Albany Senior High School/Impact Projects/Drivers

=Drivers= The drivers are:
 * evidence of learning
 * reflection
 * planning tasks
 * success criteria
 * community communication

=How do the drivers work?= Drivers are the important concepts or ideas that sit between the principles and the tools and processes we use to make impact projects tick. While they are described separately, there are strong connections between each and they often work together rather than as separate elements.

ERPs
Evidence, reflection and planning work together in a cycle. You will collect evidence of learning and evidence of your product quality at lots of stages during a project. You can use all kinds of technology to record verbal, written and visual evidence. This evidence then feeds into your reflections of how things are going and these reflections then form the basis of good planning for the future.

This ERP cycle may happen very quickly at a point during the day or it may take place as a larger cycle. You might:
 * 1) collect a piece of evidence during the day
 * 2) reflect on it in discussion with other group members and an expert consultant in period three
 * 3) then conduct the relevant planning for next week.

Success criteria are an important driver here as they can be used to help sharpen your reflections. The planning that takes place after reflection is then well-aligned with the initial project goals and any further knowledge that you gain can be used to refine the success criteria further.

A larger sized ERP cycle might take place across the first few weeks of a progress phase of a project. You could:
 * 1) collect multiple pieces of evidence across a number of weeks
 * 2) reflect on them before an important milestone in the project and discuss this with all the relevant experts,
 * 3) then adjust your planning - success criteria, roles and tasks to better achieve your learning goals and high quality product.

Evidence of Learning
This driver is about your learning journey during a project.

Purpose

 * To help you identify and highlight the important parts of your learning journey
 * Feeds into reflection and planning
 * Provides accountability and communication with school and home
 * Encourages input from your whanau

Guidelines for Use
Evidence should be collected and tracked in an ongoing way. The artefacts you collect as evidence should show your learning as closely as possible. It should be evidence of the learning, not just the doing. Sometimes the choices around how it is recorded are very important in this regard. Should the evidence be recorded visually, verbally, in writing or a combination of the three? Is there technology available to make the collection and capture of this evidence easier? Talk to other people and groups about what things they're using to collect evidence of learning. People are discovering new ways to do this all the time!

ePortfolios are a core (non-negotiable) communication and collection tool required for every group. They can function as a jump-off point for other evidence and can have a collection of links to external evidence (like Tumblr, written blogs etc) as well as evidence embedded on your e-portfolio page. Proposals, evidence of learning and evaluations are all required to be stored in an e-portfolio or (in the case of individual projects) a shared page. Secret URLs should be used to share e-portfolio content with all stakeholders.

Some helpful tools for collecting and linking to evidence:


 * Tumblr
 * Posterous
 * YouTube
 * Booklets
 * GoogleDocs
 * Blogs

The PEEL structured sentence starters can be helpful for developing reflections.

Point Example Explain Link
 * What was today’s learning?
 * Link to an artefact that shows this
 * OR (if artefact not available)
 * Write a specific description of what happened
 * How did this lead to your learning? Why?
 * How will you approach this problem different next time?
 * How does this learning contribute towards your final product/success criteria?

Evidence and reflections are then used to refine planning.

All projects should have at least one piece of evidence collected and uploaded by end of Period 2 (P1: Planning, P2: Evidence; P3: Reflection)

Evidence of Learning Tools

 * Adding video evidence of learning to e-portfolios is tutorial[[media:E-portfolio_adding_evidence.pdf | here.]]
 * Using RSS feeds so that your blog appears (is embedded) in your e-portfolio is tutorial is [[media:E-portfolio_adding_RSS_feeds_for_blogs.pdf | here.]]

Some online tools student have used successfully to collect and record evidence are:
 * [tumblr]
 * [e-portfolio]

Purpose
The purpose of reflection is to improve the quality of the project by considering what has happened so far and given that, what needs to happen next.

Guidelines for Use
You should have conversations with your mentors and experts as often during the flow of your project. There are also times set aside for reflecting on evidence and planning. The project mentor is your main helper when you carry out the reflection part of the process.

Reflections can also provide really good further evidence of learning. Conversations during reflections can be recorded using a choice or combination of the following methods.


 * Recorded using a dictaphone and uploaded to a portfolio
 * Written in a reflection booklet
 * Typed into a portfolio

At the end of the day you will work with your mentor and practise taking a “step back” to reflect on the happenings in the day. A result might be to write to do lists for the week ahead based on the 'so what' questions from the sentence starters resource. Other results might include but are not limited to, clarifying the purpose of parts of your project, refining your success criteria, developing your individual learning goals and developing your collaborative communication skills.

Measuring the Quality of Reflections

 * 1) Describe, with supporting evidence, the effectiveness of an impact project
 * 2) Reflect, with supporting evidence, the effectiveness of an impact project
 * 3) Critically reflect, with supporting evidence, the effectiveness of an impact project

Reflect - For achievement at Level 2 the reflection must, with supporting evidence, draw conclusions about how effective the project has been to date.

Critically Reflect - For achievement at Level 3, the critical reflection must, with supporting evidence, examine, question, evaluate and challenge how effective the project has been to date.

Tools and Processes
Some online tools students have successfully used for reflection are: [posterous] [blogger] [ASHS microblogger]

Purpose

 * To divide up a project goal into smaller 'do-able' chunks.
 * To figure out the best person to work on each task.
 * To ensure the project finishes on time with the highest quality outcome (both the product and your learning).

Guidelines for Use
Effective task planning considers the following sources:


 * success criteria and the progress made with these so far.
 * evidence of learning and how this develops your expertise. Tasks should be designed to best use your knowledge and expertise and then given to the best group member for the job.
 * reflections (feedback on past planning and feedforward to next planning)
 * tutorials and specialist subjects (conversations outside of a Wednesday)

Planning tasks need to be in short, medium and long term timeframes while being flexible - open to changes as you develop your knowledge, processes and product. Individual group members should also be responsible and for tasks depending on your role and expertise in the group. Tasks should also be scaffolded (lead-ins, sentence starters, prioritise) and necessary time provided for planning. Breakdown of key tasks/’steer’ your breakdown of big picture into manageable steps,
 * give direction/structure/milestones,
 * start with the end in mind
 * Substantial amount of learning
 * Failing to plan is planning to fail
 * Resources for planning should be accessible for you, mentors experts and tutors.

Long Term - done at the beginning on the cycle and revisited What - A Gantt chart illustrates a project schedule Why - So you can see the relationships between activities, mentors get better indication of substantial learning at start of project, you reflect on Wednesdays and make changes/additions to your Gantt chart Template on googe doc - create new - from template - search Gantt - Impact Project Gantt Chart make a copy Drop Box file: Impact Project Gantt Chart

Medium Term - done 3 to 4 times through cycle

Short Term - done every Wednesday and assigned a group member to be responsible for its delivery. Each task should have an easily measurable deliverable.

Tools and Processes
The first three tools listed below are [here.]

Long term planning - Gantt Chart Template This is to help you figure out the timing of your tasks, how long they take and who needs to finish what and when. It can be done electronically or printed out and filled out with coloured pens.

Short term planning - Day planning sheet This is to help keep track of who is doing what in a single day. Your mentor may ask you to fill this out at the beginning of the day or during period three for the following week.

Short term planning - task setting flow diagram This flowchart has been designed to help you with setting tasks at the beginning of the day and during period three for the following week. Setting good tasks can be more complex than you might think. Try using this flow diagram until you have memorised each step, then just do it naturally!

Short term planning - impact project timesheet [This timesheet]has been designed to help you organise who does what task and track how the task are progressing. Go to google drive / google docs and hit create --&gt; template. Then search for "impact project timesheet" and hit the "use this template" button.

Purpose

 * A compass to keep the project on track!
 * To maximise the quality of the product
 * To drive quality task setting
 * To maximise quality learning

Success Criteria Are
Quantifiable statements (specific and measurable) that allow you to measure the quality of a particular aspect of a project. Built around the:
 * product
 * knowledge (identified understandings and expertise needed for the project)
 * processes (commonly repeated sequences of events)

Guidelines for Use
Success criteria should evolve as the project progresses. They should be specific and measurable to start with but the nature of what they measure may change as the you develop your understanding of the knowledge, processes and product quality measures needed for the project. Success criteria should be reviewed and refined each week. Do they still fit? Can they be more specific? Experts and mentors should be consulted here. Success criteria can also be formally linked to planned milestones, expert consultation and refinement points during project. They should also be aligned to planning for the day, next week and the duration of the project. Resourcing - A volume button/sliding scale could be used as part of your reflection on how you are meeting goals

Purpose

 * Develop formal communication skills for presenting in your career or other high-stakes communication opportunities.
 * To ensure professional and positive communication with stakeholders.
 * Increase stakeholder participation
 * Sends a consistent and positive message about Impact Projects and ASHS.

Guidelines for Use
See below for different kinds of communication with different stakeholders.

Contacting a potential stakeholder outside the school

 * 1) Identify a possible stakeholder outside the school.
 * 2) Identify any expertise they have to offer and what feedback they can provide.
 * 3) Fill out the [[Media:Community_communication_-_Telephone_Script.pdf|telephone script]] with your mentor.
 * 4) Practice this conversation with your mentor
 * 5) Contact the possible stakeholder and introduce yourself and your project with the telephone script.
 * 6) If the stakeholder agrees to help, use the [[Media:Community_communication_-_email_template.pdf|letter template]] to write a draft for a follow-up letter.
 * 7) Get mentor to proofread and email to Kim Kindley with stakeholder contact details.Please note it is the mentor's responsibility to ensure this letter has a professional tone and is gramatically correct. Put yourself in the recipients shoes.
 * 8) Wait for recipient to contact students.
 * 9) If no reply is received, look for another stakeholder!
 * 10) Print and take letter of introduction to your first meeting with the stakeholder.

EOTC and preparing to work outside of school

 * 1) Discuss the trip with your mentor to see whether the trip fulfils your project's needs.
 * 2) Work with your mentor to develop a list of deliverables that clearly contribute to your product (success criteria) for each day you will be out.
 * 3) Submit this for approval to your team leader and/or mentor.
 * 4) If approved, record them in your e-portfolio (or another place you can track them and share them with others)
 * 5) Fill in the trip plannerform. Please ensure students give the exact periods they are away for e.g. 'Just P1' or 'whole day.'
 * 6) Print off and fill in the EOTC documents (one RAMS form, and one permission form for each group member) by the Friday before departure.
 * 7) Hand the filled in and signed off EOTC forms to the mentor (they will be the ones to approve it). Mentors need to ensure these forms have been filled in correctly.
 * 8) Students to hand in their signed and approved EOTC paperwork to Kelly in reception
 * 9) Students need to signout at reception if attending to leave during a period on a Wednesday.
 * 10) Students need evidence of learning outside the classroom. After each trip they must upload evidence of learning into their e-portfolio.

Tools and Processes
EOTC trip planner form: https://docs.google.com/a/ashs.school.nz/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEg2SnZOemZ3cFF0N1A3dE9RUmFvcUE6MQ

EOTC RAMS and Permission form: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9lQJ_CfH-YcR3lxWVZYMzVudXc/edit?usp=sharing

Example EOTC RAMS form: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2kM8eFZ4rrzam9fa2h2UThBWjA

EOTC trip planner document (to see if you have been approved 2 Y's): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmkM8eFZ4rrzdEg2SnZOemZ3cFF0N1A3dE9RUmFvcUE&amp;usp=sharing