February: Quality Producer

True Confession
Quality Producer has been a skill in our district since I started over 25 years ago. When I was still in the classroom, whenever I assigned a project I tried to make sure high quality work was an expectation, and I sometimes even made it part of the rubric. In this way, I felt like I was “doing” Quality Producer and could proudly put a check in that box. Nonetheless, most of the time I was

disappointed and frustrated. Disappointed in the low quality (crossed out words on a poster, sloping text, bad printing, crudely crafted projects, etc.) of much of the work. Frustrated that I didn’t feel like I had the tools to clearly teach what I meant by “high quality” which in turn made it difficult for me to hold students accountable. I didn’t like marking students down for something I didn’t really teach them. No surprise: telling students to do high quality work isn’t the same as showing them what it looks like. I hope this month’s learning helps you in your quest to support high quality work in your classroom.

Check It Out
Read the description and review the grade-level checklist for this skill at the Future Ready Skill website.

Learn More

Read the following articles

• Read Fostering an Ethic of Excellence by Ron Berger (pp. 1-4)
• How to Get High-Quality Student Work in PBL (Note: though this article places high-quality work within a context of problem-based learning, its strategies and suggestions are relevant in any classroom.) 

Go on a Field Trip
Step outside your classroom and roam the halls for a few minutes. How many examples of high quality student work do you see? What helps you distinguish the high from the low quality work? Using this lens through which to view the hallway walls, what observations can you make about your school’s culture of quality?

Prompt
Finally, read about the three attributes of high quality work (Models of Excellence: Attributes of High Quality Work). As you read, think about a t project or assignment that students completed for your class in which you were disappointed by the quality of the work your students displayed. In which of the three attributes was the work lacking? What could you do next time to support students producing high(er) quality work for that project or assignment? What success criteria from Quality Producer would help your students increase the quality of their work in this instance?