I just want to address any questions/concerns about the project test.
First don’t panic, if your child scored lower than you anticipated. I honestly tried my best to be fair and objective. Scoring the projects took a lot of time and thought. I originally intended to use 3 periods only but ended up giving the students a 4th period to complete their projects.
While we worked in class, they were allowed to use their books as well as help each other during several of the steps. Most of the actual poster was done as an individual, and I gave a lot of advice to the group and to individual students as they worked. I reminded them that clear pictures were important as was colour to make it look nice. But to be careful with colour, not to just wildly colour in a way that made it messy or covered up writing. I even let a couple of students start over when they had gotten a little wild with their paper. Everyone was give 2+ periods to work on their posters and the ones with very little data/images were repeatedly coached to add more information.
Some kids were over confident and didn’t take the project seriously, some stood up to present and said nothing or spoke in a complete or near inaudible voice. I genuinely tried to be generous in those cases but at the end of the day there is only so much I can do.
We are trying to vary out assessment practices because in the real world it’s not all about sitting down and writing an exam, at work, school and in life we’re assessed on many different things not just our ability to remember and regurgitate facts. I know that it might have been scary for some, but I think this was a good exercise for the kids. And that they have a lot of opportunity to learn and grow from this experience.
The rubric is in the post announcing the test project (a couple posts further down) and the the grade paper I passed out as deliberately small in an effort to save paper.
I took photos of the notes organizing thoughts paper, and the final projects for you to have a look at. I didn’t want to post them because I didn’t want people comparing the student’s work but I have no decided to preemptively address concerns and questions.
If you still have questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me at msmvince@gmail.com and I will do my best to address them as soon as I’m able!
I hope you all have a wonderful summer vacation!
Grade One Science 