Provisional GAP Scores
Before you move into the silent, sustained reading that will occupy your time for the next few class periods, be sure that you’ve seen the update to Infinite Campus. Load that in a separate window, if you need to. Take a look at what we’ve posted under GAP2C: Q2C Profile.
This is a provisional profile score. Provisional, as you know from this post on the provisional moratorium on cell phones, means “temporary, precautionary” — so this is a score for the time being, and one that is designed to warn you. We’ve used provisional scores before.
This particular score represents the appropriate profile for your work on January 2 and January 3. It includes the progress you’ve made toward revising your Pareto Project self-assessments, which were due over the break, and the progress you’ve made toward analyzing a short story through the provided handout. It also reflects your in-class focus and feedback, as always.
First, consider the self-assessment of your Pareto Project. Take a look at this:
That was posted on December 7, after three months of weekly work on a project of your choosing. The timeline and background are reposted there, but the central assignment is the two-part self-assessment. You had three weeks to write insightfully about what you learned. As it says there, on Google Classroom, and on the printed copies of the assignment:
It is being posted now [on December 7] so that you can organize the next two weeks around this kind of thinking. You must pay attention to yourself and your peers as we share the results of your Pareto process. This assignment is how you derive insight from that attentiveness, and it will help you set up the next passion-driven project you do.
When you came back on January 2, you were given a second chance to do this right. Three months of work, three weeks to think critically — and then another three days to provide some insight.
Here’s the data we have that led us to post a provisional GAP score. First, we have when you most recently accessed the required Google document. We can record the students who didn’t touch their work for two days. We can see each iteration and revision.
We also have the Google Form, which tracks entries and edits. We know who didn’t touch that for two days. We can see the extent to which you were working.
And we have whatever else you produced between December 7 and, now, January 3: all the documents, feedback, notes, etc., that you gave us, we compiled through observations, and so on.
The same thing goes for the revamped version of your short-story analysis. That was due on December 21:
It was posted on December 10. We bumped the final, emulative exercise — the writing of your own story — to Q2C:
A simplified worksheet, time in class to do it, and the option to write your own story or use a provided one.
We can also see what you accessed on 1/2 and 1/3 for this assignment. We can see what you typed. We can document that only 11 students opened up the new document to work on it over two days, and we observed only three students write by hand on the printed version. We can even see how many people view the instructional posts.
We’re waiting to give you feedback, too. If you write anything all, we can help. Case in point:
It is irrelevant to this feedback that the deadline for this short story analysis is tomorrow. Our course is always about the process — about a process-based form of feedback and focus on growth. It’s about what you do, each and every day, not whether you might be able to — might be able to — rush through an assignment at the last minute and do it well. It’s about every choice you make, and how, sometimes, those choices show us a sudden and clear picture of who you are:
We watched you gossip, play games, scroll social media, etc., every time we moved to help another individual or group. Some of you, at least, chose not to work. And we’ve been over this: You always have something to do. Today, a few hard-working students had finished their work, so they were asked to read this and give us some feedback:
You also had feedback to process from January 2. GAP scores for Q2B were held in abeyance until we’d talked face-to-face on our first day back. Those scores, too, are powerful indicators of what you need to improve immediately, and you are always meant to unpack and process them.
Hence these provisional GAP scores. With enough hard work, you can improve them. Growth is rewarded. Self-awareness is rewarded. Amenability is rewarded. Focus on that.
If you have general questions, ask them below, where we can answer them for everyone’s benefit. If you have a question about your individual circumstances, send us an email or speak to one of us in class.