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By: Meganmarie Dennis, Middle School PBL Facilitator
Magnify Learning Facilitator
Let me let you in on a secret...my first few PBL projects...probably not the best projects in the world. I strove to have all the pieces checked off: Community partner? Check. Entry Event? Check. Rubric? Check. Scaffolding? Check. Yet there was always a component that alluded me and ultimately hindered the success of my students and my overall organization of the project. The secret and crucial component that I wasn’t focusing on enough...benchmarks!
What are benchmarks?
So let’s chat about benchmarks and address what they actually are. “Benchmarks should be: Necessary pieces of the final end product, checkpoints for feedback, assessed, supported through scaffolding, and clearly identified and outlined at the start of the project”(Magnify Learning resource, “Benchmarks”). Did you catch that? “Necessary pieces of the final end product.” Understanding this concept was a game changer that unfortunately took me way too long to figure out. If benchmarks are pieces of the final end product, then I realized I didn’t have to grade the entire project at the end during student presentations. No wonder my students were getting to the end of a project and weren’t as successful as I had hoped! I had failed to install benchmarks along the way to ensure that I facilitated their success.
What does this look like in a project?
For one of my projects, students had to research different renewable energy options and persuade our school board to implement one of those options for our school. There were many components needed to get to the project’s final presentation piece. There was a research component: students needed to research renewable energy and maybe even test out types of renewable energy. This is a natural benchmark. There is a persuasive piece, so naturally we need a persuasive writing benchmark. They needed to put their information together into a visual aid for their audience, bam another benchmark. Finally they have to present their findings to the school board, which was ultimately their final end product.
Now, I’d like to say I figured this out before my students started presenting to community partners, but I didn’t. This was a learning experience, and yes I learned. In the beginning, I had all these components in my final rubric, but I didn’t realize that I could assess them as the students progressed through the project. This tweak gave my students more timely feedback, time to revise, and ultimately made them more successful. So when I gave my students a project calendar or a guideline that their research should be completed by X date, I was then able to assess that portion of the rubric, give them feedback and let them know if they were ready to move on or not.
Once they completed their research then they had to make a decision and persuade their audience, again I checked their persuasive piece before they moved on. By the time students were ready to present, I already had most of their rubric completed and knew how successful their project was going to be.
Coming up with benchmarks
Ok so this is all well and good, but it is usually at this point that teachers attending our workshops will ask, “How do I come up with the benchmarks?” The good news is you’ve most likely been doing it anyways; you probably just haven’t been using the term benchmark. So let’s start by asking a few questions. First, “What do we want the students to know and be able to do?” Start with looking at the standards that you are wanting to address. These are the key pieces of content knowledge and skills that you want them to be able to learn. Using my example above, I wanted them to persuade the school board to use renewable energy. So I would look at my persuasive essay standards.
Onto the next question, “What skills are necessary for students to be able to successfully complete the project?” I knew they would need to research, persuade, and present. These are roughly my benchmark ideas or categories in my rubric. I can now look at my standards and decide how to evaluate these components of the rubric. Often times as you are creating your rubric, you are nailing down your large benchmarks.
Take a look below at a snapshot of the rubric used by Magnify Learning for their PBL Workshops. This is the criteria we use to assess PBL projects. We as facilitators know that a PBL project needs to have the following components: an Entry Event Document, a Driving Question, a Final End Product, Benchmarks, Rubrics, Scaffolding, and Community Partners. These are all crucial pieces to a project and as crucial pieces they are naturally our benchmarks throughout the workshop. We are checking to see that each participant incorporates and hits each of these benchmarks in their final end product, which ultimately is a complete PBL unit.
What benchmarks are not
Benchmarks need to be a piece of the final end product. They are not quizzes, tests, worksheets, or exit tickets. Quizzes and tests are pieces of your assessments but not components of the final end product. Worksheets and exit tickets fall under scaffolding activities, which are still crucial to facilitating the understanding of the content but not an actual component of the final product.
So when you think of the final end product, what pieces need to be there? Are there visual aspects, graphs, or pamphlets that need to be designed? What kind of writing is involved? Are there presentation pieces that need to be created? All of these are components of the final product and can be benchmarks along the progress of the project. If the students will need to create a poster or diagram, then you will probably want them to do a rough draft of those components and check the rough draft as a benchmark.
Keeping track and keeping students on track
Benchmark check-off list
Now how in the world do we keep track of which benchmarks each student has completed, or who we need to check in with? There are many ways you can do this, and again you have probably been doing them for years. One way to keep track is to keep a spreadsheet/checklist of the students names and the benchmarks. You could also keep a copy of each students rubric or periodically check their rubrics. This is nice because the rubrics are filled out as the students complete the project. I am not a fan of spending hours grading rubrics for projects. If you can grade as they go, it saves so much time.
Benchmark posters, students place their name on the benchmark that they are ready to be checked.
Third, here is the gem that was an aha moment for me. Rhonda Brill, a fellow workshop facilitator, showed me how she kept track of benchmarks in her room for large projects. Each benchmark had its own poster or wall space. As each student completed a benchmark and was ready to be assessed, they put their name on the corresponding benchmark on the wall. This allows the teacher to easily see how the class is doing as a whole by looking at the amount of names at each benchmark. The posters also guide the teacher to those students who are ready to be checked.
Let your students in on the secret
So now that you know what benchmarks are and why they are so important for your project, let your students in on the secret. In many aspects of the project, it is important to be as transparent as possible. Show your students what benchmarks you will be looking for an assessing throughout the project. Depending on the grade level and your level and students’ level of PBL experience you can come up with benchmarks as a class or provide them at the beginning.
At the beginning of the project provide the rubric and list the benchmarks on there so that students know your expectations. You can also provide a project calendar or planning sheet to give them an idea of when they should be completing each benchmark.
If you are more experienced or your students are you can come up with benchmarks as a class. Discuss what is needed to create your end product successfully. This gives students ownership of creating the rubric and what is important. You will already have the rubric/benchmarks semi figured out but help lead the students to discover it as well.
Go forward and benchmark!
I hope my learning experience with benchmarks has helped you understand their importance and how you can implement them during your project to help ensure student success. By focusing on the steps along the way we support our students in completing all necessary components of their projects!
Make sure to check out Magnify Learning Resources for more ways to become a PBL rockstar.
Meganmarie Dennis began her PBL journey in 2009 after hearing about the training from her husband. This enabled her to implement PBL into her 6th grade classroom for 6 of her 8 years in teaching. She became the PBL innovator at her school and enjoyed involving and working with her cross curricular teachers on PBL projects. She loves the real world application of PBL and now enjoys sharing PBL with others as a Magnify Learning facilitator.
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