Assessments and Due Dates

I am home sick today, which is always difficult as a teacher. You feel guilty for not being able to be there for the kids, but what can you do? Since I'm at least well enough to type, what better time to update the blog, though, right? :)

Last week was Week 2 on the syllabus, and I feel like we accomplished what we had intended for the week. I say "we" because most students were focused on finding a topic and on completing their first assessment of the unit, the Documentary Review, and I had delivered all the instruction I had intended. 

The Documentary Review is typical of the assessments in this unit, which all focus on a different type of media that can be used as a source for research. One of my intentions for the unit was to expose students to different types of source material and possibly to forms of media that they had never encountered. Throughout the unit, we look at documentaries, podcasts, interviews, and books, and we evaluate the credibility of each insofar as it pertains to their individual research topics. Each of the sources requires a review, and each review is recorded as an assessment grade. (Grading policy at AHS dictates that work defined as "Practice" make up 10% of the final grade for a course, while work defined as "Assessment" accounts for 90%.)

Students can access all assessments for 3rd quarter through our school-wide online assignment platform, Schoology, which looks like this: 

In creating the timeline for their syllabus, I found it important to space out due dates for the 3rd quarter assessments so as not to overwhelm students or myself. Students are responsible for the completion of one assessment per week during Weeks 3-7. The assessments are listed in the order they are due. Due dates can be found within assessment rubrics. They then have two weeks to complete their Final Project. Each assessment during Weeks 3-7 is worth 40 points, making the total for those 200. The Final Project grade is also worth 200 points. I wanted students to feel validated for putting time and effort into the process leading up to the Final Project and in the completion of the project itself equally.

The first assessment of the unit, as mentioned earlier, is the Documentary Review. The instructions and rubric:

My goal this year is to provide students with an example of each assessment and to complete the actual

project itself because I believe that modelling is one of the best teaching techniques. I have chosen to write a song as a Final Project example this time around. I will take students through my process by showing them the sources I will be using for each of the assessments. 

Last week, I showed students the short YouTube documentary, "Worth Repeating: a documentary on songwriting" [sic], then created my own video Documentary Review (which I will include in its own post). I like creating the examples not only because they help students see a model for their assignment, but also because they help me understand what may become challenging to students throughout the process.

Kids are getting SO excited for the project! I have had multiple students send emails asking about topic ideas and book choices. Some kids are already asking questions about minute details of their Final Projects. I am also excited. Excited to see where their research takes them and what they learn about themselves along the way!