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When lesson planning for STEM activities in the classroom, what is the best assessment? Since students are doing hands on activities there is easily an informal assessment, but what would be the best formal assessment in these instances?

Hello! I would love to know what STEM activites you are planning, I am always looking for new ideas I haven't thought of! However, when thinking of assessment it can be hard when you are doing STEM activites, but not impossible. Like you mentioned with hands on you can do many informal assessments like observations for example and record and grade those. However, thinking of formal assessments can be more tricky. Depending on what your project is you could outline a simple rubric such as; must use 3 of 4 materials, must roll 4 ft, and must stay together for the duration of the presentation. Those are few random grading criteria, but you could easily change them to fit your needs of the project and then outline them in a rubric where you could score the students and give them a grade. Another great option is a journal entry having the student tell you about the project, what they learned, what worked and what didn't, and maybe what they would do differnetly as well. I hope these help you, and good luck on your STEM projects!