We have already completed four weeks of school. Where does the time go? Aside from the usual classes, students have been busy this week starting their CAS projects and posting completed work on their personal websites for you to browse. We are currently on a drive to develop the CAS programme further this year so that our students gain the rich benefits of experiential learning as it supports what they already do in their classes. We will shortly be introducing project work for the Grade 7 and 8 to complement this and develop this area of school life. More to follow on this in a later post.
All ABIS teachers spent the afternoon today working together in a professional development session on assessment. It was particularly enlightening to see the range of assessment types that we use and find the common ground with our colleagues in the Primary school. These sort of activities will directly benefit students in the future as we adjust our assessment practices to conform with best practice and scientific research. One major assessment tool that we are currently working on is the use of exemplar assessment materials and making mark schemes transparent and easy to understand so that students know exactly what is required of them to do well. For instance Grade 10 have been collaborating with Mrs Provencher and myself (an English teacher in disguise) on an essay based on their work on Dracula. The students each wrote an essay in response to a question. We then took these essays and used the best parts of them to produce an essay (adding a few touches of our own) that would be worthy of an ‘A’ grade. We then marked and linked the essay to the criterion in the mark scheme to show them how to do well. The plan is to share these with each student and explain the essays so that they know exactly what to do next time. It will be interesting to see how they respond to this approach.
I think that’s enough on assessment for a Thursday afternoon so here’s to the weekend!