Coursework Overview

The activities and assignments for this course will support you as you reflect on your personal expectations for secondary school graduates, explore community perspectives, and develop drafts of a graduate profile. Activities are generally shorter tasks and don’t require you to share in the forums, though we hope you will want to and encourage you to do so! Assignments tend to be longer tasks and require you to share your work in the forums and provide feedback to your classmates. 

This course is only four weeks long and is designed to be a quick, inspirational experience that will help you launch work that will hopefully be ongoing. We encourage you to plan out now on your calendar when you’ll complete your assignment work, especially for assignments that require you to reach out to someone else, keeping in mind the suggested due date.

Part 1: Reflecting on High School (available May 2, 2019)

Activity: Reflecting on the Purpose of High School - Consider the purpose of high school from your perspective and someone else’s.

Activity: Glimpse of Expectations for High School Graduates - Gain insight into how expectations for secondary school graduates are currently communicated.

Activity: Brainstorming Characteristics - Guided by prompts and sample graduate profiles, brainstorm a list of expectations you have for what graduates should know and be able to do. 

Assignment: Talk with a Stakeholder (Work Period: May 2-14, 2019) - Develop questions and speak with a stakeholder to get another perspective on characteristics and capabilities graduates should have.

Part 2: The Graduate Profile Process (available May 13, 2019)

Assignment: Develop First Draft (Work Period: May 13-20, 2019) - Create a first draft of a graduate profile using insights from your conversation with a stakeholder as well as your brainstorm regarding characteristics. 

Activity: Share & Reflect on Feedback - Share the first draft with someone else in your community (who may or may not be the same person that you interviewed), get feedback, and reflect on how that feedback will influence the next draft. 

Activity: I Used to Think, But Now I Think - Consider what you’ve learned and how your thoughts and feelings have changed due to your work in this course. 

Assignment: Develop Second Draft (Work Period: May 20-27, 2019): Develop a more polished version of your graduate profile that is meant to be shared widely. Generate an action plan for how you will continue this process after the course.