Developing Expert Voices--Involving Students in Setting High Expectations

Darren Kuropatwa over at the A Difference blog has created an assignment challenging his math students to summarize their learning and create a real-world product. The students are to create four (new) problems that demonstrate what they have learned. Not only that, they are to publish the result of their work on the Internet. They can publish to youtube.com, slideshare.net, bubbleshare, or any other location that allows wide distribution. (Potentially 1 billion people that have access to the Internet)

Here is what is really cool about this assignment, the students were also heavily involved in creating the rubric for evaluating the presentations. Read the posts where the students are discussing the weighting of particular dimensions. These students are thoughtful and involved in their own learning. They OWN their learning.

Read this post from John Albright and read the rubric and assignment from Darren Kuropatwa's students. Also check out this assignment (the "un-project") from Sargent Park School.

Are the students provided an opportunity to demonstrate the skills that the Denver-metro business leaders mentioned at the CTE advisory meeting (effective, communication, critical thinking, multi-tasking, teamwork, tech-savvy, work ethic, trustworthiness, trainability, cultural awareness)? Do you have ideas how we might create more opportunities like this for students?