EVALUATION

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EVALUATION

How to assess learning in the garden

The classroom garden learning experience will have little value to you as an educator unless you can evaluate and assess student learning. Before you “dig in,” you'll want to determine the strategies and tools you will use to document student learning. These strategies should relate directly to your learning goals.

Teachers involved in gardening have used some of the tools and strategies below for assessing students' learning experiences:

	student garden journals featuring questions, investigative procedures, observations, data, reflections;
	video journals/clips of certain gardening investigations or experiences;
	observation notes written as students give tours of the garden;
	exhibits and oral presentations of garden projects, investigations, etc.;
	student-planned and implemented garden open houses for families, neighbors, and fellow students;
	interviews or conversations about journals or a class garden scrapbook;
	notes or use of selected skills or dispositions (e.g., observing and drawing details);
	activities that allow students to demonstrate what they learned in the garden: oral presentations, posters, reports, drawings, collections, and computer presentations; and
	checklists of student use of selected skills or dispositions during garden investigations.

Last updated: May 14, 2002