Putting the Pieces Together

A little A-Team music, please!  Yes, we love it when a plan comes together.  Today Brenda and I are meeting to go over grading and some of the specifics of our planning, now that we actually know when school starts and stops.

The Wordle is a reflection of some of the things we are trying to juggle (hence the drawing).  We have spoken of keeping student work in a cumulative portfolio that will give evidence of their mastery of the skills and concepts expected of high school graduates.  I found a good article on graduate portfolios that I think will be a great starting point for a conversation about a different kind of portfolio than the students have created in the past. 

We plan to have students demonstrate these skills over the course of multiple assignments.  For example, perhaps their first writing will focus on a good, well-written paragraph about a topic.  As students progress, the writing will become more sophisticated.  We intend to introduce MLA style, respect of copyright, documenting sources correctly, and tools for planning a written product (like webbing and outlining).  Assignments throughout different courses and different levels of courses will have students use these skills again and again, so that they will become fluent and proficient in them. 

How often are students introduced to a skill, only to have a great deal of time pass before they are asked to use that skill again?  Of course, they forget.  Asking students to use the same skill across subject areas, and to do it through each level of a course, will help reinforce the skill.  The same is true of our approach to tech and Web 2.0 tools.  There are a million of them.  Rather than continually introducing new Web 2.0 tools to students, we are choosing a number of them as a base and using them over and over again until students are able to use them independently and with a reasonable degree of proficiency.  Of course, we can introduce other tools as individual students master the foundational set we will use in classes. 

For example, each level may require some sort of presentation to allow the student to demonstrate mastery of a set of concepts.  In the beginning they will have learned how to find copyright free music (digccmixter, etc) and bring it into Audacity, if needed. They might use Prezi or PhotoStory3 to combine images, words, and music to present their topic. They will create storyboards to plan their presentations. Their final product will be embedded into their blogs with their reflection about what they learned in a given unit or level.  As students progress through each course, a presentation will be part of their demonstration of understanding the content. 

Students who are more adept at using technology will have a chance to expand the range of tools they use, but everyone will develop fluency and proficiency at using at least two modes of presentation. 

Drawing by Patricia Ort

Why? 

I expect each of our students to go on to some sort of post-secondary education.  Statistics support the reality that, at some point in their future, our students will need to be able to manage their learning for additional training that will be presented to them - whether it be tech school, college, or on-the-job training provided by an employer.  The higher level thinking skills they will hone through the process I described above will stand them in good stead when they are in a different setting, without, perhaps, the kind of support they will be getting in our classrooms.  They will be independent, confident, and equipped to take whatever they have learned and share it with others in a way that is clear and demonstrates good understanding of what they have learned.

This should serve them well, no matter what venue they find themselves in. It should give them the foundation to be life-long learners.