The Japanese Garden

Assessment Plan

Description:

Students will build a Japanese Garden and fence following specific directions and research providing a hands-on application. The students answer the third column of the Problem-Based Learning Chart (Learning Issues). Next, the students write in the learning logs summarizing the lessons. They also write essays following the building of the garden which will be placed on Web Pages following a rubric. The teacher reads the learning logs and essays to ascertain their understanding of the Japanese Garden.

Rubric for Essay

	4	3	2	1
Answering the Question	Stays on topic very well	Stays on topic well	Writes about topic	Does not write about topic
Development of ideas	Ideas are well explained	Ideas are explained	Ideas are out of order	Ideas are not explained
Details	Uses many details	Uses some details	Uses few details	Does not give details
Mechanics	Makes very few grammar, spelling and punctuation errors	Some grammar, spelling and punctuation errors	Few grammar, spelling and punctuation errors	Many grammar, spelling and punctuation errors

Japanese Garden Display

	3	2	1
Display of garden(Overall Neatness and Quality of Presentation)	Excellent	Good	Poor
Contains the basic principles of the garden (rocks, water, flowers, soil)	Contains all the basic principles	Contains some of the basic principles	Contains none of the basic principles

Supplementary Questions

1. How do we build and maintain a Japanese Garden?

2. What are the symbolic philosophies behind a Japanese Garden?

3. By building the Japanese Garden, what have you learned about the Japanese culture and philosophies?

PBL CHART

Ideas   Facts   Learning Issue   Action Plan

The types of students’ work submitted are:

Student essays and learning logs.

Creation of Web Pages

All essays and learning logs are scored according to the rubric attached.

The scores provide evidence of student performance.