Owning the Criteria

In both sections of our Grade 9 and 10 Humanities class, we continued our pre-unit on Systems.    The unit has two aims: 1) to answer the question, ‘What is a system?’, through an investigation of a particular system (of their choice) and 2) to introduce the new criterion currently being piloted for the IB Humanities Curriculum – for release in 2014.

I wrote an earlier post on an activity used in the classroom to help define and understand systems (utilizing the Frayer Model).   As the unit progressed, I was particularly interested in the second aim:  observing how students would engage with the the assessment process.

While this admittedly was not the most engaging activity from a content perspective, the students participated fully and were motivated to understand, analyze and contribute to the criterion, by which they were to be assessed.

The results of this process now inform the entire inquiry.   Students are reflecting on the consensus task specific clarifications as they carry out their own work.  And, while we have yet to see the final product, the results of the process have been excellent!   More on this to follow….