Wall of Awesome

Main Entry: Wall of Awe·some
Function: noun
Definition: a wall set aside for displaying awesome student work
Eatamology: Merced (co-teacher in 2007) and I first dreamed of the Wall of Awesome during a weeklong New Tech Training session in Bloomington, Indiana back in 2007. We dreamed of a place to display student work that satisfied rubric criteria that was more advanced than Advanced criteria. We got so busy with our first year at MNTH that we never implemented in idea. This Fall 2009, Banks (current co-teacher) and I figured out how to implement the Wall of Awesome – see below.
Date: Summer 2007, Fall 2009

At MNTH, most project products are graded using 3 column rubrics. The three columns are Emerging or Unsatisfactory, Proficient, and Advanced or Exemplary. Students can earn up to high B’s by completing all the Proficient criteria correctly and up to high A’s by completing all the Proficient and Advanced criteria. This is a simple scheme when students complete ALL the proficient criteria BEFORE attempting the Advanced criteria. Often they don’t do this. Instead teams often partially complete items from both columns and assigning A’s and B’s becomes much less straightforward.

Banks and I figured out a solution to this. We do not allow teams to view the Advanced criteria unless they complete all the Proficient criteria several days before the final product is due. Teams that apply for the Advanced rubrics also have the option to apply for the Awesome rubrics. Both Advanced and Awesome rubrics allow teams to earn up to 100% on their final products. Awesome is more challenging than Advanced. Teams that apply for Awesome have to attend invitation-only workshops on enrichment material in order to complete all the Awesome criteria. Teams going for Advanced can complete the Advanced material based on workshops and learning activities accessible to all teams. Although Awesome is more challenging than Advanced, we do not give out extra-credit points to teams that complete the Awesome criteria. Instead, we reward these teams by creating slides of their team members and their work that hang up on the Wall of Awesome for the entire year.

Having an application process for Advanced/Awesome rubrics has encouraged many teams to avoid leaving project work until the day before major deadlines. Many teams who apply for Advanced/Awesome rubrics choose the Awesome rubric even though they know it’s harder. Some students who have already made it on the wall have set higher goals for themselves in the course because they believe they should be awesome if they are on the Wall of Awesome.

Rubric Charts

The colored blocks enclose teams in my 1st Period (red), 2nd period (yellow), 3rd period (green), and 5th period (blue). Each row label has the full text of a rubric item.

Main Entry: ru·bric chart
Function: Noun
Definition: a poster-sized table that has rows and columns for each rubric item and each team. See above for example.
Eatamology: Eaten out of Tina Wyatt’s brain. She’s a freshman ELA teacher at Manor New Tech who uses the rubric chart to help her freshman pay attention to the rubric and to help them with time management.
Date: Some TAP cluster meeting in fall 2009 (will update with real date later)

I love rubric charts. It is a great visual to see which teams are making great vs. mid-range vs. poor progress on their projects. I stamp rubric items to indicate that (1) the team has attempted all parts of that rubric item and (2) I have given them feedback on that attempt. In our school, that would be called grading for Work Ethic.

Earlier this week, I didn’t have time to staple our current rubric chart to the wall; instead I had it laid it out on the workshop table near my desk so I could easily catch up on my stamping. My students checked the chart to see how close they were to completion. As normal, many teams used the chart to see where they stood relative to other teams and to stir up their teams to catch up or beat other teams.

And then it got interesting. Some teams starting holding informal group meetings around the rubric chart that focused on their progress on the rubric. Some students used the rubric items on the rubric chart as references to formulate really good questions about content and to request workshops. Since the chart was on the workshop table in front of the SmartBoard, some of the workshops occurred immediately after the requests.

In the future, I will continue to place the rubric chart in places that are easy to access by the students so they can continue to use it as a tool to get their teams motivated and organized. I also plan to expand the chart to include all the project TEKS.

Related tool: http://www.blockposters.com This is the website I use to convert jpeg versions of my letter-sized rubric charts into poster-sized pdf versions of the rubric charts. The pdf file splits up the poster into letter-sized sheets of paper that can be assembled into the poster.