PBL Rubric

A summary of the Unit

I taught Chinese Language and Literature. This PBL unit plan is modified from a G9 unit that I
taught before. The difficulty degree of this unit could be adjusted according to grade. The key
concept of this unit is the connection, which are links, bonds and relationships among people,
objects, organisms, or ideas. Students will explore personal and cultural expressions based on a
place with history. They will discover the connection between personal feelings and a place
through analyzing many literary work pieces. The inquiry question could be: What makes this a
great place to visit?

Project Description

For assisting them to better understand the connections between historical places and literary
works. Students will choose an ancient town in or near Shenzhen and help this town’s tourism
to flourish again. Working in teams of four, students will make research about the history
surrounding those landmarks by using primary and secondary resources, discover the history
about people or the literary works related with this town. Finally, they will create a tourism plan
for this town by creating their own narratives.

Project Objectives

· Students will evaluate and synthesize a variety of media using primary and
secondary resources.
· Students will incorporate their original thoughts into the design of a tourism plan
including walking tour, map, apps, etc..
· Students will develop a proposal for their plan and the final products of their work.

Skills

· Information and Communication Skills: Student analyzes and interprets visuals and
recognizes the impact digital media influences (for example, design, technique, and
rate of speed) have on audiences. The student’s visual products reflect a
sophisticated understanding of subject, digital media, and design techniques.
 Meanwhile, students may need to communicate with local people in the ancient
town to search for the information they need. As a result, the communication skills
will be enhanced.
· Thinking and Problem-solving Skills: Students collaborate with peers and others to
contribute to a research-based content by incorporating their thinking skills. They
need to compile and synthesize their final work. Meanwhile, they will need to
answer the questions they raised at the beginning of the project.

The Rubric

Collaboration—weight=25%
Questions for self-examination:
How does each member in the group collaborate with each other?
Does everyone in our team finish his/her work on time?
Is the workload being divided appropriately in our team?

0 This group does not reach a standard described by any of the

descriptions below.

1-2 The workload was not divided, group goals and outcomes were not
discussed or defined, and several group members were viewed as
not doing his/her share of the work. Members did not complete
work on time and lacked organization.

3-4 The workload was divided, group goals and outcomes were defined
but one or more people in the group is viewed as not doing his/her
share of the work. Members did not complete work on time and
lacked organization.

5-6 The workload was divided and shared by all team members. Group
goals and outcomes were well defined and followed by each
member. Each member completes work on time.

7-8 The workload was divided and shared equally by all team members,
Group goals and outcomes were clearly defined and followed well by
 each member. Each member completed work on time and was well
organized.

Thinking and Problem-solving skills—weight=25%

Questions for self-examination:
Do we organize appropriate questions to research?
Do we select useful information from appropriate sources?
Do we demonstrate our unique thinking in developing our plan?
Do we develop multiple solutions to major problems?

0 This group does not reach a standard described by any of the

descriptions below.

1-2 · Is unable to organize questions into categories.

· Cannot locate and organize information to answer
research questions clearly
· Demonstrate limited thinking skills in developing plan
· States no solution to major problems

3-4 · Organizes questions into appropriate categories.

· Obtains relevant information from key sources provided.
· Demonstrate adequate thinking skills in developing plan
· Develops limited solutions to the major problems

5-6 · Organizes questions into appropriate categories.

· Obtains relevant information from key sources provided.
· Demonstrate coherent and logical thinking skills in
developing plan
· Develop two or more solutions to the major problems

7-8 · Identifies questions that fit into multiple categories.

· Obtains reliable and wide-ranging information from
sources beyond those provided.
· Demonstrate unique, coherent, and logical thinking skills
in developing plan.
· Develops multiple solutions based on pros/cons.
Group Presentation—weight=25%
Questions for self-examination:
Do we organize our opinions and ideas in a coherent and logical way when we present?
Do we select relevant details and examples to support our opinion in the presentation?
Do we use appropriate language skills in the presentation?

0 This group does not reach a standard described by any of the

descriptions below.

1-2 · organizes opinions and ideas with a minimal degree of

coherence and logic
· selects few relevant details and examples to develop
ideas.
· Demonstrate with poor language skills and pronunciation

3-4 · organizes opinions and ideas with some degree of

coherence and logic
· selects some relevant details and examples to develop
ideas.
· Adequate language skills and pronunciation are used.

5-6 · organizes opinions and ideas in a coherent and logical

manner with ideas building on each other
· selects sufficient relevant details and examples to
develop ideas.
· Good language skills and pronunciation are used.

7-8 · effectively organizes opinions and ideas in a sustained,

coherent and 
logical manner with ideas building on each
other in a sophisticated way 

· selects extensive relevant details and examples to
develop ideas with precision.
· Good language skills and pronunciation are used.

Peer Review—weight=25%
Questions for self-examination:
Do we give detailed and meaningful feedback to another group?
 0 This group does not reach a standard described by any of the
descriptions below.

1-2 This group does not give detailed feedback to another group

3-4 This group gives some meaningful feedback to another group

5-6 This group gives detailed and meaningful feedback to another group

7-8 This group gives well-organized, detailed and meaningful feedback to

more than one group.

Monitoring and Reteaching Plan

Monitoring the student project

● Providing appropriate assessment: different types of assessment could be incorporated

into the learning process such as formative and self assessment. On-going formative
assessment could help teachers to gather some data of students’ progress in their project.
Their project will be centered around the driving questions. Teachers could design FA to
check their understanding of the content that revolved around the driving question. For
example, quizzes, tests and mind maps could be designed as FA.
● Self-assessment and feedback from themselves: During the project, the teacher could
ask students to submit a report of self-assessment or feedback. Rubric and questions of
feedback could be sent to students in advance.

Providing feedback throughout the project-based unit

● Feedback from teacher: The goal of PBL is to stimulate students' learning in an authentic
senario. Emphasizing the progress of learning is more important than the final product. As a
result, teachers should intentionally provide feedback according to their progress.
● Feedback from students: through self-assessment, students gradually be more clear about
how their project related to the key concept in this unit. Teachers should provide planners
and rubrics with student-friendly language and clear criteria. If possible, teachers could also
encourage peer feedback.
Providing remediation and extension once project is completed/An analysis of what is
necessary to reteach and review before moving onto the next unit

(Resource: https://blog.edmentum.com/acceleration-vs-remediation-vs-intervention-whats-difference)

The purpose of PBL is to facilitate the growth of every student and their mastery of inquiry content. It
is common that we may not reach the goal we anticipated one time. Then the strategies for
remediation and extension will be important. How do we remediate and reteach once a project is
completed? The approaches I will use are as follows;

● Use the data: teachers may adjust their teaching according to the data they collect from
students’ projects. Understanding what concepts or ideas that need to be clarified or
reteached.

● Adjust the teaching method: teachers should use different teaching methods than the one
originally used. As students may have difficulty in understanding through the original method
that teachers provide. If teachers use reading materials at the beginning, then this time
teachers could try to use visuals such as mind maps, charts or illustrating vocabulary words.

● Individualize reteaching: the understanding gap of concepts and ideas may vary in
different groups. The content that needs to be reteached may different among groups. So
teachers should individualize guidance according to the needs of the group.
Students who are struggling overall

(Source: https://www.pblworks.org/blog/how-scaffold-project-based-learning)

For students who are struggling in this project. Teachers could help them to succeed through
grouping or scaffolding.

● Grouping students: It has been proved that if the students who are struggling are assigned
in the group with students who are quite competent, then they may have better performance.
We may use heterogeneous grouping to help those students who are struggling.

● Scaffolding: teachers could provide scaffolding to students who are struggling in PBL units
from the beginning or during the project. The form above shows how different scaffolding
strategies could be used during the guidance. Except for those strategies mentioned above,
teachers could provide personal guidance including helping explain those complex and
advanced words to those students. Additionally, supporting materials such as books, articles,
videos could be offered in advance.
Students who are not engaged

For students who lack engagement, there are several things we can do:

● Invite experts to participate: First of all, inviting someone to tell students how much their
ideas and solutions will benefit that person or the organization. For example, we may invite
someone in the tourism department of the old town and invite them to have a conversation
with our students and participate in the process of project reporting.
● Outside audience: Additionally, asking students to make a report to the outside audience
who may be relevant to this project instead of only reporting to their teacher. These
strategies may let students feel their project could make real-life influence instead of just a
school project.
● Grouping: Students who are not engaged could be assigned in the group with more
enthusiastic and active students. If the atmosphere in this group is very active and engaging,
then these students would be more engaged.

Students who are doing well in one area but not another

● Peer Help: they could be assigned to a group with a peer who can help them in the area
they are struggling.
● Considering the criteria for assessment: grading individually instead of only grading group
work. Students won’t care too much about their individual contribution to each part if they get
an equal score based on their group work.
● Scaffolding: same strategies listed above could be used to students struggling in specific
areas.

Students who need to be challenged / a plan for what other students will be doing while
teachers in small groups to reteach or extend the lesson

There could be some students who finish their part of the project early. How to respond to this
situation would be a challenge to teachers. There are several strategies we may use in this
occasion:

● Guide them to dig deeper: teachers could keep asking questions like,”what was the most
interesting thing you learned from this project?” or “Do you have any concerns and questions
when you are doing your project?” Meanwhile, teachers could offer more materials like
books, documentaries, articles for students to read when they finish their work early.
● Homogeneous grouping: Students of a similar performance level are grouped together. For
those students who are more competent in PBL units, this group method would let them feel
more alert as members in other same groups could be competent as well and it would give
them a competitive atmosphere.
 ● Self-Assess: If some students finish their work earlier than others, teachers could give them
rubrics and ask them to revise and assess themselves. The understanding of the project will
be enhanced in the process of self-assessing.
● Brainstorming: For those groups that finish their project early, they could think how to
upgrade their inquiry questions through brainstorming.

References

https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/ideas-students-finish-work-early/
https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-common-pbl-problems-and-solutions
https://www.pblworks.org/blog/how-scaffold-project-based-learning
https://www.edutopia.org/pbl-assessment-resources
https://www.classroomtestedresources.com/2017/01/6-strategies-for-reteaching.html