SBG Anxiety - 8 Questions

8 Questions about SBG(Standards Based Grading)
My anxiety about implementing SBG next year manifested in the questions I've asked myself over and over as I am creating my grading policy.


1.  What will the administrator who is reviewing my grading policy think?
I've run it by the administrator in charge of my observations, and he has given it the okay.  We turn our grading policies in to another administrator at the end of the year.  Admittedly I'd love for it to be questioned/discussed, but would it be suggested that I revise it to a more "traditional" grading policy?

2.  What will parents think?  What will students think?
I'm hoping that it is a completely new and different experience for them.  A lot of guidance, explanation, and information will be key to making this transition for them.  There will probably be a large amount of resistance at first ("Where's the homework grade?").  I'm going to speculate that most will feel empowered to take control of their own learning once they have grown comfortable within the system(I don't enjoy that word).  They may be uncomfortable as it is much more difficult to work this system(yuck) than a points based grading system.  If the only positive outcome is that students stop asking "How many points is this worth?" I will consider my switch to SBG a total victory.

3.  Is it possible to raise or lower a "grade" at any time?  Should it be?
The raising part I understand and I'm looking forward to students being continuous learners.  If the mastery level can improve at any time, it should also be able to decline at any time (an indicator of a lower level of mastery than originally thought).  See Question #2.

4.  How will I ever manage to keep up with assessing students skill levels?
Idea #1: Share a unique Google Document with each student and have that serve as a running record.  Update gradebook at the end of the week upon looking over that student's running record.

Idea #2: Excel/Google Docs...Google Docs to keep notes to self about conversations/insights with students.  Use a Google Form to update a mastery level on any skill at any time (Name - Skill - Mastery Level).  I don't know enough about it, but I feel like Microsoft Access may be better equipped to handle this.  Summer project: Learn Microsoft Access.

5.  What defines an "A"?
Schools tell us that at least 90% of the material learned would be "A" work.  By this thought process under SBG, it would be impossible to have an A for the 1st or 2nd marking periods (I can hear the college-obsessed kids freaking out).  Using 4 mastery levels (advanced, proficient, basic, below basic), could you define an "A" as a majority of skills mastered at the advanced level?  What if that student was below basic in everything else?  To wrap some numbers around it, here are my thoughts...
Advanced - 1
Proficient - 0.8
Basic - 0.6
Below Basic - 0.4
Some Excel simulations I've done have led me to this assignment of points for skill levels.  Anything in the "A" range must be earned through Advanced and Proficiency with MINIMAL basic/below basic.  I'm not sure I want students to be even thinking about how to get an A, as this just creates a climate of "Do the minimum required to get an A".  Also, I am totally going to change those levels of mastery to something less Pennsylvania Dept. of Ed to something much more Mr. C

6.  Will kids do their homework/assignments?
This is a huge concern.  If you didn't do it, you're going to have trouble learning it.  On the other hand, if you already get it, why do another 30 exercises just because a teacher told you to do so?  Just like any homework assignment, it'll get done if it's worthwhile.

7.  Will it lead to higher scores/achievement on the AP exam?
I'm thinking that on the whole, content coverage and a frequent revisiting of old knowledge should be very conducive to high AP exam scores.  I will need to periodically do some focusing on AP exam type exercises and a more traditional classroom setting.  It'll be a welcome change to an open, self-directed learning environment :)

8.  Quizzes/Tests...what role will they play?
I think I answered this already.  See #8.  I know I am definitely going to give a quiz and have students grade it immediately.  Also going to give quizzes with Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced questions.

Whew, that's all...for now.

P.S. I end a ton of sentences with prepositions, and use quotations a lot more frequently than I should.

Goal # 1 For Next Year

Goal # 1 For Next Year

I'm going to begin a series of posts that highlight my goals for next year.  The main focus of my instruction next year is going to be to...

Never tell a student the correct answer

My job description is not to guarantee all students get the answer right.  My job description is to provide an education, and I'm going to do it through providing a learning experience.  Learning experiences MUST have failure built into them, otherwise they are not learning experiences.

If getting the right answer is all that's important to a student, then why not just get the right answer by asking a teacher?  It's the most efficient means to an end.  The problem is that it has nothing to do with learning information, simply collecting it and storing it until you can "spend" it on a test. 

In a mathematics classroom, instead of asking me if it's the right answer, they should use what they already know to develop a way to check if it's the right answer.  Why not just use the concept you're studying to verify it's the correct answer.  How about you experiment with a few other similar situations and see if in fact it is the correct answer?  Did the Greeks have someone to ask the all important, "Did I set this up right?"

As teachers we should turn this question on it's head more, and ask kids "Did I set this up right?" and "Is this the right answer?".  Too many teachers respond by saying, "Let me look and see and I'll tell you."  I would say, "Why don't you compare and discuss with a classmate, or use something you already know to verify it?  Let me know what you come up with."  Math should be as much the investigation, verification, and generalization(can I get any more "-ations" in here?) as it is about getting the right answer.  It's a shame that the only thing we ever assess is getting the right answer.

 If the goal is learning, we need to allow our kids to fail sometimes...that's what learning is.  I could ask a rocket scientist for the answers to a 100 question rocket science test and get them all right, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to build a rocket.

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention

 

Just 10 minutes ago, I was grading some assignments that students had submitted electronically via creating a Drop and e-mailing/wiki messaging the link to me.  I'm aware that this is a "cheap" way of going paperless (they used paper to do the assignment, they just didn't turn it in).  The point of this was to get students to start thinking about ways to make things paperless.  While generating the correct solutions, my thoughts were, "How am I going to provide feedback?" 

 

So, the idea I had was to create one Google Document per student.  I would write any and all feedback for the assignment on the Google Doc and send them the link.  They could check their grade and their feedback whenever they chose to, and they wouldn't have to wait for me to give the paper back to them.  In a math classroom, there's learning that takes place in decoding the feedback that your teacher has given you.  It also makes it hard for me to just put a red circle around what's incorrect, I now have to articulate (you lost a negative sign when you were combining like terms).

 

Then I started thinking about, "What if I graded/assessed my students like this all year?"  In moving towards a standards-based grading approach, this would be an amazing way to assess kids.  Just writing about what they've done well and not well, I'd be able to pull together a good picture of what they've done throughout the year.  I would list each skill, then write feedback underneath/with the skill.  If a student repeats an assessment, I would simply add/change feedback, or denote that another assessment was taken.  At the end of the marking period, I'd be able to pull together whether the skill is mastered, partly mastered, basic ability, or below basic ability on that skill.  So that they could see where they stand on every skill, they would each have their own personal document

 

Here's the Prototype.

 

Your comments are appreciated.  I'm not sure if it's a time-saver, but I think it allows me to give much better feedback and it's useful in standards based grading. 

"Oh, so you just..."

Is Your Math Class More Like an English Class or a Food Science Class?

"Oh, so you just..."

I cannot stand hearing students say this as it is a major indicator that a student does not understand why, and understands mathematics as a procedure.  I'm going to attempt to fit this into other subject areas in an attempt to understand why it happens so frequently in mathematics.  My initial feelings

English - "Oh, so you just write"...too general.  "Oh, so you just write the theme?"...Why don't students say this in English?  Writing the theme in English is meaningless without any context around it.  The theme of "Betrayal" manifests itself much differently in the book 1984 than in Julius Caesar.

Social Studies - "Oh, so you just memorize"..."Oh, so you just figure out the type of government"..."Oh, so you just compare and contrast the interactions between Islamic and non-Islamic nations".  I don't think I need to belabor the point about a relevant context, but Social Studies is all around a kid and they interact with the content of the course constantly.  Kids must study social phenomena to remain relevant in the world.

Science - "Oh, so you just add the two chemicals together"..."Oh, so you just cut the frog here"...Science provides the great purpose that is so elusive to students these days.  Yes, you are following the procedures, but with the purpose of learning something greater when the procedure is done.  Most frequently, our end result in mathematics is what value makes a statement true.  Scientific procedures often have a more relevant purpose than this.

Food Science - "Oh, so you just add the milk after the eggs?"...if you add them before, your meal will come out wrong

Context, relevance, purpose all generate much higher outcomes than the procedures we follow in Mathematics. Our outcomes in Mathematics are the answers and never the "why and how".  Many of our mathematics classes follow the instructional models of Food Science where if you don't follow the right procedure, you wind up with something that tastes bad.  Couldn't mathematics be enriched by delving deeper into the why's and how's, instead of just placing caution signs for what you should be careful not to do? 

So many of the great math educators whose blogs I've been reading (dy/dan, Point of Inflection, and f(t)) instruct from the perspective of having their students understand the rules before they even begin to follow them. 

This post is in no way meant to belittle any of the subjects listed. 

Changed My Classroom By Changing My Seat / Insert Catchy Title Here

Recently, I have moved where I work during class from the front and center of the room to the back center of the room where my desk is right next to a student's desk.  This was inspired by a few conversations I've had with students who went on exchange programs to France where I was curious to see how classrooms were set up in France.  Over the course of those two months, I have witnessed amazing changes within my classroom, more importantly amazing changes in my student perception.

Why did I move my desk?  I felt I was using the interactive whiteboard too much and that students should use  it more than me.  I felt like I was telling them what to do, rather than having them do.  I moved because teachers have been standing front and center for 50 years and I wanted to be different.  I  wanted to give my students more control of my classroom.  I had a curiosity about what would happen if I did this, and what types of changes would I see.

The most major change has been their perception of the classroom.  They've realized that it's about them, and hopefully by me being as far away from the front of the room as possible, they have gathered that I'm next to them acting as an investigator.  A great example of this is from my Calculus class where I assigned a project in which students had to use a piece of posterboard(they were all different dimensions) to create a box with the maximum possible volume.  Not only were they having a unique experience with the concept of optimization, but there was so much more in the realm of basic skill that they were doing.  Some students determined that they need to remove squares of size 6.43 from each corner of their board....so where do they find 43/100 on a standard ruler?  The amazing conversation and comparison of strategies that resulted was completely unexpected by me.  It wouldn't have happened if the students didn't feel empowered to have those conversations. 

A classroom run mostly by students has created a completely different challenge for me as an educator.  I never give a thought to the amount of work that I will distribute or which examples I will show.  I give most of my thought to what will create a good conversation and what will lead them to the skills I'm trying to develop.  Then, WE(me and the students) can develop a few examples and see if our generalizations are correct or need adjustment. 

When students are comfortable in this environment (after they've learned a different set of rules for maintaining the environment) they purpose themselves in whatever way suits them.  There's something great about providing your students with several different options that can all be unique to them, and watching them choose and interact with course content that way.  They may only do 2 or 3 "math problems" in the course of a day, but the learning experience is of such higher quality than cranking out 50 derivatives. 

Students are very capable of running a classroom and taking responsibility for their own learning, so give up control of your classroom and see what happens....

Thanks to MrsBMG for inspiring this post.

Better Work vs. More Work

What's the point of assigning homework?  Why must a student take work home with them to complete and bring back to school the next day?  As a professional, I know I try my hardest not to bring any work home, getting as much done as I can while at school, and only bringing things home if it's absolutely necessary.  So why do we force our students to do this?  I think we've been had once again by the school that is a grading institution rather than a learning institution. 

Homework is the ultimate status quo preserver.  The students that have learned the material go home and receive verification that they in fact know the material.  Or, the student that has already learned the material will copy the answers from a classmate during homeroom so that they do not jeopardize their "grade".  What about the student that hasn't learned the material.  I've witnessed firsthand the "benefits" that a student that is still learning material gets from homework.  They receive confirmation that they are still learning.  Some of them use outside resources and textbooks to get their information, and continue their learning process.  Others just jot something down so that they get "credit", however there has been no learning that takes place.

Does a set of problems to be completed and turned in the next day really generate a high quality learning experience?  Most of the homework that gets done is done out of compliance, which is hardly a learning experience.  I think we should start making our homework assignments things that matter to a student that will enhance their learning experience, assignments that do not necessarily require a product that can be checked the next day.  I think kids should be completing homework that involves experimenting with web-based applications, reading interesting articles, watching videos, sending an e-mail to a professional in that field, organizing their thoughts with two or three of their peers, participating in online discussions.  All of these things enhance the learning experience, but will lead to better discussions between students in class the following day.  How often does 1-25 Odd lead to high quality discussion the next day? 

I really do not think that "more work" leads to improvement of an individual's ability.  Yes, a student can probably go from basic skill level to slightly less basic skill level by doing more work, but we see all the time that "better" work leads students from basic to advanced in much less time.  I have yet to see a presentation at an education conference titled "Assignment Overload: Enhancing Student Achievement Through 100 Exercises a Day".  Every presentation at an ed-conference revolves around the exact opposite thought - getting your students to participate and create in "better" work. 

Money Trees - An Attempt at Reform

My goal is to "reform" the trees in the back of my house to become money trees. They are currently not growing money, but I would like them to start doing so in the near future. I have outlined two proposals and would appreciate some commentary as to the appropriateness of each proposal.

Proposal 1
I will begin by mandating that the trees produce money. Branches that are not growing money must be removed, since they are not meeting what is mandated. Each day I will step outside, and any branch without as much as a $1 bill on it would be pruned and discarded. The trees should eventually "reform" and provide the money that I have been requiring of them.  If they have not "reformed", they will be cut down so that another tree can have the opportunity to form into a money tree.

Proposal 2
I will research the task of growing money on trees. I will see if in fact trees can be changed to grow $1 bills, and follow all necessary steps to make sure I am "reforming" my trees into money trees. If it calls for planting coins/dollars at the base of each tree, then I will do that. If it calls for water every day and moderate sunlight, that is what they will receive. If in fact the trees do not produce money after this, an evaluation will need to occur. Do I continue my "reform" efforts? Do I seek an alternative method of "reform"? Shall I work on a new and innovative approach towards creating money trees? Do I cut down the trees at the end that are not money trees, or should I allow them to continue existence and let them serve a different purpose?

Which one of these proposals is the appropriate way at achieving the impossible task of creating money trees?  Are there alternatives to these approaches?