PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES
Educator Self-Assessment
Limited
Evidence
The learning design includes a traditional range of pedagogical practices that may be more teacher directed without taking into account the needs, interests or voices of students in the learning process.
Emerging
Accelerating
The learning design includes research proven pedagogical practices to advance deep learning goals.
The design includes opportunities for active engagement but may not be based on the needs, interests and abilities of all students or informed by research proven models.
Assessment practices are more teacher directed with limited opportunities for peer/self-assessment. They may not represent a broad range of assessment approaches
The learning design addresses students’ strengths, interests and needs and invites student voice and agency. It includes pedagogical practices that best match the learning goals and needs of the students.
The learning design uses research proven models, scaffolds thinking and levels of complexity and personalizes learning.
The learning design engages students through choice and authentic tasks to ensure appropriate challenge and maximization of learning potential. Students see themselves as emerging partners in the learning design process.
The design engages students in a range of assessment approaches with rapid cycles of self and peer feedback to promote metacognition and self-regulation.
Advanced
The learning design reaches each student’s strengths, interests and needs and ensures that each student’s voice and agency is activated. Through its design students fulfil a purpose beyond the learning.
The most appropriate research proven pedagogy is facilitated at the right time to respond to learners’ needs. It scaffolds thinking and levels of complexity to enable the Deep Learning Outcomes to be realized by all students. A broad repertoire of strategies generates authentic experiences, personalized learning, and increased engagement.
Continuous rapid cycles of self and peer feedback as well as a variety of learning and assessment strategies accelerate metacognition and self-direction.
Reflection
While students were provided with the curriculum expectations, without a pre-defined rubric it was difficult to solidify what meeting the expectation really looks like, and so the self-assessment and teacher evaluation process was highly subjective, as all assessment and evaluation processes are. Students know that a Level 3 is meeting the standard and a Level 4 involves going above and beyond expectations. Being a Grade 12 University-track course, I had high expectations for the work students would produce. Having previous work examples from students and having given them previous feedback helped me in evaluating their learning. This project being something I or my students had never done before, one student remarked that,
"I feel that some aspects of the deep learning process would've been easier with examples of work/what our projects should've looked like."
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Students received feedback in their discussion with community partners, but in some cases it was tough to engage them in an active dialogue because the ideas presented were very new, and students grew weary into May and June. When students engaged in active dialogue, they clearly made new connections.
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Students frequently came to me requesting feedback on their ideas and work. I had asked students to "schedule" a time with me using a class calendar but in practice this step wasn't necessary and students approached me as needed. I also checked in with them individually halfway through the month to ask them what they had done, what they were working on, what their next steps were, how they were developing in the 6 Cs, and what further support I could offer.
We also had digital feedback tools. The below student shared their film analysis with me and asked how they could achieve a Level 4.
I wish I had incorporated opportunities for peer conferencing and assessment of the individual products. I also wished I had time for a final sitdown with students to conference with me to go over their self-assessment rather than just giving it to me so I could grade it and "agree or disagree" with their reflection. If I were to do this again I also would have incorporated a celebration of learning aspect for students to share their learning with others in our class, school, and broader community, including the guest speakers.
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In terms of project design, the project was very open-ended and student-driven from an inquiry position. Student voice and choice was at the forefront of the learning design and students chose the types of products. I guided with some basic requirements and suggestions as well as through the process of bringing in guest speakers, and at some points I took over some decision-making to ensure students were connecting to the 6Cs.
Planning-wise, I wish I had given this project more time. While a month seems like a long time, multiple interruptions and days off for students limited the time available at the end for co-assessment and student evaluation of the teacher. With the stress of year-end assignments, exams, and the excitement of summer and moving on to university, students needed more time to mentally process to reduce their stress. It was also stressful for me as an educator to try to fit some necessary year-end activities unrelated to the project in June. In the future, I would try to do something like this mid-year to provide the necessary foundational knowledge and skills and ensure there is enough time to do all things well.
Student Voice
"Although it was a good learning design, I prefer completing my tasks alone, so I didn't like the group projects as much."
"The process allowed for lots of student interaction and definitely improved our ability to collaborate with others. If anything, the work was all independent so the collaboration helped."
"This inquiry was advanced in pedagogical practices since we were able to choose our questions and how we wanted to present our findings. But I do think that there was not a lot of time for peer feedback."
"I thought the project was great overall. It was majorly impacted by the fact that I missed many days of school, however, I still enjoyed the process. I liked the time frame for the project, because it gave me sufficient time to explore and work with many different types of media to the fullest extent. There was nothing that I specifically disliked about the project. I definitely learned more than content. As someone who is not very culturally in touch, exploring the Indigenous side of propaganda helped me to develop a greater understanding of the impact of the media on indigenous people. In the workspace, the curriculum expectation tracking sheet was very useful, as well as the types of relationships document."
"I like the creative freedom we had in regards to the format of the projects that we could create & that we could create our own inquiry questions. It helped to create and keep interest in my work, as no two things were the same. One thing I would suggest is to have a few more written explanations ahead of time, especially in regards to the things like the A-strand chart reflection. We only found out about something we had to do on a checklist of things we thought we had finished, which added an extra layer of stress that may have been unnecessary. I definitely did learn some new concepts about beauty and aesthetics, as well as some philosophers and their perspectives. Through this and the group work done, I do feel that I may have expanded on my skills within the 6Cs. It was helpful to have the rubric and important documents within the workspace, though I did feel that the calendar wasn't really relied on as much."