Design Qualities
Content and Substance: Educators, in collaboration with the community, identify the essential learning and skills that students must master.
Organization of Knowledge: Content is organized so that access to the material is clear and relatively easy for all students.
Product Focus: Engaging work almost always focuses on a product or performance of value to students.
Clear & Compelling Product Standards: The expectations for assessing the products or the performances are clear and important to students.
Protection from Adverse Consequences: Students receive feedback on their work and have opportunities to reach the standard throughout the process.
Affirmation of Performance: Students’ products are observed by persons other than the teacher.
Affiliation: The design of the work requires cooperative action among students and adults.
Novelty and Variety: The work is varied in methods and format so that students use a variety of skills, media, and modes of analysis.
Choice: Students are provided with options in the ways of doing the work and the methods of presentation.
Authenticity: The work has significance and is related to consequences in the present lives of students.
Resources: This information is from Phillip C. Schlechty’s Working On The Work and Schlechty Center Website
• http://www.schlechtycenter.org/