Using Checklists in A Rubrics World (of PBL)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/national_museum_of_australia/

    Right up front I want to tell everyone that this idea was not originally mine.  And, even though my co-teacher championed this approach and convinced me to do this it is not his original thought either.  But, if I want to give credit to anyone I will give him credit for encouraging me to consider using checklists for our projects.

     So,what is the difference between a rubric and a checklist?  In simple terms a rubric is open ended and gives the criteria that must be met and will, usually, give levels of performance that are expected.  A checklist is just a listing of the criteria.  This allows students, teachers, or parents to know that the criteria has or has not been met.  

     How do we create our checklist?  We start with the Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Standards, the 12 step design process, and our school's learning outcomes.  We teach PLTW's Introduction to Engineering Design or IED.  The fundamental approach to everything our students do is related to the 12 step design process.  And, every project will have these 12 steps that must be met during the duration of the project.  It should be noted that during the first couple of projects we were still introducing what each of these 12 steps looked like.  Therefore we only covered those steps that have been explained.  For the first time this year our current project will cover all of the 12 steps.

     The next ingredient for our checklist is our learning outcomes.  In each of the New Tech Network schools we create our learning outcomes that originate from a list of 21st Century Skills.  Everything we do is graded using one or more of these outcomes.  Our school uses nine learning outcomes.  These learning outcomes are Written Communication, Oral Communication, Critical Thinking, Numeracy, Technology Literacy, Global and Community Engagement, Collaboration, Work Ethic, and our Engineering Content.

    We take these two areas and create a spreadsheet that we can alter for each project based upon specific skills that we want our students to have that demonstrate mastery.  Here is a checklist that is being created for our current project:

     You will notice that not every item has a graded criteria.   Some of the design steps don't go well with every learning outcome.  That is why we, as a school, have stated that we will cover every learning outcome at least 3 times for every 6 weeks grading period.

     Now one of the first things we remind students to do each day is to see where in this checklist they are and what they still have left to do.  We keep our schedule sequential so the students know what step they are working on each day.  Then they just need to see how they will be assessed for each of the appropriate learning outcomes.

      To give our students a chance to improve their grades we have also grouped our checklist in groups of 4 Design Steps.  They will complete informal presentations of the 4 steps in each group and they will be graded at that time on all of the learning outcomes within that group.  During the next grouping they have the ability to improve their grades by making corrections to any of the learning outcomes that they did not demonstrate mastery of in the previous grouping. Then, when all steps are complete, there is a formal presentation and the grades are locked in.

     A final difference that we are trying this year is the idea of a mastery grade.  If the student is only partially right on the initial time of assessment but the student takes time to correct any deficiencies by the time the project is complete we give them a zero or a 50% with the knowledge that that grade can come up to a passing final grade.   This is helped by the fact that our students keep all of their work on a Google Site (part of our Google Apps Suite).  As long as they ask us to regrade any of the 12 steps of the design process we will look at the improvements.  The one caveat is that this request must be submitted prior to the formal presentation of their project.

     My initial thoughts on this new process is that the students are understanding what it is that they need to complete to be successful in the class.  They seem to be doing better, as a class, than in the past.  There will always be students who do all that is required and will seek out extra material and we can guide them in that direction.  But the weaker students are getting more accomplished and the overall knowledge level seems better than in previous years.

Project Two Reflection

fieldingnair.com

     As we start to wrap up our second project it is time to write down some reflections.  Some of you may take this and run with it as a project but I assure you this is only the shell and there is much more that needs to be added to really make magic.  Still this will give you everything you need to plan a project to tackle the design process.

   The concept of this project was to design a yoga ball seat using any size yoga (or exercise) ball and PVC piping.  The project took the students through the first 7 steps of the 12 step design process that we use throughout the year.  By taking it through step 7 we did not have to actually build the concept.

     The steps we worked on were: Define the Problem, Brainstorm, Research, Criteria and Constraints, Explore Possibilities, Select an Approach, and Develop a Design Proposal.  The problem was defined for them in a Design Brief that was written for this project. The way we embed the idea of needing to learn in our students is from their creation of Knows and Need to Knows (K/NTK's).   So we had them list their "Knows and Need to Knows" from the Design Brief.  When you have students state what they need to learn to successfully complete a project then you immediately remove the "but where will we ever use this?" from the equation.

     For brainstorming we had them each sketch 3 or more ideas for the design of a chair.  By working in groups of 3, each group had about 10 sketches and ideas to consider.  They then narrowed it down to 3 or 4 possible ideas and started their research.  This was the first chance for our students to do research for parts.  We allowed them to use Home Depot or Lowes (for costs) and any other place they could find on the internet.  Any information that they used had to be documented using MLA formatting.

     One of the important engineering items we needed to teach was how to do Multi-View Sketches (front/top/right side) of their design.  After they had sketched their initial brainstorming we were able to discuss the fact that we need to have clear and well dimensioned sketches that tell our customers what they are getting.  This led to the need for a method of sketching that everyone would understand.

     At this point we were able to discuss the difference between criteria and constraints and we gave them a spreadsheet to list the criteria and constraints that they knew about this project.  Then we had them each draw their personal favorite design.  This gave each group 3 designs; sketched and with a written description.  To learn how to select the best approach in an unbiased way they needed to learn about decision matrices.    They learned that by grading  each design by looking at the criteria and constraints, the best design will move to the forefront.

     Finally, they needed to take the best design and make sure they had a good multi-view drawing of it.  We had each member take one of the three views of the design to practice creating the multi-view.  That way we didn't have one person doing all of the sketching.  They then needed to have a good written description of the design.

     And so the students created a design of a yoga ball chair.  They learned about how to research for parts and how to document the findings.  They learned how to do a multi-view sketch, how to create a decision matrix, and the difference between criteria and constraints.  An additional item they learned was how to work in a different group.  They had been allowed to pick their groups for the first project and I assigned group members for this project.  There was the need to learn new personalities and who they could depend on to complete work.  They also learned the importance of having daily task lists for each member of the group.  To be honest most groups were not able to make that happen and we will have to work on that for the next project.

    The process of successfully completing a project isn't just learning the curriculum.  There are the skills of collaboration, writing, communicating orally, and a good work ethic.  This is a work in progress and will continue for all four years at our school.

You Need to Teach How to be in a Group

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidquick/

     Next week is our first week of school and that means, yet again, we need to teach our Freshmen how to work in a PBL environment.  When every class is being taught this way it means that in every class they will be working in groups of 2 to 5 people.  In some classes they may have to be a group leader.    In other classes they may have specific roles to do.  In yet another class they may just be working in a collaborative role.

     When students get to us they don't, usually, understand how to work in a group.   There are assigned roles with individual responsibilities and expectations.  There are also expected behaviors of each member of the group and behaviors by the entire group.

     Last year we came across a Ted Talk by Tom Wujec where he described a challenge (presented by Peter Skillman).  This is now, famously, known as the Spaghetti Challenge.  Here is a great video to show what a typical classroom is like in the last few minutes of this challenge.

     The rules are simple and we like to present the challenge as an engineering design brief (got to get the vocabulary started too).  During the first day of class they are given the challenge.  The next day we introduce roles and the students break up into expert groups based upon their roles.  The roles are Designer, Tester, and Builder.  Therefore the expert groups are the Design Team, the Test Team, and the Build Team.  Before the expert groups get started we reflect on what we observed the previous day.  What went well?  What hurdles needed to be overcome?  What frustrations did they feel?  And other thoughts as they come up.  We then ask how we could make the experience better.

    On the third day the expert groups have a quick meeting and then the students are sent back to their original groups to make the tower.  The groups are reminded that each person in the group has a role and they are not to do anything that isn't specifically related to their role.  Once the challenge is completed we take measurements but instead of a "winner", based upon height,  we recognize groups that worked well together.  We take time to talk, again, about what worked and what frustrations were felt.

     By the end of these three days, the students have learned most of the other students' names and (more importantly) I know many of the students' names.  They have also worked in groups where no one is assigned as the "group leader."  Each of them has had an important role that was needed for all of the group to be successful.  Finally, they have seen what group relationships worked and what relationships were not as effective.