Design Based Assessment Blog 1
Planning Authentic Learning
Opportunities in a Busy School Year
In working with a partner in class today I was reminded by some of the struggles of creating effective plans that can sustain a teacher throughout a year. Time is an incredible struggle and it can be hard to be constantly creating new activities for students. Of course, many teachers take the time at the start of the year to create a detailed plan it is often too hard to stick to the plan once enacted. Arts immersion learning follows multiple projects throughout the year, these projects vary in art form and curricular points covered. Each project gives the staff an outline of the themes that are required during certain times. For example, if students are doing an art show, the daily tasks, or curricular teaching can all revolve around the theme of the art show.
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| Figure 1. Curricular Tiles. Calgary Arts Academy (2015) |
Facilitators from Calgary Arts Academy collaborate to create original year plans that guide them in their project-based, collaborative, and cross-curricular work. The plans are created to be flexible for staff to collaborate and to begin moving away from unit plans to a more open-ended structure, while still being able to ensure all curriculum points were met. One of the iterations of this plan is the grade 6/7 Scrabble year plan.
An effective curriculum year plan starts with a good metaphor, and the main grade 6/7 metaphor was the Scrabble board. Each tile represents a curricular item and is associated with a letter. The tiles were then used to track the learning of each project and ensure that all curriculum was met. Students played the tracking role as there was a large scrabble board created for each classroom where students could take the letters from the curriculum and combine them to spell words. Some staff chose to have the students colour the tiles based on the subject area to help students see what they had learned in each subject.
On the scrabble board there are the names of the different arts immersion projects that were to be completed throughout that year. Boards were placed in areas where students frequented so that they could interact with the scrabble board game. Some students even made their own scrabble games using the plan provided to help share with their parents some of their learning.
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| Figure 2. Curricular Tiles, Calgary Arts Academy (2015) |
This interactive design engaged students, staff and parents in the learning process. Students would be challenged to find curriculum items that they learned in projects, sometimes surprising staff with choices that were not thought of. Staff were able to easily track what curricular items they were focussed on in each project. Parents were able to engage with students on what they were working on when seeing this planning in the public areas of the school.
There have been many iterations of these plans since and it is important to note that although the tiles and year plan guided staff, there were still daily, weekly and term plans created on an ongoing basis.
Calgary Arts Academy, (2015). Year 6/7, 2015/2016 Planning Model.
WHOA. This sounds very, very cool. I have a couple of questions to begin with. Are the projects pre-determined by administration/teachers, or are they created with and/or for students each year? Do students have multiple projects ongoing simultaneously, or do they focus on one cross-curricular project at a time?
ReplyDeleteMy favourite parts of this plan are that it sounds like each student created their own plan, and that multiple stakeholders were engaged in something that is usually only viewed or used by the teacher.
This sounds very much like a democratic model of education, and allows for student learning and assessment to be authentic.
In addition....I would love to talk with you more about this to determine if this is something my teaching partner and I might do this year!
ReplyDeleteWow Riley!! This is an awesome example of what the world demands: students learning to be critical thinkers, collaborate and take responsibility for their learning. This is not a quick and easy approach as clearly the entire DBR process was implemented: analysis and exploration, design and construction, evaluation and reflection and now implementation. And, I see that spread is happening as we speak as Stephanie is looking to explore this project for her students!! As such models and projects are implemented and other educators, at all levels, see the value of the learning in it for the students, this will grow into other curriculum areas. Keep on being contagious Riley!
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