HARBORSIDE ACADEMY
EL Education Credentialing Portfolio
HIGH-QUALITY WORK
In 2007, Harborside Academy opened its doors celebrating the notion that Harborside was going to emphasize the creation and celebration of "professional-quality" work. Graduates of all ages will tell you that anything that goes on the wall at Harborside must be "museum-quality," showcasing high-quality craftsmanship, complexity, and authenticity. The amazing products framed throughout the halls within Harborside help to set the expectation and desire for visitors to be able to walk our halls and feel as though they are walking through a museum of high-quality learning.
CLAIM
Harborside students, over time, have created a truly impressive collection of museum-quality work, with student work showing increased complexity.
REASONING
El Education Core Practice 8 relates to the design of projects and products. Harborside eats, sleeps, and breathes high-quality student work. Our staff strives to create engaging projects that matter. Students are pushed to do what they thought they never could do. Museum quality is a standard that all Harborside students strive for. They understand that museum-quality means the work is mistake-free and that maintains high standards of craftsmanship. This level of work is ingrained into the minds of our students from the moment they enter our school to the moment they walk across the stage at graduation.
We believe that Habits of Success performance is amplified when students carry a project through multiple revisions, paying close attention to detail. This past year we have upped the ante of quality in many different ways. The projects are aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) skill targets.
​
A culture of quality is promoted through the visible display of student work (in classrooms, hallways, and on the High-Quality Work website) and through reflection from the staff on the attributes of high-quality work (complexity, craftsmanship, and authenticity) through our biannual High-Quality Work protocol. We are proud of how far we have come and are excited about where we are going. Moreover, our expeditions and programs are grounded in EL Education's Core Practices and complemented by the staff's expertise in team-building, group development, and experiential education.
Over its 13 years, Harborside has experienced varying levels of success when it comes to the creation of high-quality work. In the first eight to ten years the school was open, the craftsmanship of student work was incredibly impressive. However, over time, the data started to show that the complexity of the work lacked specificity and, in places, rigor. EL Education defines complexity of work as being "rigorous" while aligning with or exceeding grade-level standards and "challenging students to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create." Over past few years, Harborside has encouraged complexity of student work, spending many hours working to align all of our project-based work clearly with rigorous standards. Each teacher has developed very in-depth progress monitoring, assessment plans, and master rubrics to help our students to understand what high quality looks like in terms of specific learning standards. Through this journey, Harborside has greatly improved the complexity of work that is being done by students, but the craftsmanship of student work has taken a temporary back seat. Therefore, in alignment with EL Education Core Practice 12: Planning For and Supporting HQ Student Work, and EL Education Core Practice 8: Designing Projects and Products, the Harborside instructional team has embraced the goal to maintain rigor and complexity and partner that with high levels of craftsmanship.
​
EL Education Core Practice 25 discusses the importance of beautiful spaces. It is our desire to create an environment that reflects learning.
When one walks the halls of Harborside, one will see high-quality student work framed and hung in our High-Quality Student Work Gallery. Museum-quality documentation panels for expeditions cover the bulletin boards. Poster-sized photos of students in action -- reading complex text, water testing, interviewing veterans, collecting data in a prairie, and connecting with their classmates in Crew -- line the hallways. The Habits of Success are prominently displayed, as is data that reflects our students' progress and success in learning.
Our goal is to make Harborside a place that invites, facilitates, and celebrates learning.
NEXT STEPS
As we move into this next cycle of multi-year strategic planning we are making moves to collect data and evidence that supports us in working towards equitable outcomes. Some next steps we are considering and implementing are:
​
-
Collecting HQW Data through bi-annual triads that provide feedback to teachers while support the team in collecting data that information their next steps in leading learning
-
Each student work piece discussed in triads will be scored on a rubric. (Data will be averaged and saved.)
-
Staff survey will be added in the spring of each year.
-
-
Disaggregating HQW data to work towards equitable outcomes
-
Shifting focus from complexity back to craftsmanship based upon student outcomes
​​
See Performance Benchmarks and Work Plan 2020-2021 for more (*note that the work plan is a work in progress holding initial thinking, next steps are in August 2020)