Update on Exceeds Options

What an exciting, and inspired meeting we had on Friday with the Allied Arts team during our teacher inservice day.  The Allied Arts team consists of several different subjects, including physical education, home economics, music, art and health.  You might wonder how are we able to talk about curriculum when we teach such diverse subjects?  In fact, sometimes it is quite a challenge.  At times, it doesn't even make too much sense for us to meet together, because we are thinking about completely different things.  However, on Friday, we came together and got an enormous amount accomplished!  The question on the table for all curriculum teams right now is "How do we create exceeds options for our classes?"

One of the art teachers described that an exceeds option for art, music or home economics looks really different from one in math or language arts.  She encouraged us to think about a general idea of what an exceeds option might be for our different curriculums and projects.  This is what the group came up with, it is a work in progress, but I am thrilled we were able to come together as a team and find these options, talk about them, describe them, and feel really positive about where we were going, how we might find our way to motivating students, how students might be able to find their own options for Exceeds, and what an exceeds option entails for the allied arts classes.  Let's keep students motivated to go deeper into a subject, to delve further when they have a passion for something, and to find mentors in the community to help with these passionate pursuits.

Standard/Topic	What Learning Do We Expect to See at the Exceeds Level?  At the exceeds level we expect students to transfer previous knowledge and demonstrate a complex understanding of the standards.	Why do We Think That Learning is at the Exceeds Level? Self-initiated Student-driven Authentic Proposal oriented Transfer of knowledge from one standard to another or a further understanding of a standard.	How will we know when we see that learning?  What EVIDENCE will convince us?  Provide examples. The students will be able to articulate how their work artifact or performance relates to the standard.
		Passion.