Assessment and Rigour in Project-Based Learning

Here is the blog I wrote for The Innovation Unit about assessment and rigour in Project Based Learning. First published in 2015.

“I am a 5b”:  Developing Rigour and Removing Judgements using Project Based Learning.

When I first started to develop Project Based Learning (PBL) in my classroom a big concern of mine was rigour.  Too many times I had seen poor examples of ‘projects’ with wooly outcomes and very little learning taking place.  I always wondered how much students actually enjoyed these ‘projects’ as, in my experience, students are rarely fooled by the whiz bang lessons and actually enjoy lessons where they are learning and developing their skills.  As is often the case, my skepticism soon subsided and I began to really appreciate how effective projects are, in fact, rooted in real, deep learning and my understanding of what rigour actually means was brought into question.

What do we actually mean when we say ‘rigour’?

I started to ask myself the question, what is rigour?  Traditionally the sign of learning in a lesson would be the amount of work produced.  If students produced a lot, it was seen as a visible sign of hard work in a particular lesson.  However, what about the conversations the students were having?  Isn’t working through a range of ideas to come up with a solution to a difficult problem also a form of rigour?  Could we even go a whole lesson without writing in books and it still be a rigorous session?  I still haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer to these questions, but it is something I am constantly thinking about.  

Another point which got me thinking a lot was how my teaching used to be.  I would select the event from the vast history of the world and decide it was worthy of focus.  Then I would select certain events or people from within that time period based on my view of which were the significant events.  I would then select the sources and information the students would use to find out about this period of history.  I would form the assessment based around what I had provided for them.  All this assumed that students had no prior knowledge of the topic (which Nuthall in The Hidden Lives of Learners suggests is unlikely).  When I look back I really do question the rigour of what I was doing.  There was a lot of work in books.  Generally students did well in assessments, perhaps partly because they already knew a lot of what we were studying before I had even started teaching.  But, were my students really engaged in rigorous and exciting inquiry based research?  Were they actually developing a deep knowledge and understanding of a period in history?  The answer has to be a resounding no.  They were going through the motions which I had developed for them in order to prove their learning in a summative assessment - not the kind of 21st Century learner I want my students to become.

How I used to assess learning

Linked to rigour is assessment.  Previous to engaging with PBL my formative assessment would be my questioning but mostly my taking in of student books and marking their work.  This usually resulted in me spending many sunny weekends locked in my house working through a pile of student books which would be handed out a week after the learning took place.  I am confident that this was not the ‘appropriate and timely’ feedback Hattie suggests is so effective!  It was also the source of much discontent about the profession and I believe one of the major contributing factors to why so many teachers leave the classroom within five years.  

This would be followed by my summative assessment which would sum up all of the students learning (or lack of!) in a number, for example Level 4a, which was inputted into the school system and placed on a student report - that’s it, a number.  This number really did not mean a great deal to me because of course this number was not a true reflection of a students learning over the course of a half term - but crucially, it meant a lot to the students, who would often declare themselves to actually be that number in any given lesson; ‘I like English because I am a 4b’, ‘I am not good at Maths, I am a 3c’ and more worryingly ‘I am stupid because I am a...’.  Statements like this genuinely led me to question how we could synthesise Dweck and others growth mindset ideas within the current assessment model.

Making assessment more useful

After beginning to implement PBL in my classroom I began to view assessment very differently.  Because my students were engaged in genuinely rigorous self directed research leading to a real world outcome, I was able to move from the front of the classroom to work in depth with individuals and groups.  This is what distinguished my PBL style teaching compared to my previous teaching model - students now enter my room knowing what they need to do, why they need to do it and how to get better at it and can get straight on with their work. This frees me up to take a more subtle and focused approach in the classroom.  Each lesson I aim to work with each group in the class and have a conversation with them about their learning and assess any misconceptions or gaps right away.  I also use Harkness Debates as a form to assess a students deep understanding of an event - I want to see if my students can take the content they have learnt and apply it to different scenarios or questions and link it to other events they know about.  I can do this in quite a bit of depth and tailor my questions to the individual, rather than to the middle of the class.  In a recent example of this, my year nine students had a rich discussion about whether or not the Enlightenment was the main cause of the French Revolution.  I had not ‘taught’ them in the traditional sense but I was astounded by their knowledge and their ability to respond on the spot in a discussion.  This was a way for me to assess how well they had carried out research and how well they could apply what they had learnt.

I also try to get through a set number of 1:1 sessions with students each session.  This means each lesson I will speak to between 5-8 students in depth about their learning and mark their work with them sat with me.  They then immediately act upon the feedback I have given and redraft it there and then.  Not only do I have a lot more of my weekend free, I can actually see students progressing with their work and more importantly, so can they.  One anecdotal example of this was a year seven student last year who was really struggling to understand the structures used for analytical writing (as opposed to story telling) in History.  Previously this would have only been addressed at a surface level by written feedback in his book.  Through these 1:1 sessions I was able to talk with him about the problem, provide him written feedback and then ask for a re-draft.  It took six re-drafts for him to finally ‘get it’ - but the key fact is, he progressed and did it at his own pace without being left behind or slowing the progress of other students who could already structure analytical writing.  The next time we did a similar task, he only required one re-draft.

This form of assessment also develops a sense of accountability in the classroom.  As a teacher I am able to pull them up if they have not completed enough work or it is a poor standard.  Teachers often wonder how to develop a level of independence in the classroom and I believe holding students to account with them in front of you in a relatively formal 1:1 session is one way to do this.

Moving away from NC Levels

As for summative assessment I still think it is useful for teachers and students to evaluate their learning over the course of a project however, I have started to include a lot more depth to their feedback and invited students and others into the summative assessment process - assessment is done with the student and students can clearly see their strengths and weaknesses across a whole project and reflect on how to address these weaknesses independently.  We are trialing a system whereby each project is assessed out of 100%.  30% on ‘project skills’ such as organisation, collaboration and oracy - this is done at regular intervals as teachers but also students are asked to reflect on these areas.  The conversations happens when a student’s reflection is very different to the teachers reflection.  60% of the assessment is more traditional and is led by the subjects involved in the project.  In my current project that means that 15% is awarded for a historical essay, 15% for a formal exam at the end, 15% for a creative journal in drama and 15% for their final drama piece.  The final 10% is awarded for effort across the project.  Crucially, at many different assessment points it is not just the teacher doing the assessment but other stakeholders also.  Drama experts will have a say in the assessment of the final drama piece and parents will join the conversation about effort.  Students are still awarded a final percentage, but the process is entirely transparent and is more of a discussion rather than a judgement.

Next steps

The next step on our assessment journey is to look at how our students can create work which has real value to the world in the way Ron Berger describes in his books.  We have already taken steps to do this at School 21 with our WWI Exhibition which we opened to the public but we are looking at ways we can embed this to a greater extent in our curriculum.

We are still experimenting with this and we still have a lot to do.  What I am convinced about is that my teaching has become genuinely more rigorous and my assessment more useful through engaging with PBL.

Hattie, John, Visible Learning, (Routledge, 2008)

Nuthall, Graham, The Hidden Lives of Learners, (NZCER Press, 2007)

Dweck, Carol, Mindsets, (Robinson, 2012)

Berger, Ron, Ethic of Excellence, (2003)

Berger, Ron, Leaders of their own learning, (2014)