Projects Can Support the Common Core

As educators continue to search for the next best thing in education, trends continue to flare and flicker. Trending today means teachers are preparing students for the next round of standardized tests. They are drilling into the standards as they strive to ensure that every child is prepared for a variety of selected choice and short answer test questions.

These tests are being called performance-based in that they present students with real world problems. In one example, students are asked to rank-order the seating capacity of baseball stadiums and multiply that by the ticket cost to determine which stadium takes in the most ticket money. They are not performance-based in that students don’t identify the problem, develop a plan to solve it, show their analysis, evaluate their process, or present what they have learned.

The assessment of real performance and problem-based learning is inherently subjective and a scanner or robot cannot measure these complex processes and outcomes. Teachers who work collaboratively with others on the design of projects and also participate in professional development activities on scoring them, find that with the right tools and support the accuracy and reliability of scoring projects improves.

In doing so, teachers who rely on project-based learning are finding ways to blend the Common Core’s emphasis on literacy and numeracy with 21^st century skills such as collaboration, problem solving, and creativity. They are blending the best of assessment in their classrooms where knowledge and understanding are assessed alongside inquiry, analysis, and application.

You can find more ideas at Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org/blog/pbl-role-shift-to-ccss-sara-hallermann