We decided to switch things up in Unit 3. Instead of multiple directed assessments they students will have one more open ended assessment with more smaller projects or single day activities to support the material.

The decision to try this out was twofold. First the assessments become repetative in feel to the students and not all of them are interesting to every student. Second, with revisions and flexibility, the assessements end up taking a lot of time grading. We do a lot formative assessment of understanding in class in our discussions with students and student groups and we felt like the time spend grading could be better spent elsewhere in supporting out students. Moving to smaller assignments and the single assessment will hopefully help with that.

It is somewhat of an experiment right now. In seeing how this goes will influence out decisions for Unit 4.