Effective Assessment in PBL

My PBL unit assessments meet the Key Principles of Assessment criteria in the following ways:

Assessment is for Students

As this project was created specifically for international students at in the community college context, it is clearly relevant to the lives of the intended learner audience - community college international students. The iterative nature of the project allows students to become confident and articulate about the knowledge they acquire and the products that they generate throughout the PBL unit.

Assessment is Faithful to the Work Students Actually Do

This PBL unit include multiple opportunities for self reflection on the progress of the group project. In addition, since the self reflections are written, the students will have ample opportunity to practice the language skills that they need to acquire in order to be successful in the culminating summative assessments (website and essay). The objectives and requirements are clear from the onset of each portion of the project so that students clearly understand what they need to know and what they need to be able to do to be successful in producing an excellent project and in the course.

Assessment is Public

Rubrics and scoring sheets are provided throughout the PBL unit so that students are aware of what is expected of them prior to the completion of the unit tasks. At then end of the unit, the student created resource websites are presented to faculty across the college campus and students present their research in a public presentation or panel discussion. The audience of the public presentation includes both international and resident peers, ESL faculty, faculty from other disciplines, staff, and administrators.

Assessment Promotes Ongoing Self-Reflection and Critical Inquiry

This portion of my PBL unit may need revising. Since ESL is a skills field as opposed to a content field, it may be difficult to adjust to a PBL type of assessment where criteria is open-ended. Students must achieve a certain level of grammaticality and complexity in their writing. These factors are more concrete and objective than content courses. However, the content and organization of say the summative written assessment may allow for some open-ended revision.