Now that Term 1 has officially ended, I have started to sit with each individual student to go over their progress to date. We discussed their Challenge Proposal, their Budget/Resources, their Logbook and what actual elements of their Challenge have been completed. I decided to call upon students randomly so that I could get a real indication of their progress with out them being too prepared ;)
While completing the evaluations, students continued to work on Challenge completion. One student was styling another's hair, as the model completed a drawing for her portfolio. Talk about multi-tasking and using their time wisely! Another student immediately had his headphones in to continue learning Korean as a second language. Many poster boards have begun to show up for use as Challenge displays and it is great to see the Challenges taking shape.
One thing that has been on my mind is the assessment portion for this complimentary course. Each complementary course factors in to be about 2.5% of the grade 9's final grade, but how can I assign a "grade" to something that is so unique? Each student is working hard to produce a different Challenge of interest to them. There are no exemplars; there is no curve to mark them on. I had asked my principal if it was okay to write a personalized comment for each student for Term 1 without a grade and we agreed that it would work for Term 1. But what about the end of the course, when Term 2 marks are due? Coincidentally as I wrote this, a colleague came in and I asked him what he thought about assessing these kids and their Challenges.... Self-assessment was his immediate response. Could we, as a class, come up with the criteria to mark the Challenges using "I" statements taken directly from the CTF curriculum? Could we assign our newly instituted "Not Yet Met, Beginning, Progressing, and Proficient" as the grading scale upon which each "I" statement is graded? Hmmm.... Interesting idea; one that I will explore on our PD Day November 27th!
