Outline & Assessment

What Guides our Lesson Planning and Assessments?

Assessment of students’ learning of the curriculum in the course is designed around what we call “the four categories”. Throughout the semester our lessons, assignments, and activities aim to develop and evaluate learning and skills in the four categories in a balanced way.  These categories are:

Knowledge and Understanding: comprehension of the subject-specific content

Thinking and Inquiry: ability to process and think critically and creatively

Communication: ability to express ideas and content effectively and in various ways

Application: ability to make connections between concepts and use skills in unfamiliar territory

Evaluating Learning

Students are evaluated on their achievement of the overall expectations of the curriculum.  We collect evidence of learning from a wide variety of assessments in Geography - opinion paragraphs, maps, presentations, atlas road-trips, debates, tests, graphs, class conversations, website-creation, research projects, and others!  We see our assignments and activities as learning opportunities and provide students with ongoing feedback through conversations, class discussions, and written comments. To arrive at the final report card mark we weigh things this way:

• 70% term work (assignments, class activities, tests during the semester)

• 30% summative evaluation:

  • performance task - in-class project to take place in the last month of class (we often refer to this as “the summative”) 

Students receive grades based on the Ontario Ministry of Education Secondary Curriculum Achievement Charts, where levels are used to describe achievement. 

Level 1: achievement is limited and falls below provincial standard (50-59%)

Level 2: achievement is approaching provincial standard (60-69%)

Level 3: achievement meets provincial standard (70-79%)

Level 4: achievement exceeds expectations, surpasses provincial standard (80-100%)

R: required knowledge has not been demonstrated

Zero: no evidence of learning

Students who achieve a level 3 at the end of the semester are considered ready for the next course in the current pathway. 

Communicating

We welcome and encourage communication between home and school. The easiest way to reach teachers at McCrae is by email. Staff email addresses are on the school website. We also have individual class websites that we use to post calendars of key dates (assignments/tests/field trips) and key documents. These sites are not meant to be a substitute for being in class, but they are valuable sources of information about what’s happening in class. Please check them often for updates.