Co-Creating Success Criteria with students

My goal this year is focused on Implement strategies for inquiry-to-action projects based on real-world problems. The past couple of years have also been focused on inquiry to action projects. However, given restrictions due to covid (remote learning, not being able to have experts in, cohorting of students, etc), my students have done the inquiry portion, but never fully applied action to these projects. 

This year my goal is to fully apply action to students projects that create change in our world. I want students to see the full range of inquiry to action being completed and the results of their work. 

Right now, I am working on immersing students in the 3 areas of learning for 4th grade.. We are exploring our essential questions, using hands-on inquiry, and building background of these concepts. This step is essential in helping students be able to choose a project they are passionate about and want to see action. 

In the next few weeks, my next goal is to create success criteria with students about what an inquiry-to-action project should look like. In the past, I started with their topic and helped them through the LAUNCH process step-by-step.. I still see these steps as vital but have seen the benefit of co-creating success criteria with students in the classroom. 

This powerful step provides students with ownership of their projects and clear expectations of how to be successful in their work. Starting their inquiry-to-action projects with this step will be instrumental in creating projects that bring action to our community. 

While we have not done success criteria for this project yet, we have co-created success criteria a few times already in our classroom. In order to do this, students look at exemplars of writing. They then analyze these to determine important pieces of the writing and essential elements to include in their own writing. They have critical and powerful conversations as they discuss together. 

Having already been familiar with the process of creating success criteria will be very beneficial to students as they begin creating success criteria for their inquiry to action projects. 

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Students working together to co-create success criteria for summaries.