Overall
Every day that passes I like this system more and more. It just feels so much clearer than the percentages and numbers. The students are starting to get the hang of it too. It’s been rough over the last couple weeks deprograming the students to look at progress instead of points but I feel it’s getting better.
Student Response
Honors has taken their first assessments and they have been returned. I have one student already requesting a retake and his/her formative grades support that decision. I had several students also comment that they like the system now. It all make more sense. The grades are clearer to them. They actually mean something. Gen chem seems to be getting used to this idea of practice too. They’ve stopped asking about points and due dates and instead are focusing on what they know and what they need to improve. The incentive of being able to work on other homework once they prove mastery works will with this group. There are always a few who refuse to work but I do not think it would be any better in the points based system. They don’t do their homework now and wouldn’t do their homework in points either. But, this system allows for a quick turn around. There’s no worrying about points to make up or past zeros dragging you down. In this mastery based system, it’s all about the learning. It’s all about mastery! And the students seem to be responding well to it. Gen chem has their first test next week. . . we’ll see how it goes!
Parents
Communication with parents is still my greatest concern. The students are with me every day and here me say and say again how this system works, how to deter mine their grade and how it will all fit into SIS. Despite the letter I sent home, the parents I talked to on Meet the Teacher night and the personal emails, I feel like there is still a lot of confusion about this system. It takes away the ability to just look at a percent and determine how a student is doing. You actually have to open the class and look at the pattern of the scores. Since our online grade book looks at everything as percentages (4/5), the percentages that are present are wrong. I will have to override them at term. Again, I sent home the scale that I will use and it's avaliable on my website as well. However, that is a huge problem and I know that. I respect and even encourage the parents who use grades as a means of reward or concern. But the original percentages used in the past meant nothing. It was a conglomeration of every topic and behavior since day 1 and does not reflect student learning at all. A student could do all their homework, do the extra credit and complete test corrections to get an A in the class regardless of whether the student learned anything or not. With this system, I feel like grades are clear: here is the standard and here is where you are. I hope it will all become clearer as the semester progresses.
After school note: I had a student stay after school because he looked at the pattern that was emerging from his homework in his folder and said “Ms V, it doesn’t take a genius to see that 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 don’t get a 5 on that test!” And I was over the moon. He looked at the pattern and saw that he wasn’t progressing and needed a little extra help/confidence. I think it is much easier for students to see their progress with the streamlined 5-4-3-2-1 system. Another student stayed after school for a similar reason, stating that her homework grades weren’t getting any better. Overall, they seem to be responding really well to the idea of progress as opposed to do or die one time grades.
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