Engaged learning projects use technology in a real-life empowering way. Technology is not an add-on to these projects, but it is an integral component which allows students to solve tasks and refocus their learning. It is the resource that allows students and teachers to work outside the four classroom walls. Technology works in a school not because test scores increase, but because technology empowers new solutions. This flexible grouping enables students to have the best opportunity to focus on multiple and varied tasks in a self-selected manner.
Assessment measures what the students know and can do.
Specifically, the skills involved in the process of learning, researching, and problem solving are evaluated. Engaged learning needs to be assessed throughout the process because students are performing different tasks and displaying different skills at different times during the project. You are probably including some of these elements currently in your instructional design. If you want more practice in identifying these elements, pick one of the projects below and identify each of the key elements we have described. Before you start to create your own project proposals, it will help to see some models of proposals and how they have been revised.