| Project-based learning is a highly acclaimed educational technique. This student-centered approach to education provides young learners with the opportunity to work independently. This type of independent activity is intended to foster critical thinking and self-regulating skills in students. However, some researchers believe that such autonomy can also have a negative impact on student learning. When students work independently they sometimes veer off path and acquire misinformation. More significantly, because students are working independently during project-based units of study, the educator might not become aware of a student's transgression until a summative assessment is administered. In order to resolve this drawback associated with project-based learning, the researcher in this study incorporated ongoing formative assessments into a project-based high school social studies unit. By integrating ongoing assessments into the project-based unit, the researcher was able to continually monitor student progress and provide the student participants with continual feedback. At the conclusion of the study, the researcher found a positive correlation between the completion of ongoing assessments and high levels of content knowledge. |
