While the composition of each educator team in the research was different in terms of grades and subjects taught, the process they undertook followed fairly consistent phases, as represented in Figure B1.
Step 1 Establish essential areas for student learning based on educators’ existing work or interest, and articulate it using the MWM framework.
Step 2 Develop sets of conditions, structures, or activities through which students can express the specific competencies.
Step 3 Collect the student information and documentation that emerged or was produced through the activity.
Step 4 Collaboratively analyze and interpret the data in relation to the targeted area.
Step 5 Re-align, shift, adapt, or specify new areas to be targeted.
Step 6 Develop new sets of conditions, structures, or activities through which students express targeted competencies.
Figure B1 Diagrammatic representation of process
During this process, the authors met with the educators for at least two individual interviews or focus groups. Using these meetings, artifacts, and classroom observations (for a limited number of educators), the researchers attempted to answer the research questions.
Method: The activities
Each school and field trial team designed and implemented a varied and personalized set of activities, and these were integrated into their ongoing work rather than supplementing it. Activities ranged from math and drama collaborations to school-wide learning walks.
While the variety of activities demonstrates the broad application of the competencies to learning experiences for students in schools, the diversity of contexts in which the competencies were used also presents a challenge. The study addressed this issue by using a common process of school and classroom assessment that is outlined in Growing success: Assessment, evaluation, and reporting in Ontario schools (OME, 2010).
Specifically, educators focused on formative assessment, gathering information in diverse ways in order to provide feedback and re-establish conditions through which students could progress in specific learning tasks, competencies, or concepts (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & William 2004). Formative assessment of these competencies occurred both at the individual level and in collaborative teams, depending on the school or school board site. The process did not take the form of a discrete moment of assessment but instead blended into educators’ planning and teaching.
Unlike assessment in which teachers analyze a set of data or information gathered at one time, this type of assessment involves adaptations in classroom or school conditions and activities in response to student learning.
The type of information gathered by participating educators was diverse but can be categorized into three large areas, also outlined in Growing Success: observations, conversations, and student products (p. 39). The following is a sample of sources of evidence used by participating educators:
• notes taken while observing student interactions
• student work products
• student self-reports
• video recordings
• formal and informal conversations between teachers and students
• small-group discussion between and among teachers and students
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