final post 2015

Final Portfolio Assessment "Report Card" Post - Active Learning 2015

There are Four pillars to provide evidence (screen shots + links) for, each worth 25%.

For report card posts in grades 8/9 we are legally required to provide a letter grade.

In 10-12 we need an actual percentage to go along with the more meaningful formative writing, so after discussing your semester you will need to put a NUMBER evaluation on it.

As a way to help you organize your thoughts, the following breakdown for the "four pillars" and thematic questions can be used, but you may move beyond these in your explanation.

1) Participation- this category includes all of the factors around your ability to participate and the quality of your participation of in-class activities. Some things to consider would include: attendance and punctuality, wearing gym strip (actual change of clothing from what you wear the rest of the day),  physical presence/activity level during games, intensity of participation, "skill level" in various games, and the motivation behind your selection of activities on choice days. Missing “sometimes” or having “no strip” more than once or twice may result in a failing mark here. Use ALL of the above categories in your evaluation. If you try hard "sometimes", and forgot your strip a "couple of times", and needed encouragement from your teacher to work harder "once or twice" you are not an A student… in fact you are not even a B student in this category. Think carefully about each category.

2) Social Responsibility and Contribution to the Class- this category includes all of the factors that led to your improving skills around working with peers to make everyone's experience more successful. Some things to consider would include: examples of leadership (organizing others, encouraging peers), examples of initiative (helping with equipment, helping with other classes WITHOUT being asked to), positive energy and social dynamic during activities, honesty during competition and on fitness scores, and connections with the community/volunteering. Needing reminders from a teacher to do the above items negates their impact. If you need to talked to, you didn’t do well.

3) Healthy Living - this category includes all aspects of your past, current, and future data and goals on your health and fitness. Some of the things to consider would include: your actual fitness scores compared to others and what they teach you, noteworthy changes in your fitness, some of the barriers/limitations you face in participating, dietary choices and extra curricular activity choices and their impact on overall health, injury prevention, management, and rehabilitation, and future plans/goals for overall health choices. This is the connecting piece between class and life… if you have no evidence of choices/activities outside of class you should be failing this section. One major focus should be evidence of choices that specifically relate to the body goal you set. If you have never worked at your goal outside of class you should not be passing this section.

4) Digital Portfolio and Reflective skills: this category includes all aspects of your blog posts. Some of the things to consider would include: the total collection of digital evidence and number of posts, the quality of the selection of evidence as a demonstration of learning, the quality of the summaries/explanation of the evidence (with reflection of effort, new learning cited, research included, and future goals/plans set), the usefulness of comments on peers blog entries as a part of socially constructed learning and assessment, and your ability to synthesize your entries into a summative final post which provides evidence for your learning. Neufeld’s classes should have: videos of weight room workouts from YouTube or the Internet, videos or other evidence of themselves in the weight room doing those same workouts, images and video of fitness and games, reflections about diet with evidence of meals, evidence of exercise outside of school, a reflective post about the quality of your blog as compared to others, multiple posts about your fitness scores on testing days (beep, vertical), a mid term post, a final post, at least one post with evidence of social responsibility choices you make in class, plus others.

We have worked very hard to create opportunities for you to learn about being intrinsically motivated, to learn about and find value in personalizing your experience to best suite your own physical needs, and we have devalued the external motivators like grades as a reason for being your best. However, along with our legal obligations, we would like to have you understand the spirit of what grades are supposed to reflect, and rather than having your "stories" be excuses for unfair teacher assessed grades, have them be your evidence for co-constructed grading. To do this you need to be honest about the four pillars of learning and how well you approached each of them.

While they are not set at 25% each, if you have minimal evidence for one or more of the pillars this should signal to you that you were NOT successful in that area, which would then be reflected in you self assessed final grade. 

Neufeld classes should have at minimum (3-5 fitness testing days stats and reflections, 2 personal goal setting posts with research links to appropriate workouts, 3 or more goal of the day workouts, 5 fitness day activity reviews and reflections, 3 or more sport day activities and leadership/participation review, a midterm post, a diet post, an extra curricular activity post, and this FINAL post)

Your final post should have evidence The goal here is for you to be able to critically and honestly see yourself within the context of the pillars and the class. Nobody is perfect and nobody is without hope... finding yourself in the middle will be more rewarding than anything I as a teacher can ever say about you. Good luck!!

1. I feel I always give my best. I give 100% and nothing less. I have always been on time and the only time I have been away was when I went to India. I have forgotten my strip 2 times but that was when we had joint band speed ball and the first buddies I went to. During fitness day I try my hardest and when it is game day I also try my hardest even though I am not good at whatever we are doing. Even when i was injured (I fell down during one of the joint fitness days with the other band) I still kept going. I have shown this in my blog with pictures and videos. I feel i deserve a B (78%) in this category.

2. For social responsibility I believe at the start I wasn't really organizing much but I was encouraging others. I cheered on others whenever I could. Later on in the year I started to set up and organize and take down. One time I had organized CTF with others in the band. I brought in the equipment with help of course. And help organize the game and getting the attention of the other kids and enforcing the rules and try to make the game fun for others. Whenever we play speed ball I always stay defense because I know that nobody will stay and try to help out whoever is in goal so they do not feel overwhelmed and fell that they are not having a good time. I always try to keep a smile whenever we do fitness days to show others it is not bad. And whenever someone is struggling I say come on you should be faster than me you are fitter. Also I am always honest every day in class. I volunteer at my local temple and help out whenever I can. I feel that i should deserve a B (75%).

3. Health wise I am not exactly healthy, I need a lot of improvement. My fitness scores were the same from the year before in the first half, in fact pretty low. Once I started to run I got faster and lasted longer. My scores were better and I felt that there was much more that could be easily improved by me continually running. I could run faster on the pond run and do a faster rate at the locomotion. I also could squeeze in more reps than ever before. My beep test scores were always disappointing since whenever I ran there so many people I always was stuck behind someone and had to run faster than I should and crapped out earlier than I would, resulting in subpar results. I knew that these scores never reflected me since that you said when we ran around the lower field and had to get in a group. You said if you had a low score you run 1 minuet on and off. I had the low score you were describing but I felt I could do more. I paired up with Arjun and Conner. Conner was slower so I could never run at my full potential. This was a huge confidence boost; I felt there was much more that I could do. My parents say my diet isn’t healthy, so they are now controlling it and telling me what to eat. I have been running cardio and doing body weight training which has given me surprising results. If I keep going with it I will reach my goal of losing weight and getting fitter. I feel I deserve a 78%, a B.

4. My digital portfolio wasn’t good at all, I basically was failing. Before I left for India I started to post more than before and posted about home workouts. I have posted numerous posts about fitness tests score, evidence during fitness days, and evidence about home workouts. I only went to the weight room once and Arjun has not sent me anything regarding that day ever since, and I am embarrassed about my meals being online for everyone to see. I have commented on other blogs many times and have included my goals on the blog as well. My blog quality is not the best or even near the best, I believe it is good enough to get me a 70%. Yes I have not posted a picture of my meals; yes I do not have a single weight room post. I have excuses, you don’t have to believe and take marks away. But I think I do deserve a 70%.