End of the 1st Semester Reflection and Results

The first and second quarters have ended. The first semester was fairly successful but looking back, the semester has shown me where to improve the class and the "gradeless" system. All of the students did produce some projects and completed some required assignments. I still had students who did not put forth maximum effort and those who did put forth maximum effort plus those who ranged in the middle. The major difference that stood out to me during this point of the school year, opposed to the previous years, is that the student was taking more ownership on themselves and also identifying how they have grown in the course.

The students and I met and discussed what their effort was for the past two marking periods. I provided students with a checklist of what was assigned and available to be worked on during the first semester. I made individual notations as to what was not completed/started, completed, and revised after my suggestions for a better product. The students also submitted a pre-conference form that asked them multiple questions. The questions asked the student to reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, areas of confusion, thoughts on class dynamics, attitude toward school/class, and personal goal setting for the second semester. The form continued to ask the student to evaluate themselves on projects, career communications, assessments, and professionalism. The students would need to discuss their effort on each of those categories, state what they would rate themselves as, explain why and provide evidence for that rating. The forms were submitted to me online prior to the individual student conference. The review of each submission provided me insight to each student mindset and also helped to drive and start the conversations about their learning and effort. A few numbers of students did not complete the form which was also addressed in the conferences. I could see that some students needed more direction in the future as to completing the pre-conference form.

At the start of each conference I explained that the semester was twenty (20) weeks in length and our class time amounted to a total of 225 hours. The student was then shown that if they were employed at a production studio and earning $20/Hr. they would have made a total of $4,500 for they work in the first semester. The conference would last about fifteen (15) minutes in length and they were told that these conversations were to be positive about their learning and class effort. The students were very honest forthcoming and honest about their effort. A few of the students would underestimate their achievements and some inflated theirs. I took this opportunity in the discussion to compare their efforts to employees and together helped the individual student to rate themselves more appropriately.  The senior class from the 2017-18 school year had grades ranging from 20% - 99% for the second marking period while the 2018-19 senior class ranged from 63% - 89%. The grades from the current senior are higher, evidence of learning has improved, and individual accountabilty is now a part of the reflection and learning.