starts the conversation with expected
outcomes and rubrics. Teacher and
coach examine examples from similar
projects and design a rubric to fit the
desired outcomes of the project. This
approach ensures that skills and performance drive the project rather than
technology, and it also helps teachers
see interdisciplinary connections in
skills and content.
This open sharing has helped to
refine project-based rubrics that more
deeply reflect components of Quadrant D lessons. Rubrics began to evolve
as teachers identified essential skills
relative to their content areas and
clearly articulated levels of application
to measure student performance. Find
examples of our rubrics on our wiki.
Coaching in Action
The majority of our teachers use a variety of web 2.0 and digital storytelling
tools in project-based and collaborative applications that push students to
demonstrate content mastery through
the creation of authentic products,
such as websites, teaching tools, videos, podcasts, and multimedia presentations. A good example of a project
that is the culmination of both our
coaching support and our assessment
initiative is a modern materials project done in an honors chemistry class,
now in its third year of refinement.
Three years ago, a chemistry teacher
met with our coach to bump up a les-
son in rigor, relevance, and digital age
skills. Previously, the assessment re-
quired students to deliver a PowerPoint
that presented modern uses of chemical
materials. After venting the usual gripes
about student PowerPoints (“They
just read the text,” “They aren’t very
engaging,” “They use too much bland
information and show no real mastery
of content”), we discussed several op-
tions for more engaging presentations,
decided on an approach that would
allow students maximum creativity,
and drafted a rubric that reflected our
desired outcomes. We based our out-
comes on curricular objectives as well
as digital age skills, such as collabora-
tion and creativity. The project that en-
sued challenged students to use various
multimedia and web 2.0 tools to create
a dynamic and engaging web resource.
The goal was to demonstrate a rich
understanding of chemical structure,
properties, and relevant applications of
the materials, such as superconductors,
ceramics, and polymers. We used the
final product to help the students teach
the rest of the class about their assigned
chemical materials.
Moving Forward
Our coaching office whiteboard shows
clear evidence of continual progress,
as we update it with new projects and
erase those that are sure to be revisited
the following school year. Vodcasts
in Algebra II, podcasts in English 10,
Google Earth tours in world geography, cross-country wiki collaboration
in French II, Photostory projects in
Biology I, digital literacy co-teaching
in English 9, and web-based curricu-
