McDonogh Works courses are taught by alumni, parents, and other members of the McDonogh community. While courses may cover just about any subject, instructors, even those who have not taught before, can be effective by following best practices for teaching and assessing.

All instructors work with the McDonogh Works Program Director Kevin Costa who will be a partner in developing, structuring, and supporting the teacher and the course. If you would like to propose a course, please contact Kevin Costa at kcosta@mcdonogh.org or at 443-544-7130. 

Elements of a Successful McDonogh Works Course

• Strong Driving Questions: Rather than approaching a course as a mass of knowledge to be delivered to students, teachers will shape the “narrative” of a course around a question, challenge, or issue that enlists students’ critical and creative abilities.
• Formative Assessment: Timely, regular feedback is critical for student learning thus, formative assessment — the ways in which you check for understanding “along the way” — is necessary.
• Summative Assessment: This is a way to determine whether a larger understanding has taken place. Summative assessments may take the form of final projects where students create items that demonstrate their ability to apply new knowledge in new ways.
• Rubrics, assessment tools, and e-portfolios for students: Since most of the work in this program will ask for qualitative feedback, teachers will develop rubrics for learning goals or “domains” that students can consult throughout the course and that teachers will use to assess student work. Oral presentations, models, business plans, websites, papers, posters, etc. — will be captured as evidence of understanding and student growth.
• Badging criteria: Badges are electronic icons that link to evidence of student learning and communicate the competencies students have achieved. All courses will issue badges in lieu of grades/credit hours.