Collaboration and a “Mastery Rubric”

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If you endured reading one of my earlier posts then you know I do what I love at Vernon Malone College and Career Academy (VMCCA http://www.wcpss.net/vernonmalonecca). At VMCCA we work together as teachers to prepare exciting Project Based Learning (PBL) opportunities for our diverse student population. I worked on campus again today and enjoyed an experience that I would like to share with you. I want to share because I think you will better understand why VMCC means so much to me.

I had lunch in the atrium with Shanel to brainstorm ideas for what started out as a knowledge rubric. Shanel is one of our awesome English teachers and an expert at PBL, she is also fun to collaborate with on these outside-the-box ideas. We ate lunch and shared thoughts on what functions a knowledge rubric should accomplish. We shared ideas on day-to-day implementation and what the rubric would actually look like on paper. We took a few breaks to share stories from summer past or plans for the upcoming year. However, even through the laughs and stories we never strayed far from the rubric discussion.

Our truly collaborative effort produced a detailed outline for what a “Mastery Rubric” should look like when used with a PBL Gold Standard Project. We identified ways to implement the rubric, how students would use the rubric, what the rubric would contain, and how it would be linked to Bloom’s Taxonomy and the specific course objectives aligned with the project. In only 90 minutes we did all of that, from scratch, and outlined how we would use the actual rubric as a summative assessment.

We have more work to do of course. We will revise the work tomorrow and again on Thursday and then share it with colleagues for feedback. That is collaborative work. It could have been Erin, Stormy, Ryon, Jason, Ashley or any of our other great teachers who know the value of true collaboration. The collaboration and knowing that you are not on an island is one of the reasons working at Vernon Malone College and Career Academy is such a great experience.

More on the motivation for a “Knowledge Rubric” here: https://kenanfellows.org/2017-ttomlinson/2016/07/27/from-edp-to-pbl-from-assist-to-vmcca/