Some rights reserved by Steve A Johnson
The Task:
Use Technology to Teach a Unit to Enhance Learning
The Audience:
A High School Faculty
The Work:
Outlined Below
We have begun work on measuring “soft” skills. This work has begun in our faculty meetings and is an ongoing, collaborative exercise.
Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that we are measuring what we say matters as defined per our Mission and the Common Core State Standards.
By defining some of these “soft” skills, we can start to identify the behaviors that promote the skills to ensure we are considering them as we plan our instruction and assessment. Ultimately, we want to embed these “soft” skills into our units and ensure we are all on the same page (i.e. creating interdisciplinary connections). We also want to facilitate a whole-faculty dialogue that extends beyond our monthly meetings. Hence, moving our work and conversation onto Moodle and Google Drive.
General Framework
What will we do with the rubrics we develop?
Measure what matters
- What is student achievement? (the “soft” skills we have determined)
- What behaviors lead to learning? (the rubrics we are developing)
- What do we have to change in our classrooms to promote the behaviors we are looking for? How are we modeling these skills?
- How do we collaborate as a faculty to ensure we are meeting our student achievement goals?
Use components from the rubrics as we design assessments
- If problem-solving is the goal, does the assessment measure problem-solving? How?
- If I want to ensure students communicate, how can I elicit this in the classroom?
Groups
There are 12 Measuring Student Achievement “Soft” Skills Groups:
- Creativity
- Communication
- Connections
- Learn for Life
- Student Engagement
- Healthy Lifestyle – Learn for Life
- Independent, Critical-Thinking
- Problem Solvers
- Problem-Solving Skills
- Compassion
- Literacy
- Curiosity
Summary and Timeline
Linked here is a summary in timeline format, to detail what we have done and what we will be doing:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KnlJ05l3F9E1KfCmbEIj_G5ob2ly30tm5PUiXhuSQII/edit?usp=sharing
Facilitating Collaboration and Dialogue
Part of the goal is creating a virtual space to meet and collaborate.
Moodle
Moodle will house all of our work. Here, you can leave comments and feedback for each group.
Google Drive
All of our documents are also housed on Google Drive. We should be able to revise online at the below links:
Student Achievement Notes & Resources: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9b9PIUJiXlwSEtXcEY4MnUtZWs/edit?usp=sharing
Draft Rubrics: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9b9PIUJiXlwWkR1RHBJUUhfaWc/edit?usp=sharing
Faculty Presentations
Each group will present their rubric in March. The presentations should be 10-15 minutes and must be active and geared at generating shared understanding for the rest of the faculty – engage us and make us “do” something with the information.
Current Expectations
- Develop a rubric using the template provided for your group’s chosen skill
- Leave feedback for at least two other groups to consider as they work on their rubrics
- Present your rubric to the faculty in March
- Complete a final Feedback Form after the presentations
We will “flip” our Feburary faculty meeting in order to continue working in small, collaborative groups. Further work will continue online.
The idea for this project has come from reading three main sources: Schooling by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Instructional Coaching with the End in Mind by Stephen Barkley, and ideas from Theresa Arpin.
