|
We've had students out of school for a month now, and teachers in Alberta have been given specific direction around final marks. The first indication that came from the Education Minister was that all students would be passed through to the next grade level. That's more or less true, but it becomes complicated at the High School level, where generally, students need to demonstrate a 50% in their overall mark to move to the next core curricular level. However, not everyone has access to the same level of learning and education since schools were last open on March 13, so the best option has been to assign a grade for the work that was done before March 13, and assign that as the best guess of a final grade. Students will have the chance to demonstrate their learning, and to increase their mark from whatever they might have had for the first six weeks of this semester. We are giving students the chance to continue their learning. We hope that students have motivation to either increase their overall grades, or (better yet) increase the level of their skills and knowledge!  meme credit: A.Verhappen For some students who were anticipating finishing up their High School this year, and those who were upgrading to achieve a higher mark, they are disappointed that some opportunities to increase marks are no longer available to them (specifically Alberta Education Diploma Exams). However, we need to think about what our role is right now. Are we here to support students with increasing their marks, obtaining their high school diplomas, prepare for the next level of learning, or to continue to foster a love of learning and engagement with their learning? Statistically, we've seen about 2/3 of students regularly engage with their teachers in the last couple weeks when we try to host online synchronous sessions. reference: Calgary Herald article (April 13, 2020)  However, we also know that almost 100% of students are in communication with their teachers in some way (email, phonecall, video chat, etc). So, we know that students are being supported by their teachers - at least through regular channels of communication. In order to increase student engagement in learning online, we need to have clear and consistent communication, standard structure and organization, and ensure we are collaborating with all of the students, teachers and experts in our field! Our website has a lot of great tips and tools to help with these core critical areas: Some great & helpful links to help with student engagement During this time, and always, we are educators first. We are all teachers. We are all learners.
Marks do not matter as much as overall connection and engagement. I would always be happier with a rich deep and rewarding conversation and connection than assigning marks based on work submitted to an online dropbox. Take good care, -M
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed