October 26, 2011 Changes for next time

October 26, 2011

Changes for next time

As I proceed through this venture, there have turned up quite a few issues that cannot be corrected until next year.   This entire SBG system is a jump for most students so to alter things drastically again would be unwise.  My students, overall, are incredibly flexible and patient with me as I try new things, discard them, and try again.  Several changes will come as a result of consistency and streamlining with other teachers who are going to be starting their own pilots next year.  Below are a few of the changes I know for certain I want to make next year.

·         Artifacts

o   In addition to homework, artifacts will be available in a basket in the front of the room for students to prove what they know without the help of other students or notes.  This should help students who feel they know the material and suddenly realize on the test that they are unable to perform the requested task alone.  Essentially, they are “quizzes” but will not affect student grades. 

o   A second option is to call the pop quizzes I often give “artifacts” to be separately recorded as such.

·         Checklists

o   Next year, the checklists on which students monitor their own grades will have three sections: practice, artifacts, and summatives.  This way they will be able to see how much practice they have completed, how well they did on the practice, how those scores compare to the artifact scores that require students to perform as they would on a test and see how all of this compares to the summative scores that are received. 

·         Retake tickets

o   This will be instituted from the get-go next year.  So far I LOVE them.

·         Rewriting/ Adjusting Standards

o   I am not happy with the order of my standards.  Study of the periodic table should come before naming and bonding.

o    St2 for honors is too large.

o    Ideally, I still want to create one set of standards that just has HC next to the standards that are for honors only. 

o   Another ideal would be to create, as Eureka has, core curricular objective.  Ideally, these standards would collectively describe what is covered over one term/quarter of instruction.  It might be hard to keep it that organized, though, since several chapters come back and build on previous ideas

o   Power standards are another idea I need to toss around.  Some standards are considerably more important than other, being one of the major ideas any student having taken my class should know.  This would require percentages, with some standards being worth a greater percent of the class.  That would be a challenge in SIS though. . . . I just hate percentages, personally

·         Behavior grades

o   This one is a toughie.  Even Ken O’Connor agrees that behaviors are important and should be reported.  However, since we are still using a points based report card, that grade would have to be averaged in with the learning grade essentially creating the same problem already seen in grades.