Identify the Knowledge and Skills for ExhibitionsDescription
Schools must identify the knowledge and skills students must have in order to successfully complete a graduation exhibition that meets the criteria and requirements of the Rhode Island diploma system. Schools must then review their programs of study and course syllabi to ensure that the content knowledge, grade span expectations, and applied learning skills a student must have to successfully complete an exhibition are being addressed in multiple courses, over multiple years, to provide students with sufficient opportunities to learn.
Things to Consider
This curriculum mapping should not be limited to high schools. Elementary and middle schools should also provide multiple opportunities for students to build toward the knowledge and skills that will eventually be required for graduation from a Rhode Island high school.
Tools
Exhibitions: Knowledge and Skills Mapping Tool
This tool will help you identify the courses that offer students opportunities to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for the successful completion of Core Learning, applied learning standards, Grade Span Expectations (GSEs), and/or appropriate national content and performance standards.
Vignette
Barrington: Identifying the Knowledge & Skills for Exhibitions
The first year we asked our students to do Senior Projects (98-99), its credit was completely embedded in English classes, it was not yet a graduation requirement, and it involved a cohort that did not include the whole senior class. This pilot year gave us a clear look at what would be needed to scaffold and support student learning as we moved toward the high stakes year when all seniors would have to successfully complete the project to be given a BHS diploma.
The implementation has changed our professional conversation and many aspects of our practice. From the freshman year on, we instruct in the discrete skills (which we continue to identify) that are essential for research paper and presentation development. We do this instruction at all levels, and in English, we collect evidence of this learning in yearly portfolios that inform course selection choices for students and their teachers. K-12, we use common language about writing instruction (from The Six Traits of Writing). We have also developed rubrics for assessment of written and orally presented student work that are used across disciplines; these analytical teaching rubrics help students grow in their understand of expectations and help teachers to assess in reliable ways and to identify areas of weakness for further instruction. The most public example of this collaboration can be seen on the two big assessment days when all the high school faculty and, increasingly, faculty from other schools in the district participate in assessment of papers (April) and presentations (May).
We continue to aim for the goal of embedding such effective instruction in the skills needed for successful completion of all aspects of the project that "doing" Senior Project will truly be a matter of applying those proficiencies to the project of their choice for all our students. For us, Senior Project remains a professionally stimulating work in progress.
