Rounded Project Work

The coaching course over the last two days reminded me of a new Assessment is for Learning Tool that I have recently developed for my first year class, but not blogged about (I’m not sure why – I think developed it during the time of intense busyness a couple of weeks ago!).

The reason I was reminded about it was because on the coaching course we were looking at ‘wheels of work’ and ‘wheels of life’. I have used similar tools for a number of years now in canoe coach education. There’s a good online version of these resources on the BREFI Website if you want to find out more what I’m talking about. The only problem with the on-line version is that they are un-flexible and the segments are labelled for you. A better way is to start with a blank diagram and then add your own labels.

Anyway, I used a similar activity recently with one of my S1 classes to give them feedback for their weather projects. The assessment criteria I used was recorded on the form ‘How rounded is your project’. I looked through each project and gave a mark out of 5 for data analysis, project in on time, creativity, use of ICT, following instructions, content, presentation and dependence on help sheets (the students knew that this was the marking criteria before they started the project).

For each of the assessment criteria I marked a ‘cross’ on the marksheet in the correct section of the circle and on the correct line (1 – 5). For some of the criteria I also wrote some feedback (although I kept this minimal). When I handed the projects back I was met with cries of ‘you haven’t given me a mark!’ and ‘which project was the best in the class?’.

I explained to the class that they had to look at how rounded their project was from the circle and decide on what they could do to improve their attainment. The students then filled in the box on the right hand side of the mark sheet before I gave them their overall mark. It was interesting to note that none of the class realised that the overall mark simply consisted in adding up all of the marks between 1 – 5 for the eight assessment criteria.

The exercise went well and it is something that I will continue to develop. You can download the mark sheet from here.