what is essential learning?

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Page 1: What is essential learning?
Page 2: What is essential learning?

“Essential learning…the critical skills, knowledge, and dispositions each student must acquire as a result of each course, grade level, and unit of instruction.”

Dufour/Dufour/Eaker/Thomas (from mRLC)

What is the intent?--- To use the new Provincial Report Card as an opportunity to revisit curricula and to re-organize outcomes conceptually using essential learning and report card categories as the criteria.

Task? To create user friendly documents that would support teacher teams in quality planning, teaching, assessing and reporting.

Principals have copies of Essential Learning documents for grades 1-8 in 3 core subjects, as well as Gd. 9/10 Science, Gd 9/10 Intro to Pre-Calc and Applied Math, Gd 12 Pre-Calc, and Applied Math. All senior years ELA should be available shortly. Remaining senior years Math, Sciences, and SS will be worked on this year.

Page 3: What is essential learning?

What they are not…•Replacements for curricula•Culling or paring down of curricula outcomes

The mRLC Documents

Page 4: What is essential learning?

The Provincial Report Card is optional in Manitoba for this school year, although Fort La Bosse has opted in divisionally.

We do have the luxury of having Elkhorn School who was an unofficial pilot school last year, and they did complete them in Maplewood, so we are certainly benefiting from that school’s experience.

Page 5: What is essential learning?

“that every learner will complete a high school education with a profound sense of accomplishment, hope, and optimism.” (p.3, Manitoba Report Card Support Document, Partners for Learning, Grades 1-12, DRAFT September 2012)

Page 6: What is essential learning?

Word documents of these templates; Grade 1-6, 7-8, and 9-12 are available online as well as the support document which all staff should become very familiar with. Grades 1-8 breaks down each subject area into subject categories—knowledge and skill areas within each subject. Grades 1-6—4 point scale, Grades 7/8-4 pt. scale and % score, 9-12-% score only.

http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/assess/report_card.html

Page 7: What is essential learning?

-Reminder that along with the Report Card Support document, all other assessment documents are still very relevant, ie Provincial Assessment Policy-Academic Responsibility, Honesty, and Promotion/Retention, Communicating Student Learning, and Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind as well as our own FLB documents.

Page 8: What is essential learning?

The process of grading is complex and does require one’s professional judgement, however there are principles indicated in the following areas that do reflect best practice: Accurate Meaningful Consistent

Page 9: What is essential learning?

Based on curricular learning outcomes Non-academic factors such as attitude, effort

and behavior are not included in the determination of students’ grades.

Grades should reflect a student’s most recent and consistent learning….professional judgment should come into play.

Grades are based on individual achievement, not group achievement.

Page 10: What is essential learning?

Effective assessment and grading are based on curricular outcomes

The gradebook system used by the teacher summarizes evidence of academic learning relative to provincial curricular outcomes rather than solely by assessment methods and/or tasks.

Evidence of achievement may include a collection of work that shows growth, progress, and achievement relative to curricular expectations and may be differentiated by student so that each student can best demonstrate his or her learning.

Page 11: What is essential learning?

Determining a final grade is based on curricular outcomes and involves a teacher’s professional judgment and consideration of all the gathered evidence.

Page 12: What is essential learning?

I am not going to elaborate on this one, because all of the Resource teachers in your buildings have debriefed on this one, and will be your greatest support. We do need to be frank, transparent and succinct however.

Every subject area has an IEP/EAL box, and each teacher may/may not tick off that box on a subject by subject basis, ie: a student may have the IEP box ticked for ELA but not Physical Education.

Students may also have an IEP box ticked off based on Behavior.

Page 13: What is essential learning?

Numerical (Gr1-6 and 7/8)

Percentage (Grade 7/8 and 9-12)

Description

4 80-100 % Thorough understanding and in-depth application of concepts and skills

3 70-79 % Very good understanding and application of concepts and skills

2 60-69% Basic Understanding and some application of concepts and skills

1 50-59% Limited Understanding and minimal application of concepts and skills

ND Less than 50 %

Grade 1-8—Does not yet demonstrate…see teacher comments. Grade 9-12-Does not yet demonstrate…students with a final grade of less than 50 % are not granted course credit, see teacher comments.

Page 14: What is essential learning?

Also included as codes: Grades 1-6 and 7/8 NA—Not applicable IN—Incomplete; not enough evidence available to

determine a gradeCodes Cont’d-9-12:

CO—Course complete-Grade 11 and 12 PE/He onlyIN—Final grade showing insufficient evidence in Grade 11 and 12 PE, and also at teacher’s discretion as an alternative to a failing grade when a plan is in place to complete missing work. This would go in the term column, and Final Grade would remain blank.NE-No exam and NM-No mark if excused from final exam.

Page 15: What is essential learning?

The process of determining a grade to reflect a student’s learning involves a teacher’s professional judgment

The grading scale table in Grades 1-8 and percentage scale 7-12 are linked with the associated level of understanding and application in a subject area.

When determining grades, the teacher analyzes the evidence, noting the most recent and consistent learning

Page 16: What is essential learning?

In grades 1-8 there are 3-4 consistent categories for each Subject ie: Math—Knowledge and Understanding, Mental Math and Estimation and Problem Solving.

The subject categories are not used for reporting at Grades 9-12. However, it is still expected that assessment and reporting at high school be outcomes-based and follow the principles of assessment outlined in this document.

Page 17: What is essential learning?

The learning behaviors included in the provincial report card help communicate each student’s development in personal management skills, active participation in learning, and social responsibility.

SCALE—Consistently/Usually/Sometimes/Rarely

In grades 1-6 these behaviors are reported once by the classroom teacher with a comment. In grades 7-12 they are reported for every subject.

Page 18: What is essential learning?

Teacher comments are perhaps the biggest change we may face, and I think at the school base your Principals will be working with you to practice that skill. They should follow the pattern-Strengths,

Challenges and Next Steps. The should be jargon free, respectful, brief

and concise, free of superlatives and absolutes such as “best”, or “always” or “never” and vague words such as “appears to” or “however”, and are congruent with the grading scale.

Page 19: What is essential learning?

Strengths and Learning Goals—should be unique to the learner, specific to the level of achievement relative to the report card and categories, and evidence-based, using evidence from a wide variety of assessment sources.

The do not include summaries of material taught during the term.

There will be a finite amount of space on the report card to fill in comments.

Page 20: What is essential learning?

For grades 1-8 the final report card will clearly indicate the grade the student will enter the following year. Promotion decisions rests with the Principal after consultation with teachers/parents and other specialists.

The Graduation Chart reflects the graduation requirements specific to the school program in which the student is enrolled and helps parents track a student’s course credits as they plan for graduation. NOTE: this feature is not going to be available in the pilot year.

Page 21: What is essential learning?

How we assess kids has the potential to engage, motivate and support learning.

OR

Disengage, de-motivate and harm the learning process.

Page 22: What is essential learning?

“Man drowns attempting to cross river with an average (mean) depth of 3 feet!”

Page 23: What is essential learning?

“It is worth noting, right from the start, that assessment is a human process, conducted by and with human beings, and subject inevitably to the frailties of human judgment. However crisp and objective we might try to make it, and however neatly quantifiable may be our “results”, assessment is closer to an art than a science. It is, after all, an exercise in human communication.”

Sutton, R. (1991)