’s atmosphere.
- Incorrectly say what date-range the rocket will launch and not yet demonstrate any understanding of launch windows.
- Not yet use correct vocabulary and terminology to explain how the spacecraft will land safely on Mars’ surface.
Life on Mars
I can:
- Give an opinion, using 4 or more facts to support my reasoning, of what life will be like soon after landing.
- Explain 4 or more experiments I hope to conduct on Mars and what I hope to learn from them.
- Explain 4 or more discoveries I hope to make on Mars and how I hope to do so.
- Give an opinion, using 3 facts to support my reasoning, of what life will be like soon after landing.
- Explain 3 experiments I hope to conduct on Mars and what I hope to learn from them.
- Explain 3 discoveries I hope to make on Mars and how I hope to do so.
- Give an opinion, using 2 facts to support my reasoning, of what life will be like soon after landing.
- Explain 2 experiments I hope to conduct on Mars and what I hope to learn from them.
- Explain 2 discoveries I hope to make on Mars and how I hope to do so.
- Give an opinion, using 1 or fewer facts to support my reasoning, of what life will be like soon after landing.
- Explain 1 or fewer experiments I hope to conduct on Mars and what I hope to learn from them.
- Explain 1 or fewer discoveries I hope to make on Mars and how I hope to do so.
Speech
I can:
- Present for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Speak clearly and confidently.
- Make and maintain eye contact with my teacher and classmates.
- Speak for between 2-3 minutes, or more than 5 minutes.
- Speak somewhat clearly and confidently.
- Make eye contact with my teacher and classmates.
- Speak for between 1-2 minutes.
- Speak somewhat clearly and confidently.
- Sometimes make eye contact with my teacher and classmates.
- Speak for less than 1 minute.
- Not yet speak clearly and confidently.
- Not yet make eye contact with my teacher and classmates.
Response
I can:
- Understand all questions I am asked.
- Sufficiently answer all questions.
- Politely and respectfully argue my opinion if disagreements arise.
- Understand most of the questions I am asked.
- Answer most questions.
- Argue my opinion if disagreements arise.
- Understand some of the questions I am asked.
- Answer some questions.
- Somewhat argue my opinion if disagreements arise.
- Not yet understand any of the questions I am asked.
- Not yet answer any questions.
- Not yet argue my opinion if disagreements arise.
Activity 2: Monitoring and Remediation for Project Based Learning
Monitoring and Remediation for Project Based Learning
Activity 2 - James Sharp
Monitoring
Monitoring students throughout the entirety of a project is vital. Without constant monitoring and feedback, students won’t know for certain if they are on track and how they can get back on track if they are lost. Thus, giving opportunities for students to receive feedback along the way is necessary. It’s also important for students to be given time and assistance to turn said feedback they are given into feed-forward, which is why feedback must be given during the project, rather than only after it.
Firstly, it is important to give the rubric to students at the very beginning of the project, so that there is sufficient time for them to understand it and internalise it. It is also important to review the different parts of the rubric along the way so that students are constantly informed of what they are being assessed on. Students perform better when they have a clear understanding against which they are to be assessed. It is also important to review the rubric every so often so that students’ misconceptions can be brought forward and the teacher can get an idea if students are on the right track or not.
Based on the above reasoning, the following assessments will be implemented throughout the project in order to keep students’ aware of where they are and aware of what needs to be completed.
Peer-Review
Self-Assessment
Entry & Exit tickets
Quizzes
Checkpoint schedule
Having a checkpoint schedule in place will increase the likelihood of students meeting the project goals and outcomes. Along with this, it will ensure that feedback and monitoring happens throughout the project. Often teachers have good intentions, however fail to follow up on giving feedback due to their busy schedules. Furthermore, having a clearly visible checkpoint schedule and breaking a task down into ‘chunks’ can make things more manageable for students. Some students might believe they are on the right track, but have misunderstood the rubric. Therefore, having a set schedule in place allows the teacher to guide students and make sure that they keep on the right track.
Note: Due to the setup of PBL at my school, the project will take place one class a week over 17 weeks. The week number could change depending on circumstances in the school the project is being deployed in, but the rest of the schedule would remain the same.
Week No.
Unit
Notes
1
1 (Start)
Read through the rubric together before starting the project. Discuss the rubric and check for misunderstandings. Show examples of past work where possible.
3
1 (End)
Check student’s understanding of Mars by revisiting the KWL chart they did previously. Have class discussions and exit-tickets to check for group and individual understanding.
6
2 (End)
Students prepare the first part of their project (Research Base from the rubric) and put together a short speech to present to a partner.
9
3 (End)
Students perform peer-assessment by quizzing each other about the robots and rovers on Mars unit. Results to be passed on to both students and the teacher so intervention can happen where needed.
11
4 (End)
Half-way check.
Check student’s understanding of Mars by revisiting the KWL chart they did previously. Have class discussions and exit-tickets to check for group and individual understanding.
Furthermore, the teacher will meet with each student individually to give feedback about their progress and where they can go from here.
13
5 (End)
Students prepare a short speech of the first 3 parts of the rubric to present to the teacher.
15
6 (End)
Students take part in a Kahoot quiz about matter relating to the Life on Mars part of the rubric.
16
Practice
Students record themselves presenting their speech. Students will use the rubric to self-assess themselves and make improvements on their performance. Students must also peer-assess their buddy using the rubric in order to help both themselves and their partner improve.
17
Final
Final presentation. The student performs and then receives feedback from the teacher. It is important to note that students are given the chance to re-present if they would like to take onboard the suggestions and show their further understanding.
Remediation and Extension
Remediation - During the project
Students will be given further assistance as needed along the way. The various formative assessments used throughout the project, in conjunction with the schedule above, aims to find which topics need to be reviewed in large, and which students need more individual support with certain topics.
Each task is designed with group work and collaboration taking place. The groups are flued and able to be changed each week depending on circumstances. Initially the groups will be homogeneously assigned, but as the project progresses, the teacher will be able to set groups based on student requirements. This will allow the teacher to slow down and spend more time with students who are struggling with a particular aspect of the project.
Furthermore, students will change groups several times throughout the project. They will work with students of different abilities. This will benefit the lower level students by having them learn from their peers and benefit the higher level students by having them teach their peers, thus solidifying and deepening their understanding.
Remediation - After the project is completed
Students will be given a second chance to present their work after the teacher has given them feedback by using the rubric. Before this second presentation, the teacher will work with the student individually to identify their needs and work with them to help them improve. Students who have the same needs will be grouped together and helped in a group. Students with more individualized needs will be worked with one on one. On top of this, students who finished the project with good scores, will be assigned as mentors. They will watch the students present and use the rubric to offer feedback and help the students.
Once students are confident with their abilities and progress, they will be given a second chance to present to the teacher in order to demonstrate their progress and subject knowledge. After the presentation, the teacher will provide further feedback using the same rubric.
For students who still do not meet expectations after a second presentation, the teacher will meet with them individually to assess their specific needs and requirements. Students will work alongside the teacher to develop an individualised learning plan to help them meet the rubric requirements for ‘Approaches Expectations’.
Finally, if any students still struggle with approaching expectations, the teacher will work with the student to design a personalised rubric together. Taking such a strengths based approach to focus on what the student can do, rather than can’t do, will allow the learner to experience success. This will likely have a positive effect on their future learning.
Extension - During the project
Students who are showing excellent understanding and progress during the scheduled check ups will be offered forms of extension in various ways.
Students who are reaching ‘Meets Expectations’ during the scheduled checkpoints, will be pushed to go a step further and strive for ‘Exceeds Expectations’. They will be grouped with students of a similar level of progress in order to push each other to go further and deepen their understanding. During group work, the teacher will be able to pose specific further questions to these students and have them focus on extending the quality of their work.
Students who are reaching ‘Exceeds Expectations’ during the scheduled checkpoints, will be offered the role of mentor during future workshops. Such students will act as another teacher in the classroom and be given the opportunity to help students who need help. This will not only offer students support, but allow the high-achieving student to solidify their knowledge by becoming an expert on the matter via helping their classmates. These students will also be offered extension tasks during the project while other students are working on core project tasks.
Extension - After the project is finished
Students who achieved high scores on the project will still be given feedback on their work and offered suggestions on what they would improve. The teacher will ask students to revise their work and submit it as an example for future students who take the work.
In addition to this, students who scored ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in the final presentation, will be asked to act as the role of mentor for students who struggled or for those who wish to re-submit and need some advice. Doing so will further enhance students’ understanding of the project.
Finally, students will be given various extension parts of the PBL that they can experiment with at home and submit online. There are a variety of free, open-source projects occurring that students may wish to take part in. These kinds of projects are a great way to extend motivated and/or high-achieving students.
Reteach/Review
The teacher will hand back the KWL charts that students submitted in the first week of the PBL and revised shortly after as an initial way to review. From there, discussion will be used for the teacher to get a sense of class progress and find if any knowledge gaps remain. The teacher will use socratic questioning to check for student understanding, and misunderstandings. Finally, students will be given a Kahoot quiz to check for understanding of the major learning objectives of the project.
As this is a very ‘real world’ topic, the teacher should constantly try to link it to real life launches. As the next launch window to Mars falls in 2022, the teacher should keep in mind to use real life and up-to-date articles and videos when they review and reteach parts of the project. Doing so will connect theoretical knowledge to real-world applications and thus increase the likelihood of learning taking place.
Cooperative learning is another approach to reteaching PBL. It allows students to work together and learn things from each other that they may have missed in class the first time around. For example, students could take part in the sage-and-scribe activity, which would work really well in conjunction with a simplified version of the rubric.
Once the teacher has assessed student understanding, they will be able to make a ‘review and reteach plan’ to carry out before the next unit begins. The aim of such a plan is to make sure all students have understood and completed the competencies set out in the PBL. Such a plan will be divided into two broad sections: class-wide review and individual review.
Content which falls within the class-wide review will be addressed in follow up lessons after the project has finished and in initial introduction lessons before the next project begins. This is done in order to tie ideas together and content previous learning to current learning. The teacher will review content which students struggled with and check for misunderstandings. Once this has taken place, the teacher will put students into groups to discuss with each other and check for understanding.
Content which falls in the individual review will be addressed first as a class wide lesson too. The idea here is to use the brainpower of the class as a whole and have students who do understand explain it to the whole class (so that those who do not yet understand, are learning from their peers but are not embarrassed or singled out). Another strategy is to group students who don’t understand certain concepts together in the same team and use the ‘jigsaw’ activity whereby they learn from other students in the class who do understand, then go back to their group and become the teacher. Finally, the teacher can work individually with students who need extra support, when the above group work is happening. Depending on the students’ needs, different approaches can be taken.
Grouping Strategies
As PBL is inherently a collaborative experience, it’s important to take into consideration ways in which to group students while they work.
Students who are struggling overall (Start and Finish)
Group work can be really beneficial for students who are struggling. By placing students into various groupings and pairings along the way, students get a chance to work with, and learn from, various students along the way. Furthermore, students who struggle often need some stability, which the Start and Finish approach to grouping provides. Finally, I believe that this grouping strategy would be effective for students who struggle overall as it allows them to learn from peers, but also to teach peers too. This might seem counterintuitive, but actually one of the best ways to learn is to explain something to others, so having students jump to another group, then return to their group to explain something, would be a great way to help struggling students.
Students who are not engaged (The Maze)
Sometimes students are not engaged because they haven’t given the project a chance and they assume it to be boring. By grouping students in The Maze style, students experience a variety of different groupings each lesson and are always trying something new and working with new people. I believe that this will increase their motivation and the likelihood that they will succeed in the project.
Students who are doing well in one area but not another (Catch and Release)
Students will be placed in mixed-ability groups throughout most of the project. As the project will hit many areas of STEAM, some students may excel at one particular part of the project, but fall behind in another. The goal of these mixed-ability groups is for students to recognise that they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some students might be better at art, while others are better at Maths. Students are in groups for a reason: to collaborate and help each other do tasks that are conducive to group work. A secondary goal for this project is for students to become more understanding of each other and to recognise that most of us aren’t experts at everything, but there’s usually at least one area where we can do well.
Due to this, I think the Catch and Release method would work well. This strategy starts with students working together, then moving on to working individually. I believe that they could help and support each other in this initial phase, before moving off to work as individuals for the rest of the task.
Students who need to be challenged (The Maze)
I think using The Maze grouping would be good for students who need to be challenged. It would allow students to work with a broad cross-section of students in the classroom and also to challenge themselves by working with students of varying abilities. Teaching others is often the best way to learn, so by occasionally grouping high level students with those who need help, would be a great way to challenge students. Furthermore, The Maze grouping strategy would be a really good way to group higher level students together during times where the teacher needs to work with those students who need extra support.
Activity 2 - James Sharp
Monitoring
Monitoring students throughout the entirety of a project is vital. Without constant monitoring and feedback, students won’t know for certain if they are on track and how they can get back on track if they are lost. Thus, giving opportunities for students to receive feedback along the way is necessary. It’s also important for students to be given time and assistance to turn said feedback they are given into feed-forward, which is why feedback must be given during the project, rather than only after it.
Firstly, it is important to give the rubric to students at the very beginning of the project, so that there is sufficient time for them to understand it and internalise it. It is also important to review the different parts of the rubric along the way so that students are constantly informed of what they are being assessed on. Students perform better when they have a clear understanding against which they are to be assessed. It is also important to review the rubric every so often so that students’ misconceptions can be brought forward and the teacher can get an idea if students are on the right track or not.
Based on the above reasoning, the following assessments will be implemented throughout the project in order to keep students’ aware of where they are and aware of what needs to be completed.
Peer-Review
- Students will be assigned a buddy throughout the project (this can change throughout the project if needed). Buddies should work together to ensure they are each on track.
- Students will do mock-presentations where they use the rubric to score each other using the rubric. Based on this feedback, students will be able to fine-tune their presentations to make sure they are hitting all of the targets.
Self-Assessment
- Students will be asked to self-assess their progress at the end of each unit.
- Students will record a video of themselves presenting a mock-presentation. Students will use the rubric to mark themselves. The rubric, along with the video and comments, will be submitted to the teacher to check how well students are progressing.
Entry & Exit tickets
- The teacher will periodically use these to check for whole class understanding and also individual student understanding. When broad misunderstandings arise, the teacher can address students as a class. When student-specific misunderstandings occur, the teacher can lead class discussions about this so that students can understand from peer-teaching. Then the teacher can meet with the student individually to ensure understanding.
Quizzes
- Students will be periodically quizzed on learning content via Kahoot to check their progress. The teacher will be able to work out class-wide misunderstandings and also student-specific ones too.
Checkpoint schedule
Having a checkpoint schedule in place will increase the likelihood of students meeting the project goals and outcomes. Along with this, it will ensure that feedback and monitoring happens throughout the project. Often teachers have good intentions, however fail to follow up on giving feedback due to their busy schedules. Furthermore, having a clearly visible checkpoint schedule and breaking a task down into ‘chunks’ can make things more manageable for students. Some students might believe they are on the right track, but have misunderstood the rubric. Therefore, having a set schedule in place allows the teacher to guide students and make sure that they keep on the right track.
Note: Due to the setup of PBL at my school, the project will take place one class a week over 17 weeks. The week number could change depending on circumstances in the school the project is being deployed in, but the rest of the schedule would remain the same.
Week No.
Unit
Notes
1
1 (Start)
Read through the rubric together before starting the project. Discuss the rubric and check for misunderstandings. Show examples of past work where possible.
3
1 (End)
Check student’s understanding of Mars by revisiting the KWL chart they did previously. Have class discussions and exit-tickets to check for group and individual understanding.
6
2 (End)
Students prepare the first part of their project (Research Base from the rubric) and put together a short speech to present to a partner.
9
3 (End)
Students perform peer-assessment by quizzing each other about the robots and rovers on Mars unit. Results to be passed on to both students and the teacher so intervention can happen where needed.
11
4 (End)
Half-way check.
Check student’s understanding of Mars by revisiting the KWL chart they did previously. Have class discussions and exit-tickets to check for group and individual understanding.
Furthermore, the teacher will meet with each student individually to give feedback about their progress and where they can go from here.
13
5 (End)
Students prepare a short speech of the first 3 parts of the rubric to present to the teacher.
15
6 (End)
Students take part in a Kahoot quiz about matter relating to the Life on Mars part of the rubric.
16
Practice
Students record themselves presenting their speech. Students will use the rubric to self-assess themselves and make improvements on their performance. Students must also peer-assess their buddy using the rubric in order to help both themselves and their partner improve.
17
Final
Final presentation. The student performs and then receives feedback from the teacher. It is important to note that students are given the chance to re-present if they would like to take onboard the suggestions and show their further understanding.
Remediation and Extension
Remediation - During the project
Students will be given further assistance as needed along the way. The various formative assessments used throughout the project, in conjunction with the schedule above, aims to find which topics need to be reviewed in large, and which students need more individual support with certain topics.
Each task is designed with group work and collaboration taking place. The groups are flued and able to be changed each week depending on circumstances. Initially the groups will be homogeneously assigned, but as the project progresses, the teacher will be able to set groups based on student requirements. This will allow the teacher to slow down and spend more time with students who are struggling with a particular aspect of the project.
Furthermore, students will change groups several times throughout the project. They will work with students of different abilities. This will benefit the lower level students by having them learn from their peers and benefit the higher level students by having them teach their peers, thus solidifying and deepening their understanding.
Remediation - After the project is completed
Students will be given a second chance to present their work after the teacher has given them feedback by using the rubric. Before this second presentation, the teacher will work with the student individually to identify their needs and work with them to help them improve. Students who have the same needs will be grouped together and helped in a group. Students with more individualized needs will be worked with one on one. On top of this, students who finished the project with good scores, will be assigned as mentors. They will watch the students present and use the rubric to offer feedback and help the students.
Once students are confident with their abilities and progress, they will be given a second chance to present to the teacher in order to demonstrate their progress and subject knowledge. After the presentation, the teacher will provide further feedback using the same rubric.
For students who still do not meet expectations after a second presentation, the teacher will meet with them individually to assess their specific needs and requirements. Students will work alongside the teacher to develop an individualised learning plan to help them meet the rubric requirements for ‘Approaches Expectations’.
Finally, if any students still struggle with approaching expectations, the teacher will work with the student to design a personalised rubric together. Taking such a strengths based approach to focus on what the student can do, rather than can’t do, will allow the learner to experience success. This will likely have a positive effect on their future learning.
Extension - During the project
Students who are showing excellent understanding and progress during the scheduled check ups will be offered forms of extension in various ways.
Students who are reaching ‘Meets Expectations’ during the scheduled checkpoints, will be pushed to go a step further and strive for ‘Exceeds Expectations’. They will be grouped with students of a similar level of progress in order to push each other to go further and deepen their understanding. During group work, the teacher will be able to pose specific further questions to these students and have them focus on extending the quality of their work.
Students who are reaching ‘Exceeds Expectations’ during the scheduled checkpoints, will be offered the role of mentor during future workshops. Such students will act as another teacher in the classroom and be given the opportunity to help students who need help. This will not only offer students support, but allow the high-achieving student to solidify their knowledge by becoming an expert on the matter via helping their classmates. These students will also be offered extension tasks during the project while other students are working on core project tasks.
Extension - After the project is finished
Students who achieved high scores on the project will still be given feedback on their work and offered suggestions on what they would improve. The teacher will ask students to revise their work and submit it as an example for future students who take the work.
In addition to this, students who scored ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in the final presentation, will be asked to act as the role of mentor for students who struggled or for those who wish to re-submit and need some advice. Doing so will further enhance students’ understanding of the project.
Finally, students will be given various extension parts of the PBL that they can experiment with at home and submit online. There are a variety of free, open-source projects occurring that students may wish to take part in. These kinds of projects are a great way to extend motivated and/or high-achieving students.
Reteach/Review
The teacher will hand back the KWL charts that students submitted in the first week of the PBL and revised shortly after as an initial way to review. From there, discussion will be used for the teacher to get a sense of class progress and find if any knowledge gaps remain. The teacher will use socratic questioning to check for student understanding, and misunderstandings. Finally, students will be given a Kahoot quiz to check for understanding of the major learning objectives of the project.
As this is a very ‘real world’ topic, the teacher should constantly try to link it to real life launches. As the next launch window to Mars falls in 2022, the teacher should keep in mind to use real life and up-to-date articles and videos when they review and reteach parts of the project. Doing so will connect theoretical knowledge to real-world applications and thus increase the likelihood of learning taking place.
Cooperative learning is another approach to reteaching PBL. It allows students to work together and learn things from each other that they may have missed in class the first time around. For example, students could take part in the sage-and-scribe activity, which would work really well in conjunction with a simplified version of the rubric.
Once the teacher has assessed student understanding, they will be able to make a ‘review and reteach plan’ to carry out before the next unit begins. The aim of such a plan is to make sure all students have understood and completed the competencies set out in the PBL. Such a plan will be divided into two broad sections: class-wide review and individual review.
Content which falls within the class-wide review will be addressed in follow up lessons after the project has finished and in initial introduction lessons before the next project begins. This is done in order to tie ideas together and content previous learning to current learning. The teacher will review content which students struggled with and check for misunderstandings. Once this has taken place, the teacher will put students into groups to discuss with each other and check for understanding.
Content which falls in the individual review will be addressed first as a class wide lesson too. The idea here is to use the brainpower of the class as a whole and have students who do understand explain it to the whole class (so that those who do not yet understand, are learning from their peers but are not embarrassed or singled out). Another strategy is to group students who don’t understand certain concepts together in the same team and use the ‘jigsaw’ activity whereby they learn from other students in the class who do understand, then go back to their group and become the teacher. Finally, the teacher can work individually with students who need extra support, when the above group work is happening. Depending on the students’ needs, different approaches can be taken.
Grouping Strategies
As PBL is inherently a collaborative experience, it’s important to take into consideration ways in which to group students while they work.
Students who are struggling overall (Start and Finish)
Group work can be really beneficial for students who are struggling. By placing students into various groupings and pairings along the way, students get a chance to work with, and learn from, various students along the way. Furthermore, students who struggle often need some stability, which the Start and Finish approach to grouping provides. Finally, I believe that this grouping strategy would be effective for students who struggle overall as it allows them to learn from peers, but also to teach peers too. This might seem counterintuitive, but actually one of the best ways to learn is to explain something to others, so having students jump to another group, then return to their group to explain something, would be a great way to help struggling students.
Students who are not engaged (The Maze)
Sometimes students are not engaged because they haven’t given the project a chance and they assume it to be boring. By grouping students in The Maze style, students experience a variety of different groupings each lesson and are always trying something new and working with new people. I believe that this will increase their motivation and the likelihood that they will succeed in the project.
Students who are doing well in one area but not another (Catch and Release)
Students will be placed in mixed-ability groups throughout most of the project. As the project will hit many areas of STEAM, some students may excel at one particular part of the project, but fall behind in another. The goal of these mixed-ability groups is for students to recognise that they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some students might be better at art, while others are better at Maths. Students are in groups for a reason: to collaborate and help each other do tasks that are conducive to group work. A secondary goal for this project is for students to become more understanding of each other and to recognise that most of us aren’t experts at everything, but there’s usually at least one area where we can do well.
Due to this, I think the Catch and Release method would work well. This strategy starts with students working together, then moving on to working individually. I believe that they could help and support each other in this initial phase, before moving off to work as individuals for the rest of the task.
Students who need to be challenged (The Maze)
I think using The Maze grouping would be good for students who need to be challenged. It would allow students to work with a broad cross-section of students in the classroom and also to challenge themselves by working with students of varying abilities. Teaching others is often the best way to learn, so by occasionally grouping high level students with those who need help, would be a great way to challenge students. Furthermore, The Maze grouping strategy would be a really good way to group higher level students together during times where the teacher needs to work with those students who need extra support.