Towards the end of the school year, I generally ask for my students to fill out a survey for my class on how they feel the school year went. I will have generic questions like, “Did you enjoy my class” and “Do you feel like you learned enough for you to be successful in future math classes?” Probably one of the most important questions I ask them is “What is the one thing that you enjoyed the most this past year and why?” The answers generally come back stating that they enjoyed the six weeks’ project that I have them do during the fifth six weeks, and their reason for why it was the most enjoyable is because they were able to have ownership in their project. Before taking this class, I picked up on how important ownership is, but never really understood just how important it is and now that I just wrapped up this project, I see how impactful ownership is to the students’ education. As Harapnuik (2019) suggest, ownership of ideas and making meaningful connections both lead to deeper learning.
My students learned! They were able to build this project the way they wanted and they were able to make their own connections with little help from me. They were also allowed the time to write a reflection over what they learned, which we have learned is a major component to ownership. When one is given the time to reflect on their own work, they are involved in a learning cycle that never stops.
The one thing that I struggle with is the rubric for this project. Rikard (2015), article discusses if the student truly owns the domain, is the ownership lost if the teacher is grading it, are the students only giving the teacher what they want? For my rubric, I have five columns with a numeric grade at the top of each column ranging from 75 to 100. Under each grade is the criteria that the student must meet in order to receive that grade. Most students strive for the 100, but I do have some that are happy with a 75 or a 70 in some instances. My battle comes when a student turns in a project and I know how hard they worked, but because they did not meet the rubric criteria for a 100, I cannot give them that. In the past, before the rubric, I gave everyone a 100, most deserved it, and some did not, but all-in-all, the projects were good. I only created the rubric to stay fair and consistent with grading since it is a Pre-AP class. I want to be more like Opra and give everyone a 100, but I also feel like if I do this, quality of the work will go down. I am open to suggestions to this dilemma, if anyone has any.
Resources
Harapnuik, D. (n.d.). Who Owns the ePortfolio. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050
Rikard, A. (2015). Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It? Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it
My Journey with Digital Learning and Leading 