Project evaluation
In Project Based Learning, as well as in other active teaching and learning methodologies, assessment is based on the principle that students and teachers can assess not only the product itself (either a survey or a prototype) but the process. The idea is to identify both the learning of traditional school contents and the skills, competencies, and attitudes they developed.
In its project path, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow presents the evaluation as the final stage of the process, understanding, however, that it is important to apply it also throughout the initiative since it is an important tool for achieving the objectives proposed in the project and not the development of the class as a whole.
In general, the teacher can and should use different assessment strategies, depending on the context of the project and the group of students. However, in the Project-Based Approach, it is indicated that it takes place, albeit informally, in the following dimensions: self (self-assessment), peers or group, teacher and community/audience/public receiving the project, even encouraging that the students and teachers exercise constructive criticism and develop their rubrics of what to observe and measure in the process.
Some forms of systematic evaluation in schoolwork
Self-assessment: for teacher Michael Hernandez, who studies and researches the role of educators in social transformations, self-assessment is an important part of summative assessment, as it mobilizes critical thinking and students’ awareness of the material, process, and final product developed. It makes them think about achievements and successes, mistakes, and goals for new learning situations. Oral or written, self-assessments may include teacher expectations or collectively constructed rubrics.
Peer assessment: is an important tool to encourage student dialogue and collaboration. In this type of assessment, which can be written or oral, students share their views on the group’s work. Commonly mediated by teachers, peer assessments are an interesting strategy for the group to learn to develop constructive criticism and establish a culture of co-responsibility for the process.
Participatory or negotiated evaluation: a concept close to the idea of dialogical evaluation, based on the concepts of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, participatory/negotiated evaluation is built and conducted in the encounter between educator-student, and can involve the entire school community. The idea is to build and establish common goals, indicators, or objectives, and for students to be able to self-evaluate, receive evaluations from their peers and educators and, in dialogue with teachers, reach a consensus on multiple perspectives. The idea is to understand evaluation as a construction that is not watertight, and that involves the relationship of the other with himself, with others, and with space. In the same way, participatory evaluation can be established as a tool so that young people, teachers, and others involved with the project, together, can evaluate the results achieved, identifying what worked, what could have been done differently, and points moving forward, challenges overcome, etc.