At an excellent meeting this afternoon of our Academic Committee, we brought very close to completion our exciting new addition to our quarterly report card, a rubric we are calling the Essential Goals for St. Gregory Students (I think we may refer to it by the nickname the “Egg.”)
At every grade level, six through twelve, in every subject area, teachers will report on students progresupon each of these six goals, (several of which are broken out into sub-categories, for a total of 18).
The list we have prepared is derived from two major sources: Tony Wagner’s list of Seven Survival Skills, from his book the Global Acheivement Gap, and from the NAIS Schools of the Future project, which has prepared a list it calls essential capacities for the 21st century. But it is our own product, reflecting our own priorities, and our own vision of what St. Gregory students must learn and develop to be successful in their futures. This is also intended to be a dynamic list, something that can continue to grow and evolve in time.
Important to add that while this list may not currently reflect the learning that happens in every classroom at present, and that during an introductory phase some teachers may employ a “N.A.” (not applicable). But the list is intended both to reflect what is already happening in our students’ learning, and to drive what will being to happen more often in the future of student learning at St. Gregory.
Without further ado:
- Leadership Skills, including appropriately influencing others and facilitating collaboration.
- Innovation Skills
- Creativity
- Adaptability
- Initiative
- Curiosity, experimentation, and risk-taking
- Resiliency
- Integrity and ethical decisionmaking skills
- Demonstrating empathy and compassion
- Acting responsibly, with the interests of the larger community in mind
- Demonstrating understanding of complex ethical issues, and making reasoned decisions in response.
- Communication Skills
- Writing
- Speaking
- Listening
- Communicating digitally
- Thinking Skills
- Inquisitiveness
- Analytic Thinking
- Synthetic Thinking
- Critical Thinking and Independent-Mindedness
- Complex, Real-World Problem Solving
We are seeking to finalize this list in the next few weeks, and then to distibute and publicize the list to students immediately thereafter. Parents can expect the first report card version of this rubric after our semester concludes in December. I welcome and invite blog visitors to give feedback upon this list, feedback we will employ as we guide this list to its final form for this year.
21k12 
October 30, 2009 at 12:07 pm
State of the art thinking. It is when curriculum goals and ideals are embedded into the ethos of the classroom that true learning starts to take place. For those of you who might believe this is a “passing fade,” I would encourage you to examine the web-sites of Tufts, Stanford, Northwestern, Williams College, RISD, for specific examples of how colleges HAVE ALREADY CHANGED their scope and offerings to meet the demands of a more complex world order. I would add that we are at the most critical junction of school/curriculum ideals since the launching of Sputnik…..ironically, the rise of the AP curriculum and rote memorization came right out of that movement. Today, we are trying to unpack the foundation that was built in the late 50’s/early 60’s. I would also add that the latest brain research science points very clearly in the direction of Wagner’s essential skills.
Mark Desjardins is the Head of School at Holland Hall in Tulsa, OK.
October 31, 2009 at 12:37 am
Each of the six categories in the rubric feels compelling. I am looking at these from the perspective of a parent and a professor and am trying to consider how these will be used. Metrics? Impressions? Observation of process? How to avoid bias on the part of the instructor?
To take one item as an example: Resiliency is very important. How will this skill be taught? Will we measure it by a threshold effect- in other words we want all students to reach some capacity for resilience? By comparison, will we rank students from most to least resilient and grade on a curve?
Previous comment by Mark Desjardins refers to AP and mania for rote memorization. The AP exam system has plenty of weaknesses – teaching to the test, less than inspired grading systems for AP, limited creativity in the application of content memorized for the exams etc. Does this new rubric mean less emphasis on content more on processes? Some processes are dependent on rote knowledge and skills, that is some rote knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for performance. Will these approaches provide a more useful, integrated knowledge base for our students? I look forward to next iteration.
November 4, 2009 at 10:53 am
Have you developed a rubric for teachers to use in assessing these attributes? My concern for students and teachers is that what is creativity to one teacher may not be observed or considered by another teacher. Do teachers team to write these comments? This would be time consuming, but would work as final report by division or as a final report at graduation time. Will these attributes be looked at by parents as a process or as a report? I can see lots of education required to made everyone feel comfortable commenting on what can be considered subjective
considerations. I look forward to hearing how this is received at your school. Quite fascinating !