Self-determination

Today I asked my Grade 10 class to write their own rubric for the creative assignments I had given them.  I gave them an example, explained our new grading policy of Mastery (A), Proficient (B), Competent (C) and Partially Competent (D), explained how Proficient is being able to tick all the boxes but Mastery has a special something that lifts it above the proficient and they have to define what that special something is and said, "OK, you guys have handed in tons of assignments before, I think you know what makes top quality work and what doesn't.  Go into groups based on the assignment you chose and put together a rubric".  I was really impressed by the collaboration I saw and the results.
I had decided that if they couldn't come up with a good rubric I would use it anyway and then we could ask the questions, "What is wrong with this?  What are we really looking for?"
The thing I took away with me, though, was one girl who could not believe I would use the rubric they designed.  She asked, "Will you really use this?  You won't change it in anyway?" in several different ways. I assured her I would and even wrote the rubric into a google doc while she watched, ready to use next week.  But, how sad that she would think I would waste their time by designing a rubric and then discount it. 

Back!

After taking a sabbatical last year, I am back in the classroom and enjoying it. One of the things I was able to do while away was do a lot of reading and I have lots of new ideas to implement but I am remembering some sage advice of picking one or two rather than trying to do everything!
One of the last books I read was Daniel's Pink Drive.  This was insightful about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and I used some of the ideas in my prezi on assessment that I shared with my classes. (You can find the prezi here if you are interested).
One of the new things I am going to use this year is a blog with my Grade 9s.  I think it has the potential to improve their writing through more of a meaningful interaction with peers and writing for a wider audience than me.  At the moment I do not feel comfortable making it open beyond the class so maybe that will restrict the audience somewhat - but it's a start!  I decided to use kidblog as a safe option but wonder if edublog may have been better? I'm excited to see what might happen with this innovation.