Reading Reflection #9

               A method of understanding prior-knowledge of students is the K-W-L activity. This activity is used to have the student put down what they already know about the topic (K-know), what they want like to learn (W-want), and what they have learned (L-learned). Not everyone is starting at the same place. Similarly, the distance they travel during a project will not be the same for each learner.

                The importance of establishing anchors for a project is to find out your students’ prior understanding. You gain a sense of where students are starting and how far they are going as they work to meet learning goals. In a project-based classroom, you expand the opportunities to differentiate instruction and help all learners be successful.

                Several ways to assess what students have learned during the project are an online grade book, a traditional test at the end of a nontraditional literature project, ask students what they learned through a reflection paper or an interview, and  have students create something new that asks them to summarize or synthesize what they have learned. This novel task gives you the opportunity to look for transfer of knowledge.  Modeling real-world assessment is also a good way to assess what students have learned during the project. This promotes critical thinking and this additional level of assessment was a natural connection.

                The concepts in this chapter relate to our project because as future teachers we need to know the appropriate way as well as many ways to assess our students on what they have learned. We also need to be able to assess them to see if they got a general knowledge of the topic or if they were able to know the topic inside and out and become an expert.