Guide lines for Project Based Assessment in lieu of assignments and quizzes

Teachers have the option of choosing Project Based Assessment (PBA) of twenty marks instead of assignment cum quizzes. A broad guideline for those who opt PBA is given here. Projects are powerful (as well as satisfying) teaching and learning strategies. First, projects provide an opportunity for students to customize the learning goals to their particular life/work goals, making the learning experience meaningful to students. Secondly, projects provide a way for faculty to see into the minds of the students. Projects that have products, such as papers, presentations, and actions make students thinking and learning visible. Projects require students to link the new content to their existing knowledge store, creating that larger networked knowledge structure in their heads.

Choosing the project

1. Stage I : Teachers can motivate the students about PBA in one or two lectures. Things like what is an (academic) project? the modalities of doing a project, various components of a project, what is expected of a project? possibility of publishing the output of the project in the journals, distinguishing academic project, industrial project and research projects etc. We can even organize a lecture by an expert (internal or external) during our Wednesday guest-lecture schedule on the aspects mentioned in item 1. 2. Stage II : Next stage, irrespective of the nature of the course, teachers can give a birds eye-view of the full course, in about 3 or 4 lectures. Lot of planning is required for the purpose. Intention is that students can choose a project based on the concepts that shall be covered at the end of the course. Students should be motivated to go through the standard text books prescribed, for the purpose of identifying projects ( Some authors would have ended up a discussion like the above work can be extended by taking s instead of t etc. These things can help the students in choosing the project). It would be better if the teacher explains some concepts when sought by the students for choosing a project. These things can be done o the lecture hours. 3. Stage III : If the students could not choose a topic on their own, teacher can give some material (like some research paper or a chapter from a book etc) from which the students can choose by studying that material 4. Stage IV Despite all the above, if the students could not choose a topic for their project, teachers could give a list of topics from which students can choose.

Size of the group project

1. Choice of an individual project or a group project is available for the students. 2. Maximum size of a team may be limited to six. For a class of sixty, there may be ten group projects (if all opt for a group project and the size of each group is six). 3. After the rst two lectures (refer item 1 of section 1) of the course, students can themselves form a group and give the list of teams to the teacher. Teacher can help the students in forming the groups if required or if the teacher feels that the groups are not heterogeneous.

Submission of the project proposal

1. Every team is expected to submit a proposal (one page write-up) highlighting the objectives of the project, motivation for the proposal,how the project is going to be accomplished with in the time-frame and the possible scope of the out-put of the project. Teacher can show a sample write-up for the purpose. 2. Students can even give a presentation (optional) on the proposal augmenting their submitted proposal. Teachers can approve after reviewing the proposal. Teacher can give suggestions for a better feasibility of the project and accordingly a revised submission may be made ready. 3. Once the project is approved by the teacher, students can start the project. 4. The proposal should clearly mention the role to be played by each member of the group project like x and y will do the data collection, s and z will do the analysis etc. 5. Despite many suggestions/guidelines, if the proposal of the project is well short of an approval, teachers can conduct the quizzes cum assignments for those students.

Review of the progress of the project

1. Two reviews of the project can be had in the course of the semester: Review 1 and Review 2 2. For each review, students can submit a write-up on the progress of the project. 3. Components of the Review 1 should include : works done since the approval of the project till the Review 1 like data/information collected, results obtained, any deviation in the plan of execution of the approved project (if any, reasons there of) etc. 4. Components of the Review 2 should include : Works done since the Review 1 like analysis of the data collected, results obtained etc.

Time frame for the project reviews

The following time frame can be useful for scheduling project proposal, two reviews and the project completion report. Proposal submission From the start of the course till the commencement of quiz 1 (as given in the academic calendar) Review 1 (submission) period between quiz 1 - CAT I Review 2 (submission) Period between CAT I - CAT II Submission of Project Completion Report CAT II - End of the course Project Presentation CAT II - End of the course Remark 1 Since the semester Jan-May 2011 is already on, deadlines (for every component of the project) shall be read with the addition of two weeks time. That is, for the proposal submission, the dead line shall be two weeks from the commencement of quiz 1. With this escalation in time-frame, we can complete the PBA within the term end examination.

Preparation of the reports

A project shall have four reports viz. project proposal, review 1, review 2 and the project completion report. Project proposal may be to a length of 1-2 pages (one page for the proposal and another page with the details such as time-frame, role of individual members in accomplishing the task etc.) and the review reports may be to a length of 2-5 pages and the project completion report may be of length 5-10 pages. All the reports (proposal, review reports, project completion report) shall have a maximum of three graphs/gures. Every graph/gure should be interpreted in a proper way. Final presentation may be of 10-15 minutes duration with a maximum of 8 slides. Students can be exposed to theresearch articles published in standard international journals. A separate guidelines for the preparation of the reports shall be sent to the faculties concerned in due course.

Log sheet for the Group Project

Members of a group project are required to maintain a record of all the activities of the project. The activities related to item 4 of the project proposal should be recorded in the log sheet as and when the activities are carried out. The details like meetings of the members with date, time, place, members present, whether the meeting served its purpose etc should be entered. All the entries of the log sheet should be endorsed by the teacher within 7 days of the recording. Log sheet shall be kept with the Teacher and the students who did the activity should approach the teacher for entering the related activity. In case of a discussion meetings, all the members present in the meeting should approach the teacher for recording their participation in the meetings. Log sheet is an important document which will help the teachers in the individual assessment of the

members of a group project, to some extent. A broad format for the log sheet will be as follows. S.no Date/time Details of the Members involved Whether purpose of the activity Remarks and activity is achieved or not. endorsement if not, reasons by the teacher Remark 2 Teachers should convince himself of the activity carried-out by the members before endorsing the activity in the log sheet.

Scheme of assessment

In total, a student will submit four reports and a nal presentation(Proposal, Review 1, Review 2 and the Project completion report). Teacher can assess them based on the following parameters with their maximum marks.

8.1

Scheme of assessment of Project proposal

Project proposal can be assessed as follows. The Project presentation can be assessed for a maximum of 100 marks as follows. Clarity of the problem/objective 20 marks Plan of executing the project 20 Time schedule of the activities of the project 20 Role of dierent members (work allotment) 20 Organisation/presentation of the proposal 20 8.2 Scheme of assessment of Project Review 1 and Review 2

CONTENT Abstract(Concise summary of the project and major ndings 0-5 marks Background/Overview 0-10 marks Supporting Data/Information 0-15 marks Critical analysis/Intrepretation/Results 0-15 marks Major ndings 0-15 marks References (adequate number with proper citation 0-15 marks QUALITY Organization/Presentation (organization of the paper, usefulness of tables etc ) 0-15 marks Writing(Well written, grammar typos, style etc 0-10 marks

8.3

Scheme of assessment of project completion report

The project completion report can be assessed on three aspects viz. Content, Quality and Team work. Assessment of the Content (for a maximum of 60

marks) of the report can be had as given in section 7.1. Quality is assessed for a maximum of 15 marks for project completion report ( quality is assessed to a maximum of 25 in the case of proposal, review1 and review 2) and Team work component is evaluated to a maximum of 10 marks. QUALITY Organization/Presentation (organization of the paper, usefulness of tables etc ) 0-10 marks Writing(Well written, grammar typos, style etc 0-5 marks TEAM WORK : Description of the role of each team member in the execution of the project 0-5 marks Participation of the member supported by the log sheet 0-5 marks 8.4 Scheme of assessment of Project Presentation

The Project presentation can be assessed as follows. Clarity of delivery/communication skills 20 marks Organization of the presentation 20 Details of the execution of the project 20 Presentation of the out-put of the project 20 Concluding remarks and the outline of possible extensions the work 20 Remark 3 1. All the markings should be justied by the Teacher in the remarks column. Since all the submissions are e-submissions, teacher can send a marking sheet (with all the above components and the corresponding markings with remarks)to the students for every submission. Marking sheet of project completion report can contain a special column Comments of the teacher in which the teacher can record his suggestions for the possible conversion of the report to a research paper which can be sent some journal/conferences. 2. The markings of Proposal, Review 1 and Review 2 shall be a group markings. That is, all the members in the group shall get the same markings. 3. The markings of the Project completion report and a nal presentation can vary among the individual members based on their role played in the project (supported by the log sheet), based on their answers for the questions posed during the presentation. For the purpose, teacher can ask some member to continue the presentation from some point, during the presentation etc. 4. Project proposal and the two reviews account to 40% and the projection completion report & the nal presentation 60%. 5. Format of the assessment sheet (for assessing the proposal, review1, review2, completion report and the nal presentation) shall be sent by the academic section.

Proportion of the components of project assessment for 20 marks

All the four components (proposal, review1, review 2, project completion report, Final presentation ) can be assessed for 100 marks. The relative weights for

dierent components for a total of twenty can be as follows. Proposal 2 marks Review 1 3 Review 2 3 Project completion report 7 Final Presentation 5

10

Conclusion

Besides enhancing the students command over the topic, project develops the skill of working as a team which is an essential skill for the students in their over all personality development. This guide-line includes a scope of assessing the individual members in a group project to an extent of 60%. Further, this report welcomes suggestions from all the faculties for the best implementation of the PBA. Now that the proposed PBA is to substitute the quizzes cum assignment. Based on the feed-back, this PBA may be extended to substitute all the components of internal assessment: quizzes, assignments and the CATs.