Two days ago, Dean Shareski sent a tweet out about a now-closed GOOD Magazine contest inviting people to redesign the report card (I personally thought the submissions were pretty awful, except for the last one).
But what really struck me was his wondering how students would redesign them…
So, after talking to some teachers at my school, I gave this assignment to my IB Theory of Knowledge students:
Imagine that you have never seen or heard of a report card.
Think about what kind of progress report would offer you the kind of information that would be helpful to your learning. What would it include?
Here are a few examples of what other people have created.
Draw it, and then provide the reasons behind your design. Justify it through the Ways of Knowing: Perception, Reason, Language and Emotion.
This is due on December 2nd.
After they submit them, I’ll scan them and create a slideshow that I’ll post. Other teachers at my school will then show them as models to their students and design their own similar assignments for “redesigning their report card.”
I thought I’d invite readers to consider doing the same with their students. If you do so over the next few months, I’d be happy to post links to their creations or embed slideshows into a “The Best…” list.
Also, coincidentally, a couple of hours after I posted the assignment, I saw this column at CNN by Sam Chaltain, Is it time to redesign the report card?
Im doing this too. I’m posting the project for my students on Tuesday. I’ll post results and we can compare.
GREAT assignment. Our district has a pretty good (I think) standards based elementary report card and I got to be part of a process of redesigning the high school report card. Our goal was to transition to a standards based context, but it’s going to take a while, and I think there will be a few “evolutionary steps”. Our elementary report card is reproduced in Sue Brookhart’s new book (good book, by the way) – maybe your students would be interested in this book as an example of the “literature” and research on this subject? http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grading-and-learning-susan-m-brookhart/1102047545?ean=9781935542841&itm=2&usri=susan+m+brookhart
Tom Guskey’s book is good too: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Developing-Standards-Based-Report-Cards/Thomas-R-Guskey/e/9781412940870?itm=4&usri=guskey+grading