The tips are organized to follow the arc of a project. First comes planning, then the launch into active learning, and then a culminating presentation. Reflection is the final stage. Download this today and get started!
What’s Inside the PDF?
- Keep It Real with Authentic Products
- Don’t Overlook Soft Skills
- Learn from Big Thinkers
- Use Formative Strategies to Keep Projects on Track
- Gather Feedback — Fast
- Focus on Teamwork
- Track Progress with Digital Tools
- Grow Your Audience
- Do-It-Yourself Professional Development
- Assess Better Together
- BONUS TIP: How to Assemble Your PBL Tool Kit
This classroom guide is intended to inspire and expand your thinking about effective assessment for project-based learning.
The tips are organized to follow the arc of a project. First comes planning, then the launch into active learning, and then a culminating presentation. Reflection is the final stage. Download this today and get started!
What’s Inside the PDF?
- Keep It Real with Authentic Products
- Don’t Overlook Soft Skills
- Learn from Big Thinkers
- Use Formative Strategies to Keep Projects on Track
- Gather Feedback — Fast
- Focus on Teamwork
- Track Progress with Digital Tools
- Grow Your Audience
- Do-It-Yourself Professional Development
- Assess Better Together
- BONUS TIP: How to Assemble Your PBL Tool Kit
Disney’s Planet Challenge (DPC) is a project-based learning environmental competition for classrooms across the United States. DPC teaches kids about science and conservation while empowering them to make a positive
impact on their communities and planet.
Beginning this year, DPC will offer two tracks of competition:
the Elementary School track (Grades 3-5) and the
BRAND NEW Middle School track (Grades 6-8)!
Disney’s Planet Challenge™ (DPC) is a FREE, highly-acclaimed, project-based, environmental competition for elementary and middle school students all across the United States. The program inspires students to be good stewards of the environment and empowers them to make a difference in their school, at home and in their local communities. All of these goals are achieved, while teaching kids about science, conservation and positive ways to impact the planet.
To make this happen, teachers are given the resources to create a standards-based curriculum that speaks to the hearts, minds, and hands of children. This curriculum engages students with a real world environmental issue and encourages teachers and students to work together as a team in researching, managing and solving this issue. Over the course of this long-term project, students have the opportunity to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills, as well as skills necessary for teamwork, cooperation and community engagement. The students further build confidence and self-esteem, while also improving their local environments, themselves and the world around them.
Program Details
- Students identify an environmental issue in their local community and design a solution that they manage and document from start to finish. Past projects have ranged from implementing campus wide recycling programs and electronics recycling drives, to the protection of local habitats.
- Each participating class develops a portfolio for evaluation. Projects are evaluated by a panel of experts on environmental-relevance, student learning, changes in practices and attitudes, community involvement, lasting benefits to students, school and/or community, and originality. A rubric has been developed to measure all projects evenly and fairly.
Program Information
CURRICULUM INTEGRATION:
With lessons tailored to state standards, DPC can be used to either enhance or replace a teacher’s mandated curriculum. All subjects can be explored: science (environmental studies), language arts (reading while researching), writing/editing (grant, letter and journal writing), oral language skills (presentations, plays, conferences), social studies (historical impacts of issue on local land and native people), math (fund-raising, graphs and data analysis), and visual and performing arts (artwork, plays and informational displays).
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING (PBL):
The principles of PBL include strong academic themes, student-centered work, hands-on learning, and cooperation all combined into a multi-disciplinary curriculum. Through this teaching methodology, students do not only learn information, but they also learn the skills necessary for ongoing and individualized learning. In other words, they learn the skills needed for research practices, skills that lead to the development of unique answers and aid with a life-long pursuit of knowledge.
TEACHER BENEFITS
- Bonds the classroom through teamwork
- Keeps students focused
- Empowers students, motivating them and instilling a sense of self-direction
- Reduces lecture time, allowing increased hands-on learning
- Provides time for individualized instruction
Educational and environmental validity
STANDARDS-BASED CURRICULUM:
DPC was developed in collaboration with the WestEd/K-12 Alliance and the California Department of Education to provide an educationally-sound curriculum complete with a series of learning plans that foster excellence in education. Customized lesson plans have been developed for every state incorporating specific state and federal standards and guidelines.
SCIENCE EDUCATION:
DPC is collaborating with the National Science Teachers Association to ensure that the program continues to foster excellence in science education.
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING:
The project-based learning model of DPC has been developed with help from WestEd/K-12 Alliance to achieve regional curriculum standards in an effective and engaging manner.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALIDITY:
To achieve the highest in environmental standards, Disney has also worked closely with the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish & Wildlife Service, California Environmental Protection Agency, California Natural Resources Agency, California Department of Food & Agriculture, California Regional Environmental Education Community and the National Audubon Society.
Written by Jonathan D. Becker, J.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, with Cherise A. Hodge, M.Ed. and Mary W. Sepelyak, M.Ed. Dr. Becker is an expert researcher in achievement and equity effects of educational technology and curriculum development.
Special thanks to Sylvia Martinez for sharing this on her GenerationYES Blog.
Assessing Technology Literacy: The Case for an Authentic, Project-Based Learning Approach (PDF)
This whitepaper takes a comprehensive look at the research, policies, and practices of technology literacy in K-12 settings in the United States. It builds a research-based case for the central importance of “doing” as part of technology literacy, meaning more than just being able to answer canned questions on a test. It also explores the current approaches to develop meaningful assessment of student technology literacy at a national, state, and local level.
Where “doing” is central to students gaining technological literacy, traditional assessments will not work; technological literacy must be assessed in ways that are more authentic.
Building on this definition, the whitepaper connects project-based learning and constructivism, which both hold “doing” as central to learning, as the only authentic way to assess technology literacy.
True project-based assessment is the only way to properly assess technological literacy.
Finally, it examines our TechYES Student Technology Literacy Certification program in this light.
A review of existing technology literacy models and assessment shows that the TechYES technology certification program, developed and implemented by the Generation YES Corporation using research-based practices, is designed to provide educators a way to allow students to participate in authentic, project-based learning activities that reflect essential digital literacies. The TechYES program includes an excellent, authentic, project-based method for assessing student technology literacy and helps state and local education agencies satisfy the Title II, Part D expectations for technology literacy by the eighth grade.
This whitepaper can be linked to from our Generation YES Free Resources page, or downloaded as a PDF from this link.
Sylvia
