Portrait of a Graduate Presentations of Learning
What is Portrait of a Graduate?
Portrait of a Graduate (POG) acknowledges that in our rapidly changing world, education needs to evolve to fulfill our mission of supporting student success in school and in life. It is our commitment to ensuring that all students have the skills to be successful in all aspects of life today and in the future. FCPS's new strategic plan uses POG as a set of measures for our students to reach the goals of academic growth and excellence along with leading tomorrow’s innovation. POG prioritizes the development of skills that will empower students to be productive citizens of a global community and successful in the workforce of the future. POG is broken down into five attributes:
- Communicator
- Collaborator
- Ethical and Global Citizen
- Creative and Critical Thinker
- Goal-directed and Resilient Individual.
Our goal in FCPS and at Terra Centre Elementary School is to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate learning in more authentic ways. Additionally, students use these skills throughout the school day, at home, and in the community through sports, hobbies, and other interests. As adults, they'll use them in their careers and relationships.
What is a Presentation of Learning?
POG Presentations of Learning (POG-POL) give every learner multiple opportunities from PreK-12 to demonstrate growth toward grade-level expectations for Portrait of a Graduate outcomes. In these presentations, students reflect on their growth over time and present a cumulative summary of learning through:
- Student-led conferences.
- Formal presentations.
- Exhibitions of learning.
Students present evidence of growth to authentic audiences at specific grade levels. A common POG-POL rubric is used for scoring and student feedback. Some elements of POG-POL include:
- Reflection on POG growth over time.
- Curation of evidence of learning or growth, often in the form of a portfolio.
- Authentic audience (e.g., teachers, parents, peers) provides feedback.
- Sharing of learning experiences and goals.
POG-POL at Terra Centre Elementary
We offer a focus on all of the Portrait of a Graduate attributes from Pre-K through 6th grade. All of our students are provided multiple opportunities each year to access and demonstrate their development in the skills shown below:
- Kindergarten- Communicator
- 1st Grade- Communicator
- 2nd Grade- Creative and Critical Thinker
- 3rd Grade- Collaborator
- 4th Grade- Collaborator
- 5th Grade- Ethical and Global Citizen
- 6trh Grade- Goal-Directed and Resilient Individual
They work on these skills daily by sharing thoughts, feelings, ideas, and perspectives so that others can understand us, and we can understand them.
How Can You Help?
Ask questions that will help your student reflect on what they did in school. Instead of asking questions like, "What did you do today?", try asking:
- What did you share?
- What did you get better at?
- What new ideas did you come up with?
- Who did you work with?
These will lead to deeper answers where they talk about the skills that they use to learn. These are the types of questions that they will hear all year long and the ones upon which they'll reflect for their Presentation of Learning later in the spring.