# Presentation: 711468

## Hayden ElementaryHayden, Indiana

- Mr. Corey Baughman, 1st Grade Teacher, cbaughman@jcsc.org
- And
- Mrs. Diana Kent, Remediation Assistant, dkent@jcsc.org

- The Power of Engaging Students:
- WOW! (Working On the Work)

## School Facts

- School Type/Size – Elementary with 347 students
- Location – Rural, Southeastern Indiana
- Student Characteristics – 47% Free and Reduced Lunch, 22% identified Special Education, top 10% in the state testing scores
- Piloted countywide use of Dr. Phil Schlechty’s Ten Design Qualities, known colloquially as WOW (Working on the Work)
- Trained parents to recognize these qualities in their children’s work
- Trained students to self evaluate levels of engagement

## The Ten Design Qualities

- 1. Content and Substance
- Rich and culturally relevant materials
- Appropriate to maturity level
- 2. Organization of Knowledge
- Makes information accessible
- Assists students to see connections between disciplines

## 3. Product Focus

- Work clearly linked to some product, performance or exhibition
- Students care about or see the meaning in the product

## 4. Clear and Compelling Product Standards

- Standards to be assessed clearly articulated
- Provides for concrete examples, prototypes or rubrics
- Provides for assessment throughout the project

## 5. Protection from Adverse Consequences of Initial Failures

- Students are provided feed back throughout the project
- Feedback is also given by persons other than the teacher
- Students are offered additional opportunities to complete the goal without the first effort affecting the grade

## 6. Affirmation of Performance

- Products made sufficiently public and observable by persons other than the teacher
- Persons other than the teacher inspect and affirm the worth of the projects

## 7. Affiliation

- Tasks are invented in ways that encourage cooperative action among students and adults
- Products are difficult enough that they require cooperation
- Required individual work is linked to cooperative actions

## 8. Novelty and Variety

- Tasks are varied in kind, complexity, and length
- Students are called upon to use new skills, different media, approaches, styles of presentation and modes of analysis
- Information is presented in a variety of formats

## 9. Choice

- Students provided with a choice in the means they will employ to produce the product and the performance
- Students provided with a choice with regard to the product or the nature of the performance

## 10. Authenticity

- Products are perceived by students to be real
- Conditions of the work are similar to the real world

- Discipline problems went down as attendance went up
- Scores – see chart for scores from 1997-1998 and from 2006-2007
- Parents as well as students become accustomed to this type of learning as it automatically addresses all learning styles.
- Auditory
- Tactile
- Visual

- Results of Using Ten Design Qualities

- ’97-’98   ’06-’07

## Summary Points

- Out of frustration on behalf of parents, teachers and students, Hayden decided to take school reform to heart. As a result, twelve years ago, we discovered the power of Dr. Schlechty’s Ten Design Qualities.
- The Ten Design Qualities are a Process _not_ a Program.
- The Hayden staff started the “climb” up the “ladder” of WOW at different rates.
- We as a staff are resolved to keep the spiral moving upward in order to give our students the best possible education.