Criteria for Excellence in Systems of Thinking

Criteria for Excellence remain the same across Division levels
In each Division students strive for understanding progressively more complex concepts and skills
with progressively more initiative, autonomy, and awareness.

A Holistic Rubric for Division 1 (7th and 8th grade level work)
appears  following the Criteria for Excellence.
Division 2 and Division 3 rubrics are created for each assignment using the Criteria for Excellence as guidelines.

Criteria For Excellence

Framing the Question

• You identify a complex question you need to explore.
• You break down the question into factors that might affect each other over time.
• You identify how these factors serve as parts of a feedback loop.
• You focus your question by limiting the factors you will include.

Using the Model

• You say what you think about the relationships among these factors.
• You obtain the information you need about each factor to run a mathematical model of the feedback loop.
• You make a prediction or hypothesis about what will happen if one factor changes.
• You simulate and observe that change by running a mathematical model on the computer.
• You make a graph of what you have observed.
• You check your model against your prediction and against actual data.
• You use what you have observed to ask new questions, make new predictions, and test those predictions by running more simulations or by changing the model.

Interpreting the Model

• You use the model to explain how a complex system works.
• You use the model to draw a conclusion or make a decision.
• You can use a model of one system as a way of understanding another system.