Our Project

Teams have been drawn up among the 29 children in the class. The five teams consist of 5 or 6 children who will work collaboratively while each bringing their own special talents to the table. The children will produce their own blogs and photostories showcasing how they believe the school garden can be used to it's maximum potential. These blogs and photostories will be presented to Mr. McGorman and some members of the garden and Green school committees, where a winning team will be chosen.

Within their teams children each have a specific role to focus on. 

• Team Leader  
• ICT Coordinator
• Vegetation Expert 
• Insect Expert 
• Artwork Expert 
• General Garden Practicalities Expert.
• Green Schools Expert

Children are required to produce a garden presentation that incorporates all of the above aspects, while keeping under a garden budget of 7000 euro.

In a brainstorming session at the beginning of the project, we looked discussed what aspects of the project would be graded. Ideas were recorded on the whiteboard and we began to discuss the idea of creating an assessment rubric to guide us during the process of creating our presentation.

 

Presentation Rubric for your Presentation

Team Name:

Highly Capable 3	Capable 2	Partially capable 1	Score
Content
·         Provides comprehensive insight, understanding and useful tips for designing a school garden. ·         Use of realistic ideas that are practical for implementation in approaching a solution to a real life problem ·         Presenting ideas in a concise and appealing way that is appropriate for the intended audience	·         Provides moderate insight, understanding and useful tips for designing a school garden. ·         Infrequent use of realistic ideas that are practical for implementation in approaching a solution to a real life problem ·          Presenting ideas in a concise and appealing way that is generally appropriate for the intended audience	·          Lacking insight, understanding and useful tips for designing a school garden. ·          Lack of realistic ideas that are practical for implementation in approaching a solution to a real life problem ·          Presenting ideas in haphazard way that is not appropriate for the intended audience
Organisation
·          Uses a consistent organisational structure that includes all the required information	·          Grouped some but not all information so not all requirements were met due to omission	·          Lacks a consistent organizational structure where information is difficult to locate
Web 2.0 Tools and Multimedia
·         Includes high quality multimedia that gives a comprehensive picture of the project to your intended audience. ·         Included a high quality blog/photo story that details your project journey from beginning to end	·         Includes a good quality of multimedia that gives a comprehensive picture of the project to your intended audience. ·         Included a good quality blog/photo story that details some of your project journey through the process of the project	·         Includes a low quality of multimedia that gives a incomplete picture not fit for your intended audience. ·         Does not include a good quality blog/photo story that details the project journey
Group Collaboration
·         Each group member contributes equally to the researching, writing and editing of their group blog and final presentation ·         Meet all goals and deadline ·         Exhibits appropriate blog etiquette when assessing and critiquing the work of others	·         Each group member contributes to some of the researching, writing and editing of their group blog and final presentation ·         Meet some goals and deadline ·         Generally exhibits appropriate blog etiquette when assessing and critiquing the work of others	·         Insufficient evidence of each group member contribution to the researching, writing and editing of their group blog and final presentation ·         Failure to meet goals and deadlines ·         Minimal effort made to use appropriate blog etiquette when assessing and critiquing the work of others
Writing Mechanics and Web Validity
·         Edits the text with no errors in grammar, capitilisation, punctuation or spelling ·         Approach web content with integrity, discerning appropriate information to be posted	·         Evidence of editing shown but additional editing required due to errors remaining ·         Inconsistencies in the quality and validity of internet based content	·         Insufficient evidence of editing shown, readability due to grammatical errors ·         Little or no effort made to validate internet based content
Comments			Overall

Children's Rubric for Self-reflection

Student Work Rubric

We worked as a team to create rubrics for our garden project. The rubric was incorporated in the blog and the children were instructed to refer to this at regular intervals throughout the project. The roles identified within each group were as follows: Team Leader, Insect Expert, Vegetation Expert, Garden Practicalities, Green School Expert and Art Expert. The roles were defined to begin with however there was shared responsibility of roles at different times of the project when one role took priority over another there the roles at times interchangeable.

Name:
Team Name:
Role:
Needs development (0-3)		Competent (4-7)	Highly Competent (8-10)	Score
Individual Responsibilities		Individual Responsibilities	Individual Responsibilities
·          Seldom checked in with teammates to offer help and support ·          Seldom checked quality of blog comments or post ·          Seldom checked the quality of website content		·          Sometimes checked in with teammates to offer help and support ·          Sometimes checked quality of blog comments or post ·          Sometimes checked the quality of website content	·          Always checked in with teammates to offer help and support ·          Always checked quality of blog comments or post ·         Always checked the quality of website content
Shared Responsibilities		Shared Responsibilities	Shared Responsibilities
·          Seldom encouraged or supported teammates ·          Often grew distracted and found it hard to remain on task ·          Self regulated own workload		·         Sometimes encouraged or supported teammates ·          Sometimes grew distracted and found it hard to remain on task ·          Self regulated own workload from time to time	·          Always encouraged or supported teammates equally ·          Always worked on task and never became distracted ·          Always self regulated own workload
Listening  Skills		Listening Skills	Listening Skills
·         Took over conservation not allowing input from others ·         Seldom contributed to group discussion and lacked input		·         Maintained a balance of talking and listening for the most part ·         Contributed to group discussion and gave input in equal measure	·         Always maintained a balance of talking and listening ·         Always contributed to group discussion and asked questions when needed and took direction when needed
Decision Making Skills		Decision Making Skills	Decision Making Skills
·         Self elected decision maker ·         Failed to contribute to decision making		·         Made decisions from time to time but often content to accept majority rule	·         Always took the views and opinions of others into consideration to make best possible decision
Teamwork and Collaboration		Teamwork and Collaboration	Teamwork and Collaboration
·         Seldom fulfilled personal responsibilities ·         Seldom collaborated with and supported the work of teammates		·         Fulfilled personal responsibilities to a point ·         Collaborated and supported the work of teammates for the most part	·         Always fulfilled personal responsibilities ·         Always collaborated and supported the work of teammates, taking on additional work when needed
Comments				Overall