Teacher Reflections

Peter Considers Student Learning
Looking back at the end of the course Peter shared
his observations on student learning over time.
Owning Criteria
for Quality Work		 By the end of the course, students were designing all scoring guides as a class. They identified elements, set criteria and scores together, reaching agreement and sometimes setting higher standards than Peter would have alone. Peter saw that this involvement with establishing criteria led to greater agreement between his score and a student's own assessment. By the end of the course, it was rare when the two scores, his and a student's, weren't equivalent.
Distinguishing Relevant Information

Peter found that by the third Global Challenge, students' ability to distinguish relevant information pertinent to the challenge question improved significantly.

"But my sense is that they move fairly quickly into deciding what was relevant and what wasn't. I mean there was a lot of extraneous stuff in that first one, where students were just, you know, looking at what caught their eye. I'd ask, 'Well, why is that important? Why...why do you care about that?' And I'd get 'I don't know. . .it's there.'

He also saw greater depth in student thinking during analysis and evaluation of the research data.

Producing Quality
Work		 Peter reported significant improvement in student attention to detail as the course progressed. Students were given options to resubmit and revise portions of the work required in the subsequent Global Challenges for up to 90 percent of the possible score. Many students took advantage of the option and made the extra effort to submit an improved final product.