Report card season is upon us, so like any teacher intent on avoiding the process, I start thinking about next term! What do report cards have to do with learning design? In my opinion, everything.

Connecting learning design to report cards is about aligning instructional strategies, assessments, and activities with the reporting format- in my case, that’s the BC curriculum and the new reporting order. According to the BC Ministry of Education, “Curriculum, classroom assessment, and the communication of student learning are interconnected. The curriculum sets the learning standards that inform classroom instruction and classroom assessment. Classroom assessment involves the wide variety of methods and tools that teachers use to describe and evaluate student learning in relation to the provincial learning standards.” (BC Ministry of Education, 2023, p. 5)

Since I’ve started using SpacesEdu, a digital portfolio system that uses competencies for assessment, I’ve found it much easier to align my teaching with the objectives of the curriculum. It’s more visual to me and the the only method of assessment I use. While I’ve been using standards-based reporting since the new curriculum came out, and standards-based assessment for the past few years, I am slowly becoming more passionate about standards-based teaching and learning. This has become the framework for my learning design approach in the classroom.

StephCarpy design from Canva

To really tie these concepts together, I’ll use the concept of learning design to explain my thinking.

  1. Define Learning Objectives:
    • As we start term three, I look back at the competencies that we’ve already covered. If, as a class, we’ve shown proficiency, I am able to move on. Some students may still be working on that objective but we won’t focus class instruction on it. If we haven’t shown proficiency, either because we haven’t had enough practice or because I need to teach the concepts in another way, then I start thinking (or rethinking) about instruction strategies.
  2. Design Instructional Strategies:
    • Looking at content competencies, I ask myself what the students need to know to be successful with a new concept. For example, if I’m teaching fractions, do they also have a strong grasp of multiplication and division? Do they understand the concepts of factor and multiples? I always review these buildable concepts so the students can retrieve what they already know and build upon it. For the curricular competencies, I am looking at the process itself. These are all “doing” activities. I try to provide a variety of instructional strategies and learning opportunities. I like a gradual release approach. We start as a class group to learn new concepts, practice in smaller groups, and then work on activities on our own. We may use hand-on or experiential learning to facilitate the learning of the concept, or I may use real world examples as students start to apply their learning. The backbone of all of this though, is that students are always aware of what the end goal is. We discuss the objectives using the language of the curriculum and they are familiar with what proficiency looks like.
  3. Assessment Alignment:
    • My students upload all of their work for assessment into the Spaces app in the “Activities” space. Each activity has been tagged with the curricular or content competencies that will be assessed. Students know where to look for these to ensure they have met the objectives of the activity. The most common of the objectives show up on their app above their feed so they are always aware of how they’re progressing.
  4. Use Formative Assessments:
    • One of the values of the curriculum and the new reporting order is that assessment shows growth over time. Marks are not averaged. My students know that once they’ve shown proficiency consistently, their mark holds. It may fluctuate a little with new applications across different curriculums, but the process of learning itself does not hold down a mark. They have many opportunities to show their learning so in effect, everything is formative until proficiency has been reached or a snapshot takes place (like a report card).
  5. Performance Indicators:
    • For our most common objectives (in Spaces these are called our Curriculum Goals), students and I have co-created proficiency scales that outline what they need to demonstrate to show mastery. Honestly, this was a daunting task and I probably won’t start from scratch again for all twenty. But we will spend time to create shared understanding.
  6. Feedback Mechanisms:
    • I provide descriptive feedback as often as I can on activities that students have submitted. They are also required (with mixed results) to comment on my feedback. We will continue to work on this process of reflection.
  7. Data Collection:
    • Students love to see their growth and this has become an essential part of our process. Students can view their progress for each objective right in their portfolio. In some cases, they are able to make informed decisions about where their priorities need to be. More often, I have to show them this. They also like looking at their data wall. They can see how many times I’ve tagged a specific outcome and how they did on it each time. This starts the process of having them take ownership of what they’ve learned and what they still need to work on.
  8. Report Card Criteria:
    • Truthfully, this is the weak link in the learning design process and my own process of keeping learning, curriculum, and reporting tied together. Our new report cards (this year) have us give one proficiency to an entire course. We then fill in the blanks with descriptive feedback and anecdotal reports. While I see the value in this (staying positive here!), it is the only instance where we are NOT using the same vocabulary for assessment. The new reporting order asks for simple language while we use the language of the curriculum in the class. Our old report cards listed several of the learning outcomes of each course- still using curricular language- and allowed parents to see how their student was doing across several outcomes. In my opinion, this allowed them to see more successes and where we need to focus our efforts. But, this is not our current reality. Luckily, I have Spaces and families can see the amazing moments along with that one mark. (If it’s not an average, what is it?)
  9. Reflective Practices:
    • While I work on this with the students, my own reflective practice looks quite different. I look at my data wall and make constant revisions to what we’re doing as a class. I also differentiate expectations and competencies (with the click of a mouse) for different students based on what their proficiency levels look like and where they need to focus their efforts. This is common with IEP students but is equally common with students who are ready to go deeper with their learning or who want to focus on other curricular competencies. Honestly, I am not organized enough to manage this without the help of digital portfolios and the data they provide.
  10. Parent-Teacher Communication:
    • A huge part of my design thinking around the curriculum is how to engage families with their student’s learning. The Spaces portfolio is the first step, but this issue is far more complex than can be addressed by a portfolio only. My current goal is to have families engage in feedback by leaving comments on their student’s work within the app. I’ll let you know how that goes. This trend has been building for the past several years in my school so I suspect it will take some time to build those relationships and make sure we’re supporting the students in the best way we can.

So, at the end of the day (or term in this case), I use the curriculum and my report cards to determine the direction my class will be heading in the coming months. It’s a constant cycle. I am aware of what the purpose is and my students are starting too. We share a common language and it’s used throughout activities, instruction, and some reporting (darn you, MyEd report cards!)