Semester end review

My first semester doing 20% time finished about 2 weeks ago.  It has taken me that long to digest and reflect on the project.  I will be lucky enough to teach Civics again next year, so I wanted to look at the final self-assessment from the students to see how I could improve the next time.

The final self-assessment was broken into 2 parts: their reflection on their work and on the idea of 20% time.

Did you find that working having time each week to work on the project was a good thing?

1	1	4%
2	1	4%
3	3	13%
4	5	21%
5	14	58%

The scale was 1 =not at all and 5 = absolutely!

I am glad to see that 79% of students found that getting time each week on their project was useful. This makes my decision to do 20% feel more validated.  96% also found that getting to choose their own topic was "nice" and "made them more invested in the outcome".  I asked whether they would like to do this type of project in other classes and their answers where what I expected: 21% yes, 25% maybe and 50% depends on the subject. I completely agree with the 50%; I found that a Civics class had great potential for very open-ended (yet guided) inquiry, but I am not sure that other subject matters could.  Any day now, the new Ontario Canadian and World Studies curriculum will be available.  We are told it has a more Inquiry based approach, so I am already planning how to use 20% time in my Politics class in first semester.

In terms of using GAPPS, it seems it was useful!

What is your thoughts on using GAPPS?

I found it useful	19	40%
It helped keep me and the project organized	15	32%
I liked the comment feature	5	11%
I would have liked to use word	3	6%
I found it confusing and hard to use	1	2%
Other                                                         9%

So what I am taking away from this first experience is that it seemed to have worked. I have some refinements to make to forms, and in the setting up of the project overall, but I look forward to trying it again come September.