About This Series
This is the third of three blogs about the role assessment can plan in supporting, engaging, and motivating students engaged in project-based learning (PBL). Before digging in here, you might want to read our previous blogs, Assessing Along the Way to Support Learning Goals and Motivating Students through Transparent Assessment Plans.
Introduction
Every teacher knows the pain of pouring hours of time into crafting feedback for students, only to have them quickly glance at it or, worse, only look at their grade and disregard the feedback altogether. The goal of feedback, of course, is to help students improve their work, so how do teachers help students use feedback well?
Students often need their progress (or lack thereof) made visible to them, time to respond and re-work their drafts or other products, and they need to build the skill to support each other rather than waiting for the teacher to always provide advice and adjustment. In this blog, we will explore those strategies as ways to make assessment actionable.
Support Students in Tracking Progress
In our last blog, we shared the idea of learning focused communication regarding assessment (as opposed to listing how much each assignment is “worth.”) The chart below shows what that learning focused communication might look like, starting with the learning targets, then listing how progress will be measured, and explaining the purpose of the cluster of tasks and formative assessments.
Learning Focused Communication Regarding Assessments
Learning Targets | Assessment Tools | What This Evidence Helps Us Know About Your Learning |
|---|---|---|
I can gather interesting facts and details about my topic.  |
| The bibliography and notes will show that you are on your way towards a great narrative non-fiction piece. If you are stuck at this stage, get help before 3/12. |
I can tell a story of change through a well-drafted narrative nonfiction piece about my topic.  |
| The activities related to the structure of your narrative non-fiction piece (the analysis, your planner, and your drafts) will show you understand how to transition from notes to a more developed piece. If you get stuck during this stage, get help before 3/12. |
I can tell a story of change through a well-developed, collaborative model and presentation about my topic.  |
| Your work with your team to collect artifacts and your draft model show that your team is on its way toward developing a strong presentation. If you are grappling with any of these parts, get help before 3/15. |
I can collaborate effectively with peers.  |
| Collaboration will be critical in this project, as it is in life. I will be giving you feedback about collaboration as we enter the final phase of the project. If you need support, please reach out first to your teammates and then to me. |
When teachers plan learning focused communication, it’s easy to take the next step and help students track and reflect on their progress merely by adding another column to the chart described above in which students review their work and plan for the next steps. It could look something like this:
Learning Targets | Assessment Tools | What This Evidence Helps Us Know About Your Learning | Your Reflection |
I can gather interesting facts and details about my topic.  |
| The bibliography and notes will show that you are on your way towards a great narrative non-fiction piece. If you are stuck at this stage, get help before 3/12. | “3/10: I have completed my bibliography and notes, but you said my topic notes need more work. I don’t think I have enough information or maybe the right information yet. I am not sure how to take the next step, so can you help me?” |
Not many students I have taught intuitively have that kind of insight into their own work (some do, but not very many). In fact, that’s likely what set the highest-achieving students apart from others in the past. Making time and creating a structure for all students to think about their own work and success is an important equity move, according to Joe Feldman in his book Grading for Equity. Feldman states,
The ways we [traditionally] grade disproportionately favor students with privilege and harm students with less privilege: students of color, from low-income families, who receive special education services, and English learners. (Feldman, xxxv)
Building the habits of reflection and support seeking can set your students up for success long term.
Give Students Embedded Opportunities to Address Gaps and Re-Learn
We recommend that you combine reflective opportunities like that described above with setting aside in-class time for students to review feedback, get additional help if needed, and revise and improve their work. Plan for this from the beginning of your project plans, building in 1:1 check-ins, review “workshops” to be provided to students who need them, and “catch up and must do” (or “ketchup and mustard”) days or blocks strategically so that when students get feedback, they can be assured that there is both support and time for them to respond already available.
If this is transparent on your project calendar, as we suggested in blog 2 of this series, even better. Our traditional approach of having students come after school for help favors the students who have the time and transportation to do so; students who do not have responsibilities at home or a job after school.
A more equitable, and in my experience, much more effective approach is to plan to support students during class time, taking a differentiated approach that gives students what they need based on what their work and your feedback suggests they need.
If you’re thinking, “That sounds great, but time! I have a high-stakes test to prepare for!” you might check out our colleague James Fester’s blog, Can PBL Coexist with Standardized Tests? Yes, Here’s How. In fact, a great deal of what James and I describe are things that help more kids succeed on important tests.
Use Structured Protocols to Help Students Give Peer Feedback
Providing helpful feedback takes a lot of time. Students will get more useful feedback, more often, if you teach them how to help each other through good peer critique. Any teacher who has asked students to give each other feedback and been discouraged by the vapid round of “it’s good” and “I like it” will benefit from teaching kids how to use feedback protocols effectively.
Part of the success of feedback protocols lies in students' understanding of the criteria by which any work will ultimately be graded. In our last blog, we discussed involving students in the development of criteria, so they really understood what was expected. When students have and analyze a model and are coached to be kind, specific, and helpful in their feedback, they are very capable of helping their friends do better work. Take a look at how well students can give feedback in this video, Austin’s Butterfly. If you’ve never watched this video, it’s really a joy!
Kind, specific, and helpful are wonderful norms for peer feedback, but they don’t give all kids a structure in which they can work. Therefore, many teachers provide structured directions or protocols to help students work through feedback. One such protocol, The Ladder of Feedback, is featured in our e-book Connecting Together.
The video below explains how The Ladder of Feedback works step by step:
Applied Coaching for Projects offers this Ladder of Feedback Handout that might be helpful to your students. Other feedback protocols are available from Project Zero, PBLWorks, and EL Education.
Make Your Feedback Actionable
As you can see from this three-part series, making feedback actionable takes intentional planning, clear communication, structured processes, and time. But, the return on this investment is enormous.
When we shift away from using assessment as a tool for judgment to growth, we empower students to see their potential in ways they may not have imagined. Students grow more empowered, confident, and resilient when they realize that they can learn and do more than people give young people credit for.
Actionable assessment has the power to change the trajectory of your students’ lives. When we make assessment meaningful and growth-focused, we don’t just measure learning—we inspire it.
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