STEAM projects provide a unique opportunity to evaluate student understanding and hone your teaching practice. Students’ learning and level of engagement can be impacted by assessment strategies you use before, during, and after project construction. Determining what your students learned, how effectively they worked together, and how they are progressing in your STEAM program are essential steps to master.
In this article, we will review the importance of assessment, as well as outline basic STEAM assessment strategies to ensure the best learning outcomes for your students.
The planning phase of a STEAM project can be daunting. Then, as your students complete the project, you may find your focus fixing on maintaining your planned class schedule and timeline. It can certainly be a challenging task to lead an entire class of students through a detailed, multi-step project. Upon completion, you may be tempted to display your students’ work and move on to the next project. In doing this, you will skip the crucial assessment portion of STEAM learning.
In assessing the work of your students, you can record and track their progress in a number of areas. Having a real sense of your students’ skill levels in different areas allows you to adjust your next lessons and projects to reinforce ideas and skills that they have not fully mastered yet. Conversely, you can skim over the concepts of which your students demonstrated a solid understanding. This helps you maximize your class time in order to provide the greatest benefit to students long term.
Assessment is not only helpful to you as a teacher, but it is crucial to the success of your students both in and outside of the classroom. The feedback provided to students following an assessment enables students to learn from mistakes, also known as productive failure.
Productive failure is a key skill in STEAM learning, but it additionally benefits students in all areas of their lives. Taking constructive criticism, learning from it, and trying to do better in the future is a life skill that everyone needs. You can help your students develop this skill in your STEAM classroom through assessment.
There is more than one way to assess the progress of your students in the STEAM-based classroom. Here are just a few:
The simplest way to set your students up for success in STEAM learning is to clearly outline the objectives of a lesson or a project. Below are some questions to consider when outlining learning objectives for yourself and your students.
Once you know exactly what you want your students to get from the project or lesson, communicate it to them prior to the start. This helps students guide themselves through the project with the learning objectives in mind. Students should be aware of what exactly they will be assessed on so that they can use their own discretion to try to achieve the best outcome.
Before you begin, you will need to decide which type of assessment you will use for this project. In making this decision, you will also choose when the assessment takes place. For example, if you choose formative assessment, you will assess and provide feedback throughout the duration of the project. If you choose summative, your assessment and feedback will be provided to students after the project is done. In choosing performance-based assessment, you will commit to assessing and providing feedback during and after the project. Choose what type works best for you and your class’ needs.
To keep the assessment simple, create a list or a template of key factors to focus on as you observe your students. Here are some easy considerations to keep in mind as you create an assessment template for your project.
If you need some help formulating your assessment strategy, consider trying a TinkrWorks project! All TinkRworks STEAM projects have built-in assessments to help you monitor your students’ progress. Try an introductory classroom package of our Art Electric project and see for yourself.
Assessment is a vital component to a high-performing STEM/STEAM classroom. The way in which students use feedback and critiques to learn is essential to their progress, both in your class and in their lives. As an added bonus, assessment helps you as an educator learn more effective ways to teach STEM/STEAM material. In any classroom, the use of proper assessment is a genuine win-win scenario.