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.

October 21, 2011 and Reassessments

October 21, 2011

Artifacts

I am still struggling with this idea of artifacts.  After talking with students, it is apparent that many of my students do not need the large amounts of practice that I hand out.  By requiring homework to be turned in for a grade, it is punishing the students that get the concepts on the first try.  That is one of the greatest arguments for standards based grading and assessment for learning.  Man I love the chemistry systems of grading/reporting.  Anyway, I had originally told my students that they needed to choose an assignment each week to turn in as a homework grade.  After discussion with other teachers, I decided to require the artifacts once a week to make sure students weren’t procrastinating too badly.  However, with the ABC block schedule that my school uses, I do not see my students every day to remind them and here we are on Friday and I have received nothing.  So I’m attempting to rethink this. . . . here’s my new idea:  artifacts will be comprised of 3-5 exemplary problems from the chapter being studied.  A student must complete three of these artifacts before the chapter test.  These will be the homework grades for the chapter.  The chemistry students (both honors and general), most of whom are younger than the physics crew, have surprised me with the amount of homework they do and practice they complete without the worksheets being taken for a “grade”.  I’m hoping physics will be the same way.  I will still assign homework and suggest that they turn it in for me to grade for correctness but only the artifacts will be taken as grades.  They are to be completed alone and without the help of notes, etc, effectively making them like little quizzes but they can be completed at the student’s leisure. 

Assessments

Thus far I am pleased with my retake tickets.  We will see if this alters the number of retake requests I get because this does require the student to do more work before I will allow them the retake opportunity.  I do believe this will force students to study and review the material before they attempt the retake which is definitely a good thing. 

Overall

I still feel like this whole venture has been supremely successful at taking the emphasis off points and refocusing everything on the learning.  The students and parents have also adapted far better than I ever could have hoped.  I think the main difficulty for anyone attempting this venture would be to remain flexible.  As I move through the school year, I am constantly finding things that I do not like, ideas that are not having the desired effect or suggestions that fall flat entirely.  One has to be able to take that failure in stride and come up with a new idea fairly quickly.  All it takes is persistence. 

Consistency, changes, artifacts

October 11, 2011

Overall

Busy busy busy!  I still love it.  I think everyone should do it.  And I’ve said as much at the PD meetings we have.  I cannot wait til next year when I can attempt to use this same system in physics.  It is so much easier when directly compared with the old way of doing things like I am in physics.  It is amazing how easily the students have adapted to the system and how much more they trust it.  I feel like they no longer think grades to be arbitrarily assigned but see the levels as a mark to be exceeded.  Even general chemistry is catching on and beginning to ask for more practice to learn the material. 

Consistency

I am very excited to say that three other teachers are going to attempt to pilot their own standards based grading systems next year.  That said, we are working together to make sure that our systems are as consistent as possible. . . which is proving to be easier said than done.  We are currently trying to decide what the non-negotiables are: homework policy, grading scale, retake policy, reparations for missing work, etc.  And it is proving quite the task.  We all teach different subjects-history, English, math and science- and that is making it difficult to streamline our approaches.  With such different material, it is difficult.  However, consistency is important since one of the biggest complains about the current system is the lack of consistency. 

Changes

I want to attempt this idea of “artifacts of learning” as opposed to recording everything.  Right now, I grade, record and put into SIS all homework that I assign and grade.  It is making me crazy.  With students turning in homeworks on different days, different times, some late, some on time, some in pieces, it is very difficult and time consuming to find that particular key, grade it, find the one box in SIS where it goes and put it in.  But, I like having lots and lots of data.  I am an analytical chemist by training and I like data and visible patterns.  So I am thinking that I will grade everything still, but I will not put it in the online system.  I think I will still record it in my paper grade book and then if I see a pattern of lacking in practice contact the parents but this recording every little detail is just not working.  I don’t have that much time.  Instead, I will implement this idea of “artifacts” that demonstrate a student’s mastery of a concept.  These will go in SIS to be visible online and are nonnegotiable.  They must exist, whether the student mastered the concepts the first time or the 15^th time.  This will be implemented in physics, so I won’t have to battle the tweeky SBG already in effect. 

·         Three artifacts (on average, some standards are bigger/smaller) will be given per standard

·         These artifacts will be due at spaced out times throughout the unit.

·         Only one artifact may be a homework assignment

·         The other artifacts may be teacher-student conference, staying after school, a question on a pop quiz, or any other assignment that takes place individually within the confines of the classroom

·         If artifacts are not turned in, the student will be assigned a 0 and parents will be contacted to inform them the student must stay after the next tutoring day to complete the artifact. 

·         If a retake is requested for a particular standard, an additional artifact is necessary. 

Hopefully, this will alleviate some of the difficulties in finding time to enter all these individual grades that span the entire year in the grade book.  This will also allow students, again, to be able to do the amount of practice they require to master the concept.  Each day, I have a few more students understand why I do the homework this way and see, often for the first time, the importance of homework and out of school practice.  I also hope that, when this is moved over to the chemistries, that this will deter students from rushing into the retake.  By requiring an additional artifact, I’m not just looking at the numbers but also looking at the quality of work as well. 

Issues

Benchmarks, midterms, final exams, whatever you want to call them. . . they are a problem.   Most schools require some kind of midterm exam but it falls in the middle of a standard it seems.  It made deciding what to do with said assessment difficult.  I have decided to keep it as a permanent summative grade that cannot be retaken.  This benchmark indicates retention as it tested standards 1 and standard 2 as well.  For general chemistry, it works out better and falls at the end of general’s shorter standard 2.  My biggest issue remains the time it takes to put all these helter-skelter assignments in the online grade book.