What Is High Quality Work?

 

The ability to create work of value and quality is a high ideal at REALMS. To accomplish this, we work to instill in students a desire to create quality work and an ability to identify what "quality work" looks and sounds like. We use the following three descriptors to help students understand and strive for quality work: complexity, craftsmanship, and authenticity.

 

For us, high quality work is complex, and should demonstrate critical or higher order thinking as well as the ability to transfer knowledge and understanding. Second, quality work must demonstrate craftsmanship through accuracy and beauty in both conception and execution. And finally, quality work must be, in some way, authentic. By authenticity, we mean that the work should demonstrate the original thinking, voice, or passion of the student, it should demonstrate some connection to real-world issues, and maybe, most of all, it should have some purpose and audience beyond the bulletin board in the hallway or refrigerator door at home. 

 

At REALMS, we have always emphasized quality work. However, in the last few years we have begun to be increasingly more thoughtful about what that means. We have broadened our definition of high quality work and improved how we involve all students in high quality instruction that supports their growth towards high quality work!  Since the spring of 2014 our faculty has been completing Quality Work Protocols to review both the short and long task work that students from each grade complete. The claims below tell the story of our students' ability to create high quality work

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