21st Century Anglicised Rubric - Collaboration
A rubric you can take and adapt when focusing on collaboration for students to develop through the project.
What are Project Walls, Protocols, Rubrics and 21st Century Skills?
Project Walls, Protocols, Rubrics and 21st Century Skills are evidence-based learning strategies commonly used in PBL and EL. These support student independent learning and engagement with the project and its subject content/skills across the project cycle. Some may be familiar to teachers as part of their effective teaching and learning strategies already employed. Each strategy needs planning for, and time in the classroom for modelling for students to be able to apply independently (EL Education (2023), Magnify Learning (2023), PBL Works (2023a)).
In this toolkit section, the principles of Project Walls, Protocols, Rubrics and 21st Century Skills are introduced in turn. Self-guided resources for each Strategy includes:
- Video or images to show the classroom application of Project Walls, Protocols, Rubrics and 21st Century Skills in PBL.
- Slides and/or Overview to give more in depth guidance on developing Project Walls, Protocols, Rubrics and 21st Century Skills in PBL.
- Further resources including templates and international examples
Skip ahead to:
Project Walls in Project Based Learning
What is a Project Wall?
A Project Wall is a visual representation of the project created as an interactive classroom wall display. Project walls can also be known as ‘working walls’, or ‘learning walls.’
A project wall is designed to capture all the projects main elements, providing a useful teaching tool and point of reference for students. This means there is a constant visual overview of the project available for students, supporting independent learning and understanding of project aims, key knowledge/skills, product, and audience. A Project Wall can be changed and adapted as students’ progress through the project. The key consideration is ensuring its contents are in student-speak, making sure it is easily accessible and understandable.
What makes a good Project Wall?
The Project Wall should include the following information, and build on student ideas for each stage as the project evolves:
- Driving Question – Sub questions.
- Project Overview - Student friendly overview of the project.
- Entry event – after this has been revealed to students.
- End Products – what are students being required to produce as a public product.
- Calendar – covers the project lesson by lesson and week by week.
- Assessment – covers how the students will be assessed– either individually, as a team, or both, as appropriate.
- Need to know – what knowledge, skills and understanding the students need to know to help them address and complete the project.
- Task list – to help students organise their learning and approach to the project.
- Learning Outcomes – what students will learn through the project.
- Key vocabulary, definitions and meanings.
- Rubrics – those relevant to the project.
Quick links for Project Walls in PBL
Protocols in Project Based Learning
What is a Protocol?
Protocols are an agreed set of conversation guidelines, and ways of working in a group to allow students to explore their ideas, offer opinions, critically appraise ideas, risk take and make mistakes without fear of failure. By utilising protocols, teachers can save time in the classroom, students learn protocol strategies as part of their toolkit of project approaches, and students are able to be more active participants, as well as more independent and reflective learners.
Protocols are used extensively in Project Based Learning (PBL) and Expeditionary Learning (EL) as they help practitioners and students build independent strategies to develop, reflect on, and critique their work.
Quick links for Protocols in PBL
Protocols in Action - XP School
This is an example of a protocol used in the classroom at XP School (2023) called KWL: What do we know, what do we want to know, what have we learnt? The KWL protocol is often used at the start of a case study or expedition to get the collective knowledge in the room in relation to the driving question. The main aim of the protocol is to establish what students already know in relation to the question and addresses for example: what do you know? What do you want to know? Then at the end of the expedition, students will refer to their starting point and consider what they have learnt through the expedition.
Check out more videos and descriptions of protocols used in XP School expeditions in the XP: Expeditionary Learning Protocols self-guided toolkit.
Slides and an overview for more in depth guidance on developing protocols.
Rubrics in Project Based Learning
What is a rubric?
A Rubric is a set of criteria, learning outcomes or guidelines that define student work expectations. In PBL, rubrics include evaluation criteria and quality definitions. A rubric has two parts:
- criteria that express what to look for in student work.
- performance level descriptions that describe what criteria look like in work at varying quality levels, from low to high.
Rubrics can specify design elements, e.g., a physical product or genre of writing or a skill such as teamwork. Rubrics are arranged in three-four levels showing different levels of student performance aligned with the school language of assessment steps. As with any teaching tool, rubrics can support, stretch, or constrain learning (PBL Works, 2023).
Quick Links to develop Rubrics in Project Based Learning
Slides and an overview for more in depth guidance on developing rubrics.
Templates to support embedding rubrics in Project Based Learning:
What is a Co-Produced Rubric?
Co-produced student rubrics detail the criteria and expected levels of performance for their product. Project formative assessments involve students identifying and/or creating the criteria used to evaluate the work. These criteria should be communicated before students begin tasks so that they understand what is expected of them. These can be built easily as a group or a class from proformas so that wheels are not reinvented, and project standards align with wider school standards.
How do co-produced rubrics support learning?
Co-produced rubrics help students understand the different skills, levels. language and expectations of their product, and the curriculum standards that underpin these.
- Intrinsic motivation occurs when students design their assessment tools.
- If students help to create a rubric, it is much easier to hold them to its standards.
- The development of a rubric is a reflective process. It extends beyond just turning in a project.
- Students involved in creating a rubric have a more concrete understanding of what is expected, and how to reach certain benchmarks.
21st Century Skills in Project Based Learning
What are 21st Century Skills?
21st Century Skills are the transferable skills which a student needs to be ready for work. These skills sets are variously described as 21st century skills, employability skills, metacognitive skills, or soft skills. Common skills include Critical Thinking, Creativity, Leadership, Problem Solving, Communication including Oracy, Written Communication, Collaboration and Teamwork (Magnify Learning (2023)). Schools and Colleges will have their own definitions and criteria for developing student transferable skills.
Developing Student Skills in PBL
EL Learning (2023) suggests PBL supports mastery of knowledge and skills such as the ability to:
- Demonstrate proficiency and deeper understanding: show mastery in a body of knowledge and skills within each discipline.
- Apply their learning: transfer knowledge and skills to new, meaningful tasks.
- Think critically: analyse, evaluate, and synthesize complex ideas and consider multiple perspectives.
- Communicate clearly: write, speak, and present ideas effectively in a variety of media within and across disciplines
Developing 21stcentury or transferable skills need to be planned within PBL.
Quick Links to develop 21st Century Skills in Project Based Learning
Watch here for how to embed and plan for 21st-century skills in PBL (Magnify Learning,2021).
Overviews for more in depth guidance on developing 21st Century Skills:
Templates and guidance to support embedding 21st Century Skills in the classroom:
Rubrics to develop 21st Century Skills
Bibliography and sources of best practice
CBI. (2019). Education and Learning for the modern world; https://www.cbi.org.uk/articles/education-and-learning-for-the-modern-world/
CET. (2018). Putting skills to work https://thecet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Putting-Skills-to-Work-June-2018.pdf
EL Education. (2023). Collaborative Culture Protocols. Available from: https://eleducation.org/resources/collaborative-culture-protocols
Harvard Education. (2017). Using Protocols to Facilitate Discussion. Available from: https://tll.gse.harvard.edu/files/learning-loop-8.pdf
Pinterest. (2023). High Tech High: 21st-century skills. Available from: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/282249101619326497/
Magnify Learning. (2023). Employability and 21st Century Skills in PBL. Available from: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/employability-21st-century-skills-in-a-pbl
Magnify Learning. (2021). How do I bring 21st Century Skills into PBL? Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUfVVeyLmck
PBL Works. * (2023a). Rubrics https://www.pblworks.org/download-project-based-learning-rubrics
PBL Works. *(2023). Rubric for Rubrics. Available from: https://my.pblworks.org/resource/document/rubric_for_rubrics
PBL Works. (2016). Using Project Walls to Support Gold Standard PBL. Available from: https://www.pblworks.org/blog/using-project-wall-support-gold-standard-project-based-teaching
Pinterest. (2023). Using a Project Wall to Support Gold Standard Project Based Teaching: Available from: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/305118943486507307/
Angus, A et al, . (2020). How do essential skills influence life outcomes? https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5a86b2cd68b41700017162ca/5f746a648aa27a0b806ea9ed_How%20do%20essential%20skills%20influence%20life%20outcomes.pdf
SecEd. (2020). Teaching knowledge & skills https://www.sec-ed.co.uk/knowledge-bank/the-seced-podcast-teaching-skills-knowledge-skills-knowledge-academia-education-inspection-ofsted-school-seced-secondary-pedagogy-curriculum-teaching-learning/
XP School. (2023). XP Expeditionary Learning Protocol Videos: KWL Amend 1. Available from: https://youtu.be/ak6eaNHxMYQ
*Free sign up to access resources
You may be interested in…