FOCUS COMPETENCIES
While all of the competencies are evident through this project, the focus competencies for assessment are:
CHARACTER
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Learning to deep learn
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Leveraging digital
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Grit, tenacity, perseverance and resilience
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Self-regulation and responsibility for learning
COMMUNICATION
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Coherent communication using a range of communication modes
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communication designed for particular audiences
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substantive, multi-modal communication
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Leveraging digital
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Reflection on and use of the process of learning to further develop and improve communication
COLLABORATION
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Working interdependently as a team
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Interpersonal and team-related skills
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Social, emotional, and intercultural skills
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Leveraging digital
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Managing team dynamics and challenges
Pre/Post Assessment
We took one class at the beginning of the inquiry to introduce the Deep Learning competency continua. Students were given the student-friendly progressions for all six competencies and asked to highlight in green the descriptors they felt best described them. They then brainstormed together how they could practice and improve at each competency, then added a sentence below each chart of how they would work to improve that skill, then highlighted one or two competencies they wanted to focus on the most.
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Students used the same chart as their pre-assessment and asked to highlight in blue the descriptors they felt best described them now.
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In the context of a one-semester course where I see students 75 minutes per day and being new to the framework and deep-dive into the competencies, I felt students could self-assess better than I could assess what I have seen in them over half a semester. At the grade 12 level in a university-level course, I trusted their judgment and maturity. The students I chose to focus on were the six that handed in completed pre- and post-assessment, many did not turn in a post-assessment.
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Alternatively, a colour-coded spreadsheet can be found here.
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After self-assessing in the chart, students were asked to come up with some ways they could develop the competencies and move forward along the continuum through this project. One student chose to be silly and was asked to adjust. They asked, " you want me to lie? Because I can't come up with anything." We talked about alternatives, including asking for ideas, brainstorming with group members, or coming back to the question another day.
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At the end we asked how we developed our skills:
Collaboration - working off other's ideas & using them to work well together - taking in other opinions to amplify my own - talking with people on completing tasks Communication is key to group interactions
Creativity: - trying new ways at accomplishing things - not being afraid to try Citizenship - looking at how different cultures and their art are threatened (exploring global and cultural issues) - looked at complex nation-wide problems
Character: - I persevered through stress Critical Thinking: - evaluated information from various sources - made connections to previous course material - used information to solve/theorize on real-world problems
Collaboration - working off other's ideas & using them to work well together - taking in other opinions to amplify my own - talking with people on completing tasks Communication is key to group interactions
Educator Reflection
CHARACTER
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Students were excited about this inquiry and the freedom it provided them in their learning
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To help students focus and maintain responsibility for their learning I checked in with them and asked explicitly how they thought they were developing in the Competencies
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Students needed reminders as to what each of the competencies were, and when reminded picked up on the surface-level keywords they thought were related but hadn't yet internalized the details from their progression self-assessment.
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That said, students for the most part were excellent at self-directing and taking responsibility for their learning, particularly in a month with many student absences due to activities.
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Exit tickets were introduced late and students didn't always keep up with them, and I often forgot as well so they weren't as effective as they could have been as a self-reflection/responsibility tool.
COMMUNICATION
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Students had a varielty of ways to express themselves
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They were encouraged to write an essay to prepare for university, and many did and devleoped their written skills through this process
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They practiced choosing a method of communication approproate to their content
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Many students sought feedback and practiced speaking about their process through engaging in metacognition
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They leveraged digital to present their findings
COLLABORATION
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I adjusted expectations as the project progressed. At first, I told them they could and should work on products together, but most students were focusing on their own ideas, so I adjusted and required that one product be with one or more members of their topic group, and one product be a collaboration with one or more members of the opposite topic group
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I found that partway through most students hadn't considered the cross-group product, so I stepped in and facilitated the process and reminded them of the expectations they needed to target. We decided on whole-class debate
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In thinking further about the cross-group project, I thought a Socratic Seminar would be better than a debate. Because we were running out of time, I selected the reading passage and ran the seminar, though in hindsight I wish I had let a student lead the group discussion.
Student Voice
"I loved that in this project we were able to work with our friends as well as make more friendships with others. One thing that I did not like is that it is a little confusing and so it was harder to complete the work due to that. I do feel like I was able to learn new viewpoints and develop better skills regarding the 6 c's. The tool the most useful was the chart with all the requirements as it helped and work as a checklist and I used it to be able to know how much I need to add. Something that was confusing was the calendar and the highlighting of the charts."
"The thing that I appreciated was getting to work and know my classmates more. If it weren't for this project, I don't think I would've befriended some of my classmates before the school year ended. It was a great way to get to know some people. The only thing that I didn't like was really having to grade myself and justify my reasoning behind it. It was hard to self reflect at times as you want to give yourself the best mark, but you have to be honest at the same time."
"I loved the freedom of being able to choose the projects to work on. However, working with a group is not my forte and so I didn't like having to sit with others as I get easily distracted. I found that evaluating myself was a bit of a hassle and unnecessary at times but it does offer a good reflection of my work. I found the calendar a bit useless as I never really went back to it as I keep a seperate online calendar on google."
"I liked that we had alot of freedom to choose how we did this project, also there was nothing much that was bad about the project. I think I learned a good amount of new content as well as viewpoint, although I think I still stayed static on the development of the skills in the 6C's. The tool that was most useful in the workspace was the calendars to make sure that I was working at the right pace."
"I believe that I enjoyed the collaberative capabilities of this project. Specifially, my favourite part was the socratic seminar. I enjoyed being able to converse with others about our own ideas and be able to come to a better viewpoint on specific topics through discourse."
"Overall I liked the project as I could learn new things and research independently on how I wanted to present my findings. I suggest that this project be completed earlier in the semester as it would assure that each student can complete the work to their utmost perfection since in the end there are many classes with a lot of important work. I feel that I did learn more content by doing this project because otherwise I surely wouldn't have looked online at the most precise examples and relations to ethics. I feel that I improved my 6Cs because I completed all the work properly and truly collaborated with others. I showed that I can manage my time which was truly a part in which I struggled previously. In the workspace, I would say that everything is useful and well organized as I am able to find anything that I need to answer all of my questions. Overall everything is very well and I am sure anyone would be pleased to complete this project."
T"his project was something I had never done before but it was fun to be able to decide what kinds of projects I wanted to do."
"It was a lot of work but very interesting and I learned a lot."
"The Socratic seminar we did was definitely a learning point as I was forced to re-explain an analogy in terms that allowed me to work on communication, as well as making sure I didn't speak over others as well as just generally seeing how myself and others took philosophical learnings and applied them to something we had all seen."