MS4+Solution

**Project Assessment Questions: **

 * In what ways does the solution support rigorous instruction?
 * In what ways does the use of 21st Century Literacies help engage students in deeper content understanding?
 * In what ways does the solution demonstrate understanding of ACT/KCK standards?

[Identify the characteristics of narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive passages (R8.1.4.1)]Solution

In Challenged Based Learning the central part of the framework is arriving at the formation of a "Big Idea" then questions, activities, and resources follow in which eventually a solution is finally developed and assessed by its effectiveness. My partner Nancy Silverstein and I (Joy Amon) have decided that the students at Bridges, a special day school for students, needed to learn responsibility and increase more socially appropriate behaviors at school that can be transfer across curriculum areas and into becoming a productive adult within their communities. That was our challenge and our hope that learning and character building can be integrated within our school as well as with our staff to not view achieving benchmarks and behavior as two different entities but as one.

We worked towards achieving this by developing a project that the entire school can be involved in students as well as staff with benchmarks that can be achieved in all curriculum areas while students participate in the school wide project. The project is to have the students develop, manage, and run a student developed business, hopefully a store for student supplies, projects to sell, and incorporate a reward systems that can students can take ownership and responsibility over it. Then we coordinated different district, state, and ACT standards of different concepts the students need to learn across all curriculum areas. We included benchmarks for English and Social Studies, Math and Science, Business and Computer, and Social Skills. We also had to take into consideration that our school has 6th-12th grades and they all needed their curriculum to be incorporated into the project. The lesson ideas can be found as well as the resources on the Question/Activity page, group 4, middle school. However, the same activities can be applied to the high school students and there are similar benchmarks/standards that they can achieve for their curriculum areas. Some of the benchmarks/standards that can be applied to this "Big Idea" concept about students developing responsibility through a business are as follows:

**[Identify the characteristics of narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive passages (R7.1.4.1)]** [Generate questions and] respond logically to literal, inferential, evaluative, synthesizing, and critical-thinking questions [before, during, and] after reading a variety of passages (R8.1.4.4) Understand, explain, and use equivalent representations for rational numbers expressed as fractions, terminating decimals, and percents; positive rational number bases with whole- number exponents; time; and money (M6.1.1.1, M6.1.1.4) Use various estimation strategies to estimate quantities with combinations of rational numbers and the irrational number pi using various computational methods to solve real-world problems and to check to see if the results are reasonable (M6.1.2.5, M6.1.3.1, M6.1.3.2, M6.3.2.8 (7th grade math would not paste on and there wasn't an 8th grade.) **Ask and evaluate research questions (SC8.1.1.1, SC8.1.1.2a, ACT) **Gather, display, and analyze data in a variety of formats (SC8.1.1.2b, ACT) Construct and read tables and charts, bar graphs, line graphs, and circle graphs (ACT)** **KS05SS0602 Economics: Use a working knowledge and understanding of major economic concepts, issues, and systems, applying decision-making skills as a consumer, producer, saver, investor, and citizen of Kansas and the United States living in an interdependent world**
 * [Generate questions] and respond logically to literal, inferential, evaluative, synthesizing, and critical-thinking questions [before, during, and] after reading a variety of passages (R7.1.4.4)**
 * [Identify the characteristics of narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive passages (R8.1.4.1)]


 * **There are many more benchmarks/standards that can be aligned to this project but some of the KCK standards are being realigned to match the state and are not available to pull up easily at this time.**