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She planned to keep reworking it, applying layers of acrylic until she got the play of light just the way she wanted. Then she laughed and said, “You should see what’s underneath! I bet there are three or four versions beneath this one.” Not only was the student producing a lovely painting — which would one day grace her family’s living room — but she was paying close attention to her learning process. At the end of each class, she added a short reflection to her project journal, which she was keeping on a Google Doc shared with her teacher.

As I listened to this student describe her learning experience, however, it seemed that the more meaningful assessment was happening long before the project came to a close.

Encourage students to make self-assessment a habit, too. Invite students to request workshops or mini-lessons in areas where they want more help. One PBL teacher reserves a corner of the class whiteboard for just this purpose. Use journals or blogs to encourage goal-setting, self-assessment and reflection throughout a project.

More and different types of learning and teaching are available in the digital environment. We must convince ourselves that we don’t yet understand digital education so we may open the doors more broadly to innovation and creativity

we shouldn’t set off on a cruise, and build the ship as we go

Few institutions pay much attention to re-creating these spaces online

There is a risk that the mistakes of the past – both teaching to the test by schools and micro-management of the school system through the means of exams and league tables – may be repeated in the EBC.

nternational evidence from high-performing education systems suggests more formative assessment during schooling would be beneficial

In a sense, a formative assessment is practice and is, therefore, not heavily weighted in the grading system.” At Sanborn Regional High School, summative assignments must account for at least 90% of a final course grade.

We do not make use of averaging by quarters or trimesters to compute a student’s final course grade. Instead, our students know that their grade will be calculated based on all of their work for the entire course.  

Reassessment: Reassessment is an important part of any competency-based grading system. Students learn at different rates, and they need multiple chances to demonstrate mastery of a competency or skill.

The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education.  You can see a summary of each innovation at the menu on the right.

Those factors include integrating technology into intervention classes; setting aside time for professional learning and collaboration for teachers; allowing students to use technology to collaborate; integrating technology into core curricula at least weekly; administering online formative assessments at least weekly; lowering the student-to-computer ratio as much as possible; using virtual field trips at least monthly; encouraging students to use search engines daily; and providing training for principals on how to encourage best practices for technology implementation. Only about 1 percent of the 1,000 schools surveyed by Project RED followed all those steps, and those that did “saw dramatic increases in student achievement and had revenue-positive experiences,” Ms. Wilson said.

When approaching any learning goal, experienced teachers typically know the misunderstandings students are likely to have and the kinds of errors they are likely to make. The key is not to wait for these problems to be verified through an assessment but to build lessons around them.

rubric-based alternative