Assessment
Tests in mathematics, reading, writing, biology, and history are readily available. However, assessing critical thinking, planning and organization, problem solving and presentation skills requires ongoing project-specific performance evaluation via journals, self-reflections, rubrics, process analysis sheets, deadline completion check-offs, and culminating presentations of learning. The most important goal of environmental awareness remains the most difficult to capture in quantification. We propose that a hands-on field experience will better instill an active concern and stewardship for the environment than a didactic approach. The final test for environmental awareness, however, does not belong to any classroom assessment but rests with our survival.
Many classical assessments can be used to enhance and evaluate this project. Matching these assessments to content delivered will measure and reinforce student acquisition of content standards. However, projects are constructed to incorporate content in the larger context of critical thinking and applied learning skills. In order to measure these student abilities, successful projects employ a continuing stream of process assessments. Each step along the way to the larger project goal is expected, noted, and sometimes measured. Records of student effort, cooperation, and completion rates are continually kept. By doing so, casual workshop atmospheres are imbued with expectations that provide direction and order to students frequently at different places or at different tasks. Ongoing process checks can also be used to find problems before it becomes too late, to ascertain when it is time to move on, and to pace re-teaching or direct instruction.
Such process checks can be as simple as quick oral "pulse taking" at the end of the day. Such general class discussion will frequently reveal problems and set back, as concerned students express their needs for more time or instruction. Such oral assessment is likely to be for the benefit of instruction rather than for direct student assessment.
In logs or journals students might answer a series of prompts such as:
What did you complete today?
What went well today? What did not?
How well did you work toward the reaching the target?
Do you need more time? Why?
Such written work allows quieter students a chance to voice their concern. In addition, log questions can be tailored to the specific requirements of the assignments. Such questions can also be more probing about individual behavior and responsibility. Logs and journals allow for individual assessment rewards.
Long-term projects, which include a series of steps that must be completed in order, require timelines with completion check off dates. While it is advisable to allow for the occasional postponement, ongoing process activities (as mentioned above) will be necessary to achieve check off dates.
Quality is important for each project step as well as the final culminating product. As these final products differ depending upon the project, each product assessment will differ. It is useful to develop rubrics to assess these products. A rubric's categories can reflect the broad range of aspects of a given project, as well as the quality and distinction found within each category. Final product rubrics should be reviewed and discusses early in the project, so that students will know what they will be held accountable for. Rubric review might entail the creation and construction of rubrics by the students themselves. In that case, teachers and students have collectively agreed upon the project's expectations. (For a sample process log and presentation rubric, see Appendices III-1 and III-2.)