Identifying Project Based Assessments
How to Determine if an Assignment Involves Higher Order Thinking
Feb 9, 2009
As teachers seek ways to make their lessons and curriculum more rigorous they frequently encounter the idea of project based assessments. Not every project in the classroom, however, promotes the higher order thinking skills that are necessary to define a lesson as rigorous. There are some key components a project needs to have in order to be classified as project based learning.
Key Elements to Project Based Assessments
Projects are sometimes considered a fun alternative to a worksheet or an alternative way to end a week or a unit of study. Though project based assessments can be used as a way to review material through students’ using the knowledge they studied, they are more than a change of pace for the classroom. There are several factors that identify a project that utilizes higher order thinking skills.
- The project is standards-based. This means it is tied in to the curriculum standards for the course or unit of study, typically with a question the students are to investigate.
- The project is student centered, where the students are the focus of the learning and the teacher facilitates and assists where needed.
- Students investigate an issue or question, something to which they can relate or to which they can find the internal desire to search for an answer.
- The project requires students to use tools, such as technology, research, organizational and time management skills, to determine their answer and create the product to display what they have learned.
- The project encourages collaboration, either with peers, community members or specialists.
- Students may need to use knowledge from multiple subjects in order to answer the question or create a product to display the results.
Examples of Project Based Assignments
Project based assignments take many forms; the key is to include the higher order thinking skills. Examples are as varied as the teachers who develop them and the students for whom they are created.
Consider two teachers who each have students read a certain novel. One teacher might have students then write a new ending chapter; requiring them to keep in mind the time period and the previous actions of the characters. Another might have students create the front page of a newspaper that might have been printed at the same time as the novel’s setting. In both cases the teachers would tie in the assignment with a standard, and make sure to promote group work while engaging students in a project that requires them to use knowledge they have to solve the problem.
Project based assignments can add a rigorous element to a course. When well constructed so that students use higher order thinking skills, these projects can assess how well students meet the course standards while providing a student centered, rigorous assessment of multiple skills.
Reference: Introduction to Project Based Learning, Buck Institute for Education, 2007.
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