Dec 16 Record keeping, standards and New Ideas!!

December 16, 2011

RecordKeeping

I have been displeased with my folder method of tracking grades for some time but was having difficulty creating an alternative.  I had originally decided to create a divided version of the open grid they have now.  Formative homeworks and practices are recorded in one column, artifacts (aka pop quizzes or assessment-like scenarios) in another and summatives (aka big tests) would be in a third.  After DeSoto visited, I created a second version, modeled on theirs.  This one has the standard written at the top instead of the abbreviation present on the divided version.  It also features a graph where students plot their scores on the grid for a more visual representation of a student’s trend of learning.  Only artifacts and summatives would be recorded on this grid.  I like this later version because of the more visual version of the trend of learning, the ease of seeing the standard above the grades and the use of only artifacts and summatives.  I feel like having the students record all of their formative assignments is data overload.  Now, I love data as much as the next analytical chemist but this is just too much for the kiddos, to record EVERYTHING they do.  The artifacts are a good representation of how a student would do on a test, where a formative assignment shows what they know with their notes and friends in a comfortable situation.  But what I want doesn’t always coincide with what the students think or will do. So I pitched it to my students, both my honors chemmies and the students who stayed after school with me yesterday.  Most of them liked the graphing one.  They liked the idea of it being more visual and they also liked the idea of only recording artifacts and summatives.  I also told them about the power law that Pinnacle uses that I was trying to recreate, which I will discuss in the next section, and they really liked that as well.  I have not decided yet if I will try to implement all these improvements in chemistry.  Overall they are a really awesome group that is really flexible and tolerant to all my changes and crazy ideas but I hate to just throw everything we’ve done this semester out the window. . . even though it is not serving our purposes. . . and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing only to expect different results. . . . So I guess I should introduce some of these changes J

Grades

So. . . since I made this new tracking sheet with the graph, I got to thinking about the power law again.  DeSoto talked about it and I felt like a total n00b because I had no idea what it was.  The way they described it was looking at the trend of assessment scores instead of averaging things together.  This concept works so much better and provides an even truer reflection of student achievement than the traditional averaging.  It has long been a complaint of grading that student scores are always lower at the beginning because the student has not had time to mastery the material.  The brain has not had time to integrate the new information.  Thus the student has a poor score, let’s say a 2, on an early assessment.  Later on the student masters the material and really steps it up to achieve a 4 on a much later assessment.  By traditional grading, those two scores are averaged, resulting in a 3.  Even though the student mastered the material, she is still haunted by that first attempt.  I had attempted to rectify that through reassessment opportunities but the power law allows for an even greater efficacy in correcting that error.  Prior to now, I had no idea how to do the “power law” in excel but I think I’ve figured it out.  There is a “trend” function on excel that, according to my reading, does a rough approximation of this power law.  I didn’t think it would be this hard to find a mathematical explanation of the bloody thing.  This means that I can in fact count artifacts as part of the term grade, without averaging them together and reestablishing the old paradigm of punishing first attempts.  Supposedly, this power law weights later assessments heavier than earlier ones, meaning that the earlier pop quizzes will have less impact than the bigger summative tests. 

My difficulties arise from the fact that the way I have my standards set up currently, there is a 2.a, a 2.b, a 2.c, and so on.  I only have 11 “standards” but each one has 2-8 pieces.  I will have to find a different way to word and organize my standards so I don’t have 15 trends to follow for each student.    And, since we are still using a points, I will still have to find a way to combine all standards into one grade. . All this means that I have to do better about having multiple artifacts and multiple assessments for every standard.  This is most certainly a process.   

Standards

At lunch, we were talking about different ways to organize standards and track them.  Right now, I have my standards set up to where I have the larger titles (atoms, compounds) as the “power standards” and then the nit-picky pieces (history, configs, wave equations) as the little a, b, c below that larger one.  I’ve been tracking each little piece separately so far because they are such different concepts with different difficulty levels.  If I’m going to do this “power law” trending to come up with the grade for a standard, I would have to look for the trends of these little pieces and then somehow put them all together to get the grade for that standard.  I could average them. . . but the evils of averaging are something I am trying to avoid. . . so I would almost have to look for a trend among the pieces.  That wouldn’t be any better than the averaging because the pieces are all so different.  I think I’m going to have to start looking at assessments as a whole, without separating them into these smaller pieces.  The smaller sections could be present in the verbal standard but as for grading and recording, it would all be recorded as simply “standard 2”. 

Getting Started

October 21, 2011

Starting suggestions

I thought it might be beneficial for me to throw out a few suggestions for anyone interested in attempting a journey similar to mine.  This is essentially the process I have followed. 

 

1.       Come up with standards

§  It will take a few tries, but start with CLE’s, throw in your curriculum and rephrase

·         The CLE’s have never seemed clear to me so I created my own standards and referenced the CLE’s.

·         Don’t always start with CLE’s.  You know you teach the CLE’s.  Start with your wording and reference the CLE’s

§  Get them all typed up then you can rearrange it.

·         Just type.  That’s the easiest way.  You’ll never have the perfect order, just one good enough for now.   

§  Could also start with state standards and use a, b, c to clarify under standards.

2.       Determine how you want to assess these standards

§  Backwards design!

§  Will you use a 5 level scale, 4 level scale, points . . .

§  Retakes fall in this category too

·         Will you allow retakes?

·         Will students retake same test, entire test, parts of test?

3.       Come up with grade book setup

§  Will you grade homework?

§  Will you record homework?

§  Will you use percentages or mastery levels?

§  How many assessments are necessary to know mastery?

§  Will you use bound paper grade book, binder paper or excel?

4.       Determine if there are any necessary changes to your classroom practices

§  Most of the time, little needs to change. 

§  The classroom will naturally shift itself to a focus on learning and away from points or that has been my experience. 

The best advice I can give is just to start.  You will never find the perfect approach and odds are you will never be completely happy with the system you have created.  I know I’m not.  I am immensely pleased with the progress and changes I have seen in my classroom thus far but it is far from perfect.  Every day brings a new set of challenges and every group of students is different and requires a slightly different approach.  But the rewards are well worth it.  I’m seeing students excited about learning, students who ordinarily give up are striving for better, exceptionally bright students are learning and not just looking for the points game.  It really is amazing. 

Summary and thoughts

I thought it might be helpful for me to quickly summarize what I am doing in my classroom, both for the reader’s benefit as well as for my own.

A typical day in my classroom begins with the students coming in to check their folders for graded papers to update their checklists.  Objectives and standards to be covered are listed on the board along with a bellringer assignment, activities for the day and homework.  Students immediately begin work on the bellringer, which usually serves as a review of the material studied the previous class period.  From this point, my classroom is like any other classroom.  Some days are purely practice of the concepts already learned, some are lab application activities, some are cooperative learning activities and some include new material to be mastered.  I try to vary activities as much as possible so students aren’t always sitting in their desks doing seatwork.  I also am very fond of giving “pop quizzes” that require students to complete requested tasks without the help of partners or their notes.  The only real difference in my classroom is the grading and reporting system.  Students have all their grades recorded in their folders and thus should always know where they stand in the course.  Homework proves progress but does not count towards the term grade.  Only tests and assessments count towards the semester grade.  Homework is inherently unreliable as an assessment piece because the work occurs outside of my supervision.  I do not know what distractions exist, how much help the student received or if the student simply copied the answers from another student.  This leads me to my love of pop quizzes.  The students are trained in an almost Pavlovian response to fear quizzes and tests.  I hope that by repeatedly forcing students to perform without the safety blanket of their notes, it will reduce their conditioning to fear tests.  The “pop quizzes”, while still formative in nature”, provide me with valuable information about the true ability of students.  Almost always, the quiz scores are lower than the performance seen on the homework assignments.  However, the difference is rarely drastic. 

My reporting system has taken some tweaking as the semester has progressed.  I created a list of standards, broken into smaller substandards, for the entire course.  In general, we progress from one standard to another.  There are a few standards where we will only cover a piece of a standard before moving on, returning at a later date to cover further concepts.  Originally, I was writing down assignments as I assigned them but I discovered that it made it very difficult to see any pattern in a student’s ability on a particular substandard.  Thus I reorganized my grade book by substandards.  Each overarching standard has its own two page spread with separated sections for each substandard and its assessment grade.  I am concerned that I will have more grades than I do space.  I am using a binder grade book that allows me to add and take out pages as I need and I highly recommend it to anyone who attempts any similar system.    Term grades have their own page where I copy over the summative grades to a singular page that contains only summative grades.  Copying them over to their own page facilitates the ease of calculating term grades.  Term grades to change over time as students complete retakes.  Since I have an entire page for them, I can recalculate the term grade for each term with all scores, creating a running tally of scores for the semester.  I have decided to make midterms and final exams fixed scores that cannot be corrected.  There has to be a “do or die” point somewhere in the process.  Exams will also be cumulative.

Concerns and possible changes

I think it may be beneficial to let homework by purely practice.  It would not be recorded at all.  Regular quizzes would be given to ascertain a student’s current level of progress.  I feel that I am recording too much data.  I have huge strings of numbers for each student and seem to be spending a ridiculous amount of time grading all of the practice that I assign.  It feels like a Catch 22 level scenario because the more data I have on a student, the better I know where their level of learning is currently.  However, again, the massive amounts of grading are becoming a bit overwhelming.  It does feel like more than last year but I think it is a testament to the ease of using the mastery levels that I am able to keep up with this high level of paper the comes through my hands. 

I have not decided yet if I will make all tests cumulative or not.  By making all tests cumulative, students are forced to retain knowledge for longer but I fear the tests will become longer and longer, not allowing enough space for assessments of the current standard.  It also reduces the amount of time that must be spent on reviewing en masse before exams because students have been focusing on the current standard.  Cumulative assessments would also mean more scores for me to keep track of in the paper grade book.  Again, I feel like I have an extraordinary amount of data on each student.  Cumulative assessments would mean that standard 1 is assessed 11 times, standard 2 is assessed 10 times and so on.  It might be a little much to keep track of in the paper grade book.   

Overall thoughts

I am still extraordinarily pleased with the system.  I am anxious to reach a level of comfort in physics that will allow me to adopt a similar method of assessment and reporting.  Mastery levels are faster than traditional point scores since you do have to tally points to determine a score but simply look at the overall picture to determine the grade.  It is also so much clearer than percents.  The score means something.  It is not a measure of a student’s level of responsibility in being able to turn in homework, nor is it a measure of their memory since both application and DOK 1/2 level questions are asked.  Instead, the score is a direct representation of the knowledge of each student. 

Sept 12, 2011 Reassessment and record-keeping

September 12, 2011

Tests

Well, general chemistry completed the first part of the written assessment today.  Tomorrow they will finish the application second part of it.  It’s interesting how many people do well on the homework but bomb the test.  These students don’t strike me as the sort that would copy homework, particularly now when it doesn’t directly affect their grade.  I think so many students psych themselves out.  Test anxiety is no excuse for a poor test score though, sadly enough.  Driver’s license, CPA training, insurance certification, teacher certification, doctorates, etc all require a pencil and paper tests so even the poor test takers must find some way to overcome that hurdle.  I’m hoping that this system will allow them to see their weak points and notice that rarely does a student fail the entire test.  It is usually one section or another that brings the overall grade down.  If they can focus on that weak point, they can bring up the score.  I hope it will be encouraging.  All the aforementioned tests allow retakes, though it may cost time and money, but you are allowed to retake the test after you’ve had a time to study.  Hopefully, eventually, we can move beyond that and help students start identifying these weak spots before the test rolls around.  The scores on my test ranged widely and there are a few students who have grounds to argue a reassessment. 

Another intriguing occurrence worthy of note is student resistance to application type assessments.  Since the second part of the standard 1 assessment requires students to apply their knowledge or to think about the concepts in a more abstract manner, they are not able to simply memorize a chart or vocabulary word to achieve the score they desire.  They actually have to master the material.  I mentioned something about wanting to see how their brains worked and not how well they could play the “school game” and several of them smiled sheepishly.  We have conditioned students to memorize and regurgitate, not to apply and analyze. 

Reassessment

For honors chemistry, there were so few that I was creating reassessments on a request basis.  The two students requesting reassessment each will have very different tests.  I need to come up with reassessments for each section that I can give students so I don’t have to keep making up individual tests.  I am expecting a fair amount of reassessments out of the two general chemistry classes.  Well, I should rephrase that: quite a few students would have a solid argument to request reassessments.  I do not know if they will or not.  Time will tell.

Grading

I reorganized my grade book by sub-standard and the difference is so profound , almost tangible.  It took forever to rewrite all the scores from the semester so far but the effort was more than worth it.  Now I can clearly see the pattern of learning, regression or stagnation for a particular student.  As we being standard 2, I will definitely be chunking off sections of my grade book for each sub-standard to assist with tracking of information mastered.  The binder paper grade book is an enormous asset as I can add page whenever I need!  However, I am still greatly concerned about the online grade book.  Scores of low Cs  can be seen for even the students who scored 3 or higher on the test.  The online system goes by the percent, seeing 3/5 and averaging the score that way.  I have no idea how to fix this other than to override the system at term.  Parents can still determine a child’s grade by averaging standards and comparing it to the chart already given.  In general, a 5 is an A+, a 4 is an A/A-, a 3 is B, 2 is a C and 1 is an F.  The score of a 1 is indicative of a situation where the student didn’t turn something in or has very little or no understanding of the topic at hand.  But that doesn't make the current percentages any easier to deal with, other than to ignore them.  While I’m on the subject of not turning in assignment, lab assessments have become a small issue.  Since the lab reports are often lengthy, it is unreasonable to require this to be done solely during class time.  Thus, it goes home.  However, as is always the chance with assignments being sent home, many of the lab notebooks never returned.  Before today, that was the only summative assessment students had so several had a 0% in the course.  I have since converted all those zeros to 1’s, as a 1 means both “no clue” and insufficient evidence, neither of which is an acceptable reason to have that score.

Overall

I am still greatly concerned about the online grade book.  I am expecting a flurry of parent emails over the next several days.  But, that is a good thing.  Communication with parents is never a bad thing and when so much is changing, it’s even more important.   I am exceedingly pleased with the extraordinary amount of data I have on student understanding and how well the test data correlates with the practice data.  I am hoping this will clarify AFL and SBG in the minds of my students and help them to take control of their learning and success. 

August 31, 2011 Record keeing dilemmas and classroom management

Overall

Students are having a hard time understanding that the homework doesn’t affect their grade as directly as they’re accustomed to seeing.  However, a good number of students are repeatedly asking to redo assignments for better grades.  They genuinely want to improve and learn.  The grading has a few nebulous difficulties I will describe in detail below, but overall, I am very pleased with the whole thing. 

Behavior/Classroom management

 Since this is a particularly spunky group of students, it is difficult to determine the effect this system has on discipline.  I am hopeful that as the year progresses, the general energy will keep the class interesting as passion is always good thing.  The routine of checking for returned papers, recording them in the folder, and updating the journal does work well.  It sets a nice tone for the rest of the class period.  I hope that this will allow me to review throughout the year and eliminate the need of such large overall review days, particularly at the end of semester. 

Grade book

Using the 5-4-3-2-1 system is fantastic in the grade book.  I can open my grade book and at a glance tell you who’s struggling and on what.  Since I am still making new handouts and coming up with new ideas, my paper grade book and the online versions are chunked only by broad standards.  The students’ personal checklist is organized into smaller sub-standards as well.  Since I did not know how many assignments I would give on a topic, I did not know how much space to leave in my paper grade book for a particular sub-standard and I do not know how to tell the online versions to do something similar.  I was excited to figure out how to get the online version to do larger standards.        

Grading

One difficulty that I have encountered is determining the difference between the various levels.  Sometimes it is difficult to determine if something is a 2 or a 3.  As I cement my curriculum, I will have to come up with specific examples of what a 2 looks like, what a 3 looks like, etc, both for the students and myself.  Thus far, I have tried to be conscious of consistency but it is the same difficulty that arises with points.   In general, thus far, it is instinctive.  Chemistry is fairly black and white most of the time but I do create rubrics for all summative assessments to keep myself honest and to make sure the students are clear on why they earned a particular score. 

Final thoughts

This entire process has been wonderfully introspective.  It shows quite plainly how many times I assess a particular standard and gives me concrete evidence of progress or lack thereof.  Formative assessments also allow me to record things like teacher-student conferences in the grade book as well, as that is valuable information as to a student’s progress and desire to improve.  I’ve noticed that I don’t assess all standards equally and I don’t provide near enough feedback for students.  I have strived to improve this but I need to come up with a way to provide more than just worksheets.  Currently I am going crazy trying to grade everything but that is not terribly different than last year.  With the mastery system, the students should have work returned to them fairly quickly so they can see the developing pattern or progress or stagnation.  Perhaps, I can have a day where I can give the student a score on a problem they work with me to go in their folder.   It is all still a work in progress, but overall, I am very pleased.  The first assessment comes next week and that will be make-or-break time.