Starting the school year organized

Getting ready for the first day of the school year is often loaded with the hopes and dreams for improving last year’s structures, excitement of meeting new students, and anxious apprehension for new administrative demands, protocols, or changes. With each new school year, as teachers, we get the chance to makeover last year and hopefully make good on our promises to be more organized, structured, creative, and innovative. However, it doesn’t hurt to have a few new ready-to-go resources to help streamline the process. Thanks to Shannon for her formatting skills in creating such user friendly rubrics. We hope they save you lots of time and help you stay organized!

Marksheets:

The Marksheets have been prepared for the three IB Visual Arts components: the Exhibition, Process Portfolio, and Comparative Study. These resources have been designed for teachers who have heavier course loads or higher numbers of students. There is limited space for noting feedback about individual students; however, the criteria-specific grading can help you get a sense of your class’ progress from a broader lens. At the end of each 2-page Marksheet, you’ll see an extra page dedicated to reflecting upon how a particular unit went to help you keep track of strengths, areas for growth, and carry-over ideas to consider for the following teaching unit. Of course, while these mark sheets are geared towards larger class sizes, they can be used by teachers of smaller groups of students, too.

Individual Student Grading Records:

The Individual Student Grading Records offer an opportunity to keep track of individual students throughout the two-year program. Because of the time involved in maintaining extra paperwork, these resources are geared toward teachers with the luxury of smaller classes or lighter teaching loads. Each record offers space to keep track of the feedback you provide students by criterion within each of the three IB Visual Arts components. For teachers who need to write narrative teaching comments quarterly or for those who already write feedback digitally, this digital form will come in handy and hopefully will be an easy place to cut and paste feedback that you’ve written elsewhere. This grading record may also be valuable to you when it comes time to write comments for the VACAF6 Forms. You might find that keeping this documentation will be helpful for your students to have access to, so keep that in mind!