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THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 11 AND 12: GUIDANCE AND CAREER EDUCATION
Categories of Knowledge and Skills. The categories, defined by clear criteria, represent four broad areas of knowledge and skills within which the expectations for any given guidance and career education course are organized.The four categories should be considered as interrelated, reflecting the wholeness and interconnectedness of learning.
The categories of knowledge and skills are described as follows:
Knowledge and Understanding. Subject-specific content acquired in each course (knowledge), and the comprehension of its meaning and significance (understanding).
Thinking. The use of critical and creative thinking skills and/or processes, as follows:
– planning skills (e.g., focusing research, identifying a problem, locating and gathering
information, organizing an inquiry)
– processingskills(e.g.,analysing,reflecting,integrating,synthesizing,evaluating,forming
conclusions)
– critical/creative thinking processes (e.g., reading process, inquiry, decision making, research,
problem solving)
Communication. The conveying of meaning through various oral, visual, and written forms (e.g., interviews, presentations, portfolios, graphic organizers, posters, letters, résumés, personal profiles, charts, reports, summaries).
Application. The use of knowledge and skills to make connections within and between various contexts.
Teachers will ensure that student work is assessed and/or evaluated in a balanced manner with respect to the four categories, and that achievement of particular expectations is considered within the appropriate categories.
Criteria. Within each category in the achievement chart, criteria are provided, which are sub- sets of the knowledge and skills that define each category. For example, in Knowledge and Understanding, the criteria are “knowledge of content (e.g., terminology, vocabulary, informa- tion)” and “understanding of content (e.g., theories, concepts, skills, processes)”.The criteria identify the aspects of student performance that are assessed and/or evaluated, and serve as guides to what to look for.
Descriptors. A “descriptor” indicates the characteristic of the student’s performance, with respect to a particular criterion, on which assessment or evaluation is focused. In the achievement chart, effectiveness is the descriptor used for each criterion in the Thinking, Communication, and Application categories.What constitutes effectiveness in any given performance task will vary with the particular criterion being considered.Assessment of effectiveness may therefore focus on a quality, such as appropriateness, clarity, accuracy, precision, logic, relevance, significance, fluency, flexibility, depth, or breadth, as appropriate for the particular criterion. For example,
in the Thinking category, assessment of effectiveness might focus on the degree of relevance or depth apparent in an analysis; in the Communication category, on clarity of expression or logical organization of information and ideas; or in the Application category, on appropriate- ness or breadth in the making of connections. Similarly, in the Knowledge and Understanding category, assessment of knowledge might focus on accuracy, and assessment of understanding