High Expectations
According to DESE's Candidate Assessment of Performance, an educator is deemed proficient in setting high expectations for students if they "clearly communicate high standards for student work, effort, and behavior, and consistently reinforce the expectation that all students can meet these standards through effective effort, rather than innate ability."
This project was originally designed by my mentor teacher, but I was able to adapt it for an online class. For this project, I set high but realistic expectations for my students. I also provided an extra credit challenge, so students felt motivated to try something new. In addition to clearly stating my expectations in a rubric form, I also created my own example, so students had a clear idea of what was expected from them. The rubric was labelled in terms of proficiency, rather than my own expectations, so students could use the rubric to measure their own mastery.
One of my favorite phrases, and one that my students are probably sick of hearing me say, is "Math is 99% effort, 1% everything else." I am constantly stressing to students that effort is the most important part of learning. All the classwork and homework are graded on effort: if I can see that a student, who maybe isn't getting everything right, is trying their best, they receive full marks for that assignment. This also allowed me to encourage a safer learning environment.
Classwork Rubric - Graded out of 2pts
0 = did not do
1 = did less than half
2 = did at least half
Homework Rubric - Graded out of 3pts
0 = did not do
1 = did less than half
2 = did at least half
3 = did all