The Circle of Grading

This year has been hard. I probably don't need to tell you that. I can't really put a finger on what exactly it is, but I think this has been the hardest stretch since the pandemic began. 

It started to show about halfway through our first trimester. Around October, it became clear that my freshmen just...weren't. They weren't on level. They weren't able to school. They weren't interested. I had been using my standards based grading, and while it seemed to be going okay, it became clear that we were not, for various reasons, going to be able to cover near as much material as we had in previous years. This was a problem for my grading because I really rely on circling back around to earlier concepts so that relearning and retakes are built into the later assessments. 

I always tend to have lower grades in my classes. Taking out homework and extra credit and only relying on what the kids know will do that. I have always been okay with it. But this year was different. This year a lot my kids just refused to do school. 

As a compromise, I guess, I decided that in the second trimester I would go back to traditional grading and give students credit for work that we do in class. It was simple! Brilliant! Kids will pass!

Except they didn't. The structure of the class was the same as it has been. We do stuff in class, whiteboard the answers, and assess. When the work was complete, I would stamp it and record it as done. They didn't need to have it correct, although we went on and on and on about why we were whiteboarding the answers... They could have copied it from their partner. I didn't care, I was giving them free points. I was giving them a cushion so they didn't have to actually know ALL the physics. 

Wanna guess what changed? Absolutely nothing. In fact, grades are WORSE than they were first tri with the added bonus of the rush of "can I still turn this in for credit" panic this last week of the grading period. 

Today was the last day (thank goodness for winter storms) so I have the next few days to think about what to do going into this last part of the year. I'm leaning back towards SBG. I am modifying the computational part of my plans, so I think I can get back to a more realistic pace and be able to circle back around and re-emphasize the important points. 

Making Sense of Assessment...My Grading Philosophy

As many of you know, I have struggled to find good and valid ways to assess the kids in my classes. And if you have any twitter presence at all, you know that there has been quite possibly the most epic discussion ever held on that platform about Standards Based Grading*. If nothing else good comes from this twitter discussion, it has been an opportunity for me (and several others) to really reflect on what it is that makes assessment in my classroom authentic and not just some random number that gets translated into a grade.

Warning: personal conjecture ahead...
The thing about the grading and assessment that occurs in your class is that it is extremely personal.** It truly ties into what your teaching philosophy really is. Think back on your teacher preparation classes for just a second. Did ANY of you have ANY kind of instruction or even guidance as to how to grade the kids in your classes?? I didn't. I'm not sure I know anyone who has. Essentially, we were set loose with the assumption that we would figure it out. Now if you were anything like me, I just graded how I had been graded in the past. I kind of started with 100% tests. Now you realize in high school pretty quickly that that is probably a bad idea.*** So I made it something like 20% homework. Then I added in some participation points. And for the love of everything holy, I gave extra credit for bringing in kleenex. Hey, everyone had a cold that year.

And so over the years, it just kind of morphed into something that really reflected what I believed as a teacher was important. My guess is that you have probably followed a similar path to end up with whatever type of assessment regime you currently work under. It has taken me quite awhile and a good bit of trial and error, but I have finally arrived at a place where I really feel like the final grade that I assign to any given student is one that I feel good about.

So in the spirit of waxing philosophical, here is my personal grading philosophy...

1. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that a grade a student receives in my chemistry class should be a reflection of what he knows about chemistry. Period. Done. That's it. You're acting up in class today? Fine. I will deal with that, but not by reducing your grade. You want to bring cookies in for my birthday? Aw...I love you even more. But not enough to give you extra credit. For me, grades are NOT a classroom management tool. I don't hold points over your head to make sure you don't cause me any problems. In turn, I don't reward you with points for sucking up.

2. I am going to be as clear and concise as I possibly can as to what it is you need to know. I use Standards Based Grading in my classroom for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost I use it as a tool to describe exactly what skills and ideas you need to master in order to navigate through a specific class.

3. I am not going to give you points for your homework. Probably the biggest argument I hear about this is that by not grading homework, we are not preparing kids for the "real world".**** I give homework about once a week. This is typically practice and an extension of what we have learned in class. Kids know they are expected to complete it (yes, I keep track) and they know that the next day we will whiteboard it in class. When I first started whiteboarding, I didn't realize what a powerful formative assessment tool this can be. As kids are preparing their boards, I wander around and answer questions and listen to the discussions. That right there gives me mountains of information about whether or not kids are getting it. Then those kids present their work. I have a group of kids this year who fight over who gets to present. Know why? Because it helps cement in their brains what it is we are doing. I have teachers who argue that this is a waste of class time. (Seriously.) They don't have time for kids to go over every single homework assignment. I just have to say that I do not agree. For me, if it is important enough to assign, it is important enough to go over with my kids. Amazingly enough, even though I am not bribing them with points, I have found that kids still do their homework. Can you guess why? Because they see the value in it. They understand that if I am going to give them the opportunity to practice those skills and give them feedback on their progress then they will be much more successful when it comes to test time.

4. I don't do averages. This is a big one. I don't have too many standards that kids are expected to master in any of my classes. How you score on each target counts individually towards your final overall grade, but one does not override the other. This means that one target is no more important than another. You have to know them all. You can't do horrible on Conservation of Mass and balance that out by totally rocking Stoichiometry.

5. There will be lots of opportunities to reassess on something you didn't understand the first time around. I more or less have my targets set up in a way that allows me to circle back to each one over and over again throughout the year. For me, if I haven't assessed that target more than three times in the trimester, it is worth a look at rewriting. I really don't believe education is a one time shot. Listening to some of my colleagues and a surprising number of parents, this goes against everything they believe education should be. There is also a big debate on the whole retake thing. That is an individual preference and can be handled in a lot of ways. In general, a student cannot walk through my door and just get a retake. I have allowed that in some cases, but there is a lot of work on the student's part that must be done before I will let that happen.

6. I care that you are understanding what I am teaching. How that translates into a letter grade is a side concern of mine. All that letter does is give you an idea of where you stand in your mastery of the standards. Notice that I did NOT say where you stand in relation to your peers. Grades are not a competition in my room. If what you know rewards you an A, awesome. If you "only" get a B, awesome. You're getting an F? Um, you really aren't getting it. Get in here and let's see where you have gone off track.

I think that pretty much sums it up! Now that I actually have it on paper and can look at each point individually, I really feel better about the decisions I have made to change my classroom assessment.

Our district has just started the conversation about how to move to a more transparent system of grading. I'm not sure how it is going to go. We spent nearly two hours debating the homework issue one day. This could get pretty interesting, so I will keep you posted on that one...


*This thing has raged on for weeks now, one THREAD has over 2,000 replies, and at this point is mostly at a point of last-worditis and not so veiled name-calling because Frank and Brian and lots and lots of others realized you can't have a decent discussion when the other side refuses to even pretend you might know what you are talking about...good luck @DataDiva :) And truly, this has morphed into something that isn't even really about grades any more.

**I am NOT saying that it should be, just that it is.

***Ironically, I am sort of back to that theory now...

****This. Right here. This is probably the worst argument I hear. Besides teaching, in what world are kids going to have three hours of homework every night to be turned in the next day??? In what job are kids going to get a reward for every. little. thing. they. do??

How We Write a Conclusion...Lab Skills 5

So what does that data mean???

That's always the big question isn't it? We take the measurements, make the mess, graph the data and then....

What?

Well, traditionally, we answer an overly structured set of "right there" questions that really have nothing to do with the data, but perfectly mirror the textbook definitions that we want our kids to parrot back to us on standardized tests. Because, surely, if they can repeat the definition and maybe even remember the formula, then they understand the concept, right? 

Right??

To be honest, for the longest time, I thought that was okay. I didn't realize that even though my kids could spit out the correct words, they probably weren't really getting to the heart of the concept. I had learned about density from a textbook and I understood it just fine, thank you, so surely everyone else could as well. 

When I asked kids to write a conclusion, I was really just looking to see that they could write a coherent paragraph that somehow worked in the definition of whatever idea we were trying to cover. I rarely, if ever, asked them to explain how their data described that definition. One reason for that was because I knew they hadn't taken very good data, but another reason was simply that I myself didn't really know how to analyze data. This is actually something that I have always struggled with. For one, I am not very good at writing in general, but mostly because I didn't know how to explain what my data meant. This goes back to the fact that I didn't NEED the data (thank you, conclusion questions). In fact, for the longest time, I didn't even realize it had a purpose. Looking back, I am pretty hard pressed to pinpoint a time when I truly had to write a decent analysis. So I really struggled with how to explain to my kids about the importance of summarizing their data.* One of the first assessed targets I wrote was Lab Skills 5: I can analyze laboratory data in order to clarify the questions, hypotheses or methods of an experiment. I knew I wanted my kids to be able to do this, but it feels like it has taken me forever to actually get a handle on how to, you know, assess it.

Several years ago, I realized I was doing it wrong and started trying to change how I taught my kids to write that paragraph at the end of the lab. And for years I struggled to get them where I wanted them to go. This year, I had sort of an epiphany when I had a chance to sit down and really look at what I was teaching my kids.

I know I keep referring back to this, but the Modeling has been so good for me in so many ways. I also know I am a little slow on the uptake here, but this year, I realized that it breaks down a conclusion into four parts**. Now, many of you modelers will recognize these four different representations of data. We use words, numbers, mathematics and pictures to show what our data means. So this year, I have hit my kids pretty hard with writing good conclusions.

First, we summarize our data in words. Basically, we want to answer the lab's original question. What IS the purpose of our data? What are we trying to find? What is the relationship between the variables? I have a poster on my wall that shows how kids should begin their conclusion. And until we get the hang of it, all conclusions begin with the words "According to our data..."***

I have a lot of kids that want to try to simply summarize their procedure. They seem to believe that putting lots of words on paper will make it appear like they know what they are talking about. This might work if I didn't actually read the words, so sometimes I have to do a bit of steering towards why we did what we did. Our first lab in chemistry is a six part Conservation of Mass series, so we do a lot of walking through the entire lab write-up during the first few parts. I gradually take that support away and by the last couple parts, they are on their own.

A mathematical description of the data typically comes in the form of the slope equation. Algebra is a prerequisite for chemistry and our kids spend an awful lot of time with  y = mx + b. This is a perfect example of being able to spit out the "correct" answer but having no clue what to do with it. We talk about "x" and "y" being generic variables that can represent anything. We also talk about how we have independent and dependent variables in our experiment and we can substitute these variables in for "x" and "y". It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes for kids to realize that the term variable means the same in math as it does in science. In chemistry, we don't always have a mathematical relationship, as these are usually derived from graphs, but kids have to be able to recognize when it does not apply and that is apparently a lot harder than it might seem on the surface.

Assigning a number value, however, is done for almost every lab. Whether that number comes in the form of a ratio determining an empirical formula, a slope value giving us a density or an amount of recovered product, we can usually describe our data with a specific value in some form or another. In some cases, there can be more than one number to report, often in the form of the original data and then in percent error.

The last part of our conclusion is a particle diagram. Until I did the Modeling, it had never really occurred to me to have kids draw picture representations of what happened in the lab. Modeling is big on particle diagrams, whether it be the chemistry or the physics, and for some kids, this is no problem. For a lot more than I would have predicted, this is a huge problem. Because this is hard. You are looking at a whole new level of understanding when you require someone to draw a particle diagram of a chemical reaction. I have an amazing number of kids who can balance a chemical equation without being able to explain it in terms of the particles involved. This is really another example of being able to get the right answer without understanding the underlying concept.

About half way through the first trimester, I typed up some basic posters to stick on my wall. For some kids, I STILL have to point to each one in turn and remind them what needs to be included.

These were my rough drafts that I did on a whim. I plan on editing them a little bit when I get a chance, but that isn't too high on my priority list for this year. 

I have done a decent job of sticking with assessing these four parts this year. I like, and I think the kids appreciate, the structure involved with it. If nothing else, it gives us a starting place. I am somewhat surprised I haven't changed it up at all. It is by no means perfect, but so far it has really done what I want it to. ****


*It has suddenly occurred to me that I did this backwards. No wonder my kids were struggling with conclusions...we weren't focused on the data...

**In my defense, Modeling workshops are extremely intense! You cover an entire years worth of material in 2-3 weeks. I am still trying to digest it all! I KNEW this in the back of my mind, it just didn't click until this fall.

***Or in Mary's case, "The lab data suggests..." Whatever, she got what I was asking.

****See, terrible conclusion...

Lab Skills 8...What to Do with It...

I have never understood how someone could teach science without including labs as a part of that teaching. I mean, really, isn't that the whole point???

Now, I will be the first to admit that I have not always done my kids justice when it comes to the labs. Like so many others, I "did labs" without clear goals in mind. With any luck, kids could get some decent results and probably be able to decode the conclusion questions at the end. The lab didn't really mean much other than they would maybe get a better visual of the book description and I wouldn't have to talk all day.

In the last couple years, my focus on labs has shifted. A large part of that shift is a direct result of the Modeling. Here, labs are vital. This is where we get our information. We don't read out of a textbook that density is mass per unit of volume, we actually measure that relationship and define it later on. So if Group 4 doesn't get a graph that is at least somewhat linear, we can't see that relationship, and therefore, can't define it. 

Taking good data has become important. 

The problem is, my kids have virtually no lab skills. They just don't do labs in middle school.* What few labs they did do were more of a "hands on" let's take a break from reading kind of thing. You know, what I used to do...

The lab skills didn't matter. 

So what if I should have gotten 7.8 grams of salt and I ended up with 23.4 g???** This was okay because the teacher is going to summarize what we should have gotten and if I pay close enough attention, I will get the answer right on the test.

This has always bothered me. A lot. I just wasn't sure what to do about it. So this has turned into my year to really focus on what I need to teach my kids about precision, accuracy and basic lab skills. This has not always gone smoothly, but taking a few minutes during a lab to teach some of those things has made all the difference.

So enter Lab Skills 8. Originally, I wrote this skill to assess whether or not kids were rounding correctly. We would discuss significant figures and what accuracy and precision were appropriate to record. I ended the summer with it written as: 8.  I can recognize accuracy and precision of data depends on instruments used. (ΔHS.1.3.3d)

I never liked that wording, mostly because I had to explain it to every single person who read it. Before school even started, Bryna suggested this: I can use significant figures to appropriately communicate the precision of data and calculations.


I liked this wording so much better, so I changed it to begin the year.

Now, I like significant figures just as much as the next science teacher, but with all the upheaval I had going on in my room, I didn't focus on them very much. And really, do those rules REALLY make any sense?? Not, at least, to a teenager. They tend to focus so much on the rules that they miss understanding why those rules exist. So basically, I told my kids to round to least precise decimal place and be done with it. Even with that we were still struggling, but for the most part, my kids are rounding to a reasonable place and I am okay with that.

Then I actually started assessing with it. The more I got into it, the more I realized I wanted this target to assess more than what it was. The original idea was to assess only on the recording of the data, but as I mentioned, I wanted kids to be held accountable for the accuracy of their data. 

I debated quite awhile about how I wanted to handle this change. I thought about leaving this skill alone and adding in a separate skill specifically for data collection. I didn't like this for a number of reasons***, but I really thought those skills should go hand in hand.

We started a new trimester last Monday, so I took the opportunity to yet again rewrite that skill. I think I like this one, but I guess we will see how it plays out.

So here it is...the new and improved....

Lab Skills 8.  I can report data and calculations in a precise and accurate manner.

*I KNOW!!! I have issues with this and have made them known...I am working on that.

**Actual results.
***Not the least of which is that then I would have 11 lab skills instead of 10 and my OCD would not allow that to happen.

This Year's Great Grading Experience

So I am sitting in the back of a freezing cold gymnasium waiting for parents to come visit with me about their* children's progress in my classes. My time this year has actually been punctuated by actual conferences, so this is a pretty new experience for me.

To be honest, I was expecting a lot more parents, as was my principal. A child in my class has some major adjusting to do learning-wise and some of them do not take it well. So far, I have weathered the storms that came with Modeling and Standards Based Grading and have come out the other side all the better.

But this year, I took away percentages.

Turns out this was the biggest adjustment yet. And the most difficult to deal with. Now, I didn't really think my whole set up was all that difficult to understand and the truth is, it really isn't, but it is something different and some kids are having trouble getting past that. The good news is that of all the parents I have discussed this with, not one of them has had any complaints. I have even had one parent thank me for making it more difficult for students to get an A. While this wasn't exactly my end goal, I really think this system more accurately reflects a student's level of knowledge.


The Good
I love it. My scores are recorded as 0, 1, 2 or ND (no data). In the past, I went with a 4 point system. That basically turned into estimating a percent correct and there was such a big decision between 2 and 3 that it was really starting to stress me out. I found myself making out a rubric for every single target and finally decided that was ridiculously too difficult. I still find myself leaning towards a 1 when it should probably be a 0**, but I think that will get better with time. Either that or I will get rid of the 2 and simply go to a 0/1 system.

I also ended up with a huge shift in philosophy when it comes to how to actually assign the scores. All of my targets are assessed multiple times with three seeming to be my minimum right now. The score that is recorded in the grade book is the most recent assessment. Mostly. This year, it occurred to me that sometimes, kids just have a bad day. So I am looking at how to make the call on someone who has scored all 2s up until today when she scored a 0. Did she just not understand the question? Had she been copying off her neighbor? Did her allergy medicine kick in last hour? This has been a tough one for me to reconcile, so I will see where it gets me. Today, I opened it up for discussion with my kids. They have all of their scores available to them. If they want to come in and argue for a certain score, I will let them. This announcement was met with deafening silence and more than a little bit of suspicion. One student finally asked me if it was a trap, so that might just be a little too much for them to deal with at this point.

Another part of this is making up assessments that were missed because of absence. Do they need to? If I have four other data points to work with, does that ND in the grade book matter? This came about from a student that was going to make up a test if I had to drag him in by his ears. He has been a pain all year and I wasn't going to let him get away with skipping my class again.*** His argument (when I calmed down) was a good one. He had already shown me that he could do that skill. What difference did it make if he didn't show me one more time? I finally admitted he had a point. A few days later, he came in when he wanted to retake a target that had been on his missing test. He just wanted to test over the one target. Smiling my evil smile, I told him he couldn't just do a retake on a target if it was available on a missing assignment. So my new and improved (?) policy is just that. I don't require them to make up quizzes if they don't want to, but if they want to retake a target that is on that quiz, that is how it must be done.


The Bad
Using PowerSchool has been a challenge for me with this system. First and foremost, I haven't figured out a way to turn off the grades for the individual assignments (targets). This looks really, really bad if you have anything but 2s, because PowerSchool still records the percentage and letter grade.

When a student or parent looks at this, they automatically zoom in on the column of As and Fs. This student isn't doing too badly, but when the focus is on that letter, people don't tend to look at the overall picture.

PowerSchool also doesn't show what each specific target means. So when you see Lab Skills 9 (which for some reason is NOT in alphabetical order), you don't automatically know what skill is assessed there. You have to click on the link to go see what is actually means.

I started putting in each individual score every time that target was assessed. I like that a lot, but I also want to start adding in comments. I'm not sure if this will just get too messy. All of our students have a Google account through our school, so I have thought about doing something with a spreadsheet. I really haven't decided on this yet. At the beginning of the year, I was going to have a Blue Harvest or Active Grade account for each student, but that just seemed like one more thing to have to access. I am still up in the air about that. I want that feedback available, I'm just not sure of the best way to make it so.

Retakes became a nightmare. I expected the race for points to be so ingrained as to be inescapable and should have been more prepared for it. I require students to come in and "study" before getting a new quiz, usually in the form of correcting a test or quiz. I had a week or so in there where there was just such a rush that I didn't do a good job of checking that work and ended up with scores that I know do not in any way reflect that student's level of understanding. This next trimester, I am going to make it a little more difficult to earn a retake. Joss and Mylene have developed an amazing quiz reflection tool that I am totally going to steal and modify into an application for reassessment.


The Capstones
The capstones are what really caused the panic. My policy right now is that in order to get an A in the class, you must do three capstones. Students can do a lab investigation or a research paper over any of the targets. I am also considering letting them create a tutorial that would go up on the class website. These are not meant to be major research projects, but an extension of a chosen target.

I am completely aware that this is a new frontier, but it really hasn't worked out in the way that I wanted. (I wanted it to work, you know, perfectly.) The physics community pioneered the idea and I love it. Chemistry, I am finding, however, is a little more difficult to work with. One big issue I have is the safety factor and how to make sure kids aren't doing something that could get them hurt.**** Also, physics you can literally see everywhere. We are dealing with a bit more abstraction in chemistry and my kids and I are struggling with how to go about it. Even things that should be more straightforward have issues like how much and what concentration of acid they should use.

I am not happy with these as they stand. A lot of this (oh, alright, all of it) is my fault. I gave them a pretty vague idea of what I wanted, so I am getting pretty vague attempts.

So right now, pretty much any attempt has been counted as a successful as long a the student writes it up in a way that convinces me he or she truly understands that target. Again, soooo not happy with this, but it is getting better. That is not to say that I haven't had some amazing attempts. One girl wrote research paper about exploding ketchup packets in Pennsylvania. Another tied in gas laws to the Red Bull space jump last fall. One student created the most beautiful density column I have ever seen. So there is hope and I am sure it will get better with time.


All in all, even though it has significantly upped my stress level, I am happy with this shift. And once kids get past the "this is stupid and if I complain enough, she will change her mind" stage, the feedback I am getting is mostly positive. Now, there are some students who are used to getting A's that are not too happy about the "extra credit" they have to do, but overall, anyone who gets an A here, I truly feel has earned it. They like knowing exactly what they need to work on. They like being able to show that knowledge multiple times. Some of them even like the challenge.



*Sooooo just typed "my children" there. Maybe I need a vacation.

**What bothers me most about these decisions is that I find a little voice in my head saying "but he tried so hard on this question."

*** I realize I was on a power trip and I really don't like that version of me, but it is what it is.

 ****In chemistry, everyone wants to blow something up. I tell that that's fine as long as they can tie it into one of our targets.

Calling an Audible and Adjusting My Grading

Okay, so I have had some major shifts in my grading this year. As we start thinking about closing out this trimester, kids are really, REALLY starting to panic. And to tell the truth, I am getting a little nervous. As of this moment, out of all of my classes, I have one B. And that is as high as it goes. A smattering of C's. Lots of D's and a few too many F's. While it is not uncommon for my principal to comment that I have the lowest grades out of anyone, I normally don't care how my grades stand up against other teachers'.* But even for me, I feel like this is a bit on the low side.

I love the grading out of two. If I could just get my kids (and some teachers) to let go of the percent thing, all would be well (well, better anyway). I didn't realize how stressful and time consuming it was for me to have to decide whether or not a question should receive a 2 or 3. Oh yes, this is the way to go.

But not all is well. I am rethinking how I have set up my chemistry standards. This summer, I loved the idea of having a few overarching ideas that were non-negotiable in terms of understanding matter. Actually, I still do like that idea, but it is truly driving everyone crazy. This whole system has been a much larger shift for my kids than I anticipated, and adding in the extra step in deciding your grade is about to push some of us over the edge. It just seems like too much to decode at this point. So I have changed every standard to a gold standard and adjusted my figuring accordingly.

       F = 3 or more 0
       D = Any 0
       C = Any 1
       B = All 2
       A = All 2 plus 3 successful capstone projects

Capstones in chemistry are turning out to be a huge challenge. I knew this would be true, so I have not been surprised at my kids really not knowing exactly where to start. Physics is, I think, a little easier to come up with something to test. Go outside and observe nearly any phenomena and you can turn it into a physics project. In chemistry, even if you have an idea what it is you want to test, there are so many unknowns to take care of that really aren't common sense-type things. How much sodium hydroxide do we need? Should we do this in the fume hood? Will it blow up?**

At first, I told the kids that their capstone had to be in the form of a lab investigation. I still prefer this, but I have also opened up on that requirement. Students can, of course, still do the lab investigation, but they also
have the option to write a research article, create a podcast or a KA style video. I am also allowing them to work in groups of up to two, but each student has to have a separate write-up.

Really, though, I have only had two groups even attempt a capstone. I have one girl (who stares out the window a lot) who keeps saying her parents are soooooo mad that she doesn't have an A. In the same breath, she tells me a capstone would be too much work. I guess we'll see how that turn out.

Tomorrow is an early release for us. My plan is to show everyone what their grade would be at this point and talk about what can be done to show what they know. Maybe getting everyone on the same page and reminding them of the deadline will put a fire under them.

We also have parent conferences next week. I have this strange feeling that I will have a better turn out than normal.


*This was a BIG deal when I started teaching chemistry with SBG.

**This is more often than not said in an extremely hopeful tone.

So Tell Me How You Really Feel

Now that we are a couple weeks into school, we are starting to get a little deeper into actually assessing some work. So now the questions on how to actually get an A in my class are really starting to be asked. There has been so much talk about GPA in my classroom lately that I am seriously starting to twitch.

My chemistry class is still pretty quiet. Most of them do not know me well enough to come right out and complain, but they are nervous, to be sure. I have an amazing first section this year, and they are pretty used to getting high grades. For the most part, they seem to be up to the challenge. We ended up walking through how to do a capstone* so they know what it should look like. I think they are slightly less anxious now.

However, students in my ocean science class, for the most part, know me pretty well. And they let me know exactly what they think about the new system. I have this class set up just slightly different than my chemistry. I don't have the blue and gold standards, mostly because wasn't completely happy with the standards I had written. This turned out to be good thinking because I have already changed some of the targets. I am really debating on this, because this system seems to be a little more straightforward with not as much in the way of decoding to figure out your grade. But then I like the idea of those big ideas, so who knows where this will all end up.

Today, I handed back an ocean science test along with a grade sheet. There was freaking out and some of them just can't let go of percentages. The majority of complaints seem to stem from the fact that they can't get away with not understanding something. To them, it is completely fine to not understand how waves travel through a medium because next week, they can do better on tidal movement. It will all average out and they will never have to come back to understanding waves. This is apparently a much bigger safety net than I had realized because there is some major panicking (and complaining) going on.

Going along with that is grading out of 2 instead of, say, 10. Or 50. Or some other arbitrary number. Basically, they either understand it or they don't. There really is no "partial credit" here. Again with the safety net.

I mentioned capstones to my ocean science and was immediately bombarded with the extra credit question. That is how they are viewing the idea of capstones. I am having a hard time getting them to see it from another angle, because they see this "extra work" as equating to "extra credit". I can honestly say I understand their perspective, but I think it's a little too overwhelming for them to cope with the idea of applying knowledge at this point. So we'll come back to that in a couple days.

I pretty much had two camps in my ocean today. On one side are those who kind of accepted the idea and are going to humor me in hopes I change my mind when everyone's grades are terrible. The other side is made up of those who are still pouting.

What I really need to do a good job of is guiding my kids through this system. I can't just throw it out there and hope they catch on. This is such an enormous shift in philosophy that I'm not sure they are all going to follow. Giving examples and keeping kids from giving up is going to be crucial. And exhausting.

Lucky for me, my principal is on board. I gave him a print out of my set up and he was intrigued. A couple days later, I stopped in his office and he pulled out a little green book called A Repair Kit for Grading and asked if I had read it. No, do I have to? I was a little nervous thinking I had really done something wrong and he was going to make me revert back to a more traditional grading approach. However, he congratulated me on already implementing what he thought was a good system. Whew.

So tomorrow is a new day. My ocean is going to get their first taste of capstones and what it really means to take all this information and use it. Hopefully, we will discover together the difference between extra credit and actual learning.


*Another post that hasn't been finished yet.

Just...Don't Freak Out

On the first day of school, we talk for just a little bit about how students will eventually receive a letter grade for chemistry, not too much because this is what everyone else does and we want to move on to bigger and better things just as soon as we possibly can. Usually, there are some sideways looks and maybe even a few questions, but what I have noticed is that while there is nodding, the reality doesn't actually set in until there are actual marks involved.

Like today.

On Friday, we finished up our Mass and Change Lab, talked about the Conservation of Mass and turned in our lab notebooks. Pretty routing and straightforward. 

Today, the notebooks were handed back. Along with the notebook is a sheet that I have typed out comments about each target that is assessed. They look something like this...*

Lab Notebook Feedback Sample

There is always (even near the end of the year) that minute or so where kids are turning the paper over, looking for their grades. So I let them flounder for a while, mumbling among themselves, until finally someone speaks up and asks what everyone wants to know. "How did I do on this?"

Most of the time, I come back with something along the lines of, "well, how do you think you did?" This is often met with blank stares while they try to absorb what I am trying to say. I didn't give them a grade, and they have no idea how to handle that. Today, I had them talk to their lab partners about their comments. What are some things you did well? What do you need to work on? If you were to give yourself a grade, what do you think it would be?

I try to get them to see that it's not just about a number, but about what you can do to truly learn about something. Some try to make sense of it, some just humor me.

Then, I pointed to the wall where I have posted the targets we are covering at this particular time. Remember these green sheets we keep pointing to? Let's talk a little bit more about those. So today, I reintroduced my new and improved grading system. There were a lot of wary looking kids sitting out there. And then I handed out their grade sheets.

See, we use PowerSchool as our grading program, and I know there must be a way, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to get it off of percents. So if I put in 2 points as possible and you get a 1, it shows you have a 50%. Even after promising not to, some of them freaked out, although, thankfully, none of them cried.

While there wasn't much in the way of excitement about the new system, at least there wasn't any outright hostility. I think just getting over the initial shock and getting used to the idea will be smoother than past years.

I know that I like it much better than what I did last year. Getting rid of the 3 and 4 levels makes this so much easier. Where last year, I would have hem-hawed around and made a judgement call, this year, I can simply say, "not perfect" and give it a 1.

And then.....I introduced capstones. Now that is a different story. There was quite a bit to say about those...


*This is a critique for another day, but there are a few things I would change about this. I find myself only picking out the things a student did wrong. My goal this year is to also leave specific comments about what was done correctly as well. For whatever reason, I find this much more difficult. But I love typing it out. Copy/paste is soooooo handy sometimes.

Into the Ocean

Several years ago, I started teaching earth science. Like so many teachers, I tried to fit everything we could possibly know about earth systems into 180 days. I was overwhelmed and my kids left shell shocked. The vocabulary alone sent more than one student into tears.

When we transitioned to a trimester schedule, I convinced my administration to let me break out my earth science into its components. So now, I have Geology, Meteorology, Astronomy and Ocean Science as separate classes. The plan was to add in an Environmental Science and Climatology in a couple years, but a series of scandalous events found Chemistry taking up all my "extra" time slots.

Ocean Science has turned into my biggest challenge yet. As it turns out, not too many teachers have a separate elective entirely devoted to the subject. This has made it a little more difficult to collaborate and find out what works best. That and my limited knowledge of the ocean doesn't help either.

I live a short drive to the geographic center of the (contiguous) United States, and as a result, am about as far away from any ocean that you could possibly get. As you might guess, many of my kids have only seen an ocean in pictures and have no real concept of its splendid enormity or it's important impact on them.*

This puts my kids in a pretty unique position when they walk in my room. For one thing, this isn't something they have ever really learned about. There is no review in my class; everything is new. The flip side of that is that everything is new and pretty darn interesting.

I have had this class for a couple years now and am at least a little more familiar with the material. This is my year of the ocean and my plan is to really think about how to approach it. This has been a lecture class for the most part with some labs thrown in. Makes me want to cry. Ideally, I would like to use more of a modeling approach and have kids discover these ideas through observations and data interpretation. Again, without an actual ocean, that makes it a little more difficult.

So I started with my standards. Then I rearranged them. Then I rewrote them. I am sure they will change before the year is out. I need a new verb as there is a whole a lot of describing going on. I am finding it much more difficult to write standards for my earth sciences. These classes are based more on big ideas than skills and so the target for assessment doesn't seem to be as cut and dried, as well as a lot more subjective. At the same time, this makes for wonderful opportunities for students to connect ideas together.

One concept I don't have written up yet is Humans and the Ocean. I want kids to make connections between how humans impact and are impacted by the ocean. I have an idea that this will sort of be like a capstone for each unit, but haven't really fleshed out a plan for that yet.

So, here's what I got...

Unit 1 Water Movement

Currents

1.       I can describe the relationship between global wind patterns and the horizontal and vertical circulation of the oceans.

2.       I can explain the causes of El Nino and La Nina and their effect on world climatic patterns.

3.       I can describe the effects of upwelling and downwelling on various populations.

Waves

4.       I can distinguish between deep-water, shallow-water and transitional waves.

5.       I can describe the process of refraction as it relates to coastlines.

6.       I can describe the effects of storm surges and tsunamis.

7.       I can use the equilibrium theory of tides and the dynamical theory of tides to describe diurnal, semi-diurnal and mixed tides at various locations on Earth.

8.       I can explain how the Moon-Sun-Earth alignment affects tidal patterns.

9.       I can describe why tidal bores, ebb and flood currents and maelstroms may occur.

Unit 2 Water Properties

1.       I can recognize the factors that affect the density of seawater.

2.       I can describe the factors that affect the salinity of ocean water.

3.       I can predict and explain the changes in salinity, density and temperature of the ocean at different depths and latitudes.

4.       I can describe the significance of dissolved nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide.

5.       I can describe the molecular structure of water and relate it to the properties of water.

Unit 3 Productivity

1.       I can list and describe the marine classifications by light in terms of wavelength penetration, photosynthesis and bioproductivity.

2.       I can contrast the bioproductivity of the tropical, mid-latitude and polar oceans in terms of temperature, density, accessibility, upwelling and nutrient availability.

3.       I can describe the pelagic and benthic zones in terms of depth, proximity to shore, photosynthesis, key physical factors and limiting factors.

4.       I can describe the coral reef environment in terms of key organisms, bioproductivity, physical factors and key limiting factors.

If anyone out there does something similar, or if you know of someone who does, I would love to hear from you.



*I had a plan to take my kids to the ocean as part of their final. My principal laughed until he realized I was serious.

Chemistry Standards 2012

Alright. Here they are. These are my newly updated chemistry targets. 

One thing I changed from before is the wording. Each one is now written as an "I can" statement. I started this last spring and simply changing the words "the student will..." was an amazing psychological shift for my kids. 

Right now, my total stands at 31. This seems like a LOT of standards. However, ten of these are lab skills that are assessed nearly every time we do a lab. Since these are assessed in a different way, I'm not sure if they fully count toward the total or not. 

The standards preceded by * are my gold standards. No zeros allowed on these if you want to get credit for learning chemistry. As of now, I have ten. 

Lab Skills

1. I can identify the hypothesis to be tested, phenomenon to be investigated or the problem to be solved. (ΔHS.1.2.2a)

2.  I can identify the tested variables and conditions to be kept constant during an investigation. (ΔHS.1.2.2b)

3.  I can communicate the details of an experimental procedure clearly and completely. (ΔHS.1.2.2c)

4.  I can record and represent data in a meaningful way. (ΔHS.1.2.2d)

*5.  I can analyze laboratory data in order to clarify the questions, hypotheses or methods of an experiment.

6.  I can use common mathematical functions to analyze and describe data. (ΔHS.1.3.3b)

7.  I can use statistical data analysis techniques. (ΔHS.1.3.3c)

*8.  I can report data and calculations in a precise and accurate manner.

*9.  I can use equipment properly and safely. (ΔHS.1.3.3f)

10.  I can follow all lab clean-up procedures.

Physical Properties of Matter

1.  I can define mass, volume and density in terms of a substance's particles.

*2.  I can apply the Law of Conservation of mass.

3.  I can apply density as a conversion factor between mass and volume.

Energy and States of Matter

*1.  I can represent at the particle level, the characteristics (motion, spacing and arrangement) of particles in different phases of matter. (ΔHS.2A.2.a)

2.  I can relate the temperature of a substance to the average kinetic energy of its particles. (ΔHS.2A.2.1)

3.  I can predict the effect on a gas of changing pressure, volume or temperature on any of the other variables.

*4.  I can recognize energy as a conserved, substance-like quantity that is always involved when a system undergoes change.

5.  I can describe the energy transfer between a system and it's surroundings during a phase change. (ΔHS.2A.2.1b)

Describing Substances

1. I can distinguish between mixtures, pure substances, elements and compounds.

2. I can separate a mixture into its component substances.

3. I can use Avagadro’s Hypothesis along with combining volumes of gases to deduce the composition of some compounds.

4. I can describe the Law of Definite Proportion and the Law of Multiple Proportions.

Atomic Structure

1.  I can determine the number of protons, neutrons and/or electrons in an atom or ion.

2.  I can calculate the average atomic mass of an element

3.  I can write the orbital diagram or electron configuration for an atom or ion.

Bonding

1.  I can distinguish between ionic, molecular and atomic solids. (2A.2.2c)

*2.  I can name and write formulas for ionic compounds. (2A.2.3b)

*3.  I can name and write formulas for molecular compounds. (2A.2.3c)

Counting Particles

1.  I can determine the molar mass of an atom or compound.

2.  I can convert between the number of particles and the moles of an atom or compound. (2A.3.2)

*3.  I can convert between the mass and the moles of an atom or compound. (2A.3.2)

4.  I can determine the empirical formula and/or the molecular formula of a compound.

Chemical Reactions

1.  I can describe chemical reactions in terms of the microscopic behavior of atoms. (2A.3.1)

2.  I can write balanced chemical equations. (2A.3.1a)

3.  I can describe endothermic and exothermic reactions in terms of storage or release of chemical potential energy. (2A.2.3d)

Stoichiometry

*1.  I can calculate the masses (or number of moles) of reactants and products in a chemical reaction from the mass (or moles) of one of the reactants or products. (2A.3.2)

2.  I can determine the limiting reactant of a chemical reaction.

3.  I can determine theoretical and percent yield of the products of a chemical reaction. (2A.3.2)

4.  I can determine the partial pressure of a particular gas in a mixture.

5.  I can predict the moles of another reactant or product when given the temperature, volume and pressure of a gaseous reactant or product. (2A.3.2)

6.  I can relate the molar concentration (molarity) of a solution to the number of moles and volume of the solution. (2A.3.3)

Okay. Hit me. 

What am I missing? Does everything (anything) make sense? I tend to get stuck on wording and edit things to death, so if you have any wording that would be better, please let me know. 

I Really Should Pay More Attention

So I am sitting here trying to figure out the best way to incorporate Capstones into my chemistry class. I am mostly doing this by studying what John and the Minions are doing in their classroom. I am definitely requiring these this year, I just hope that I can help guide my kids enough so they are able to do the assignment, but little enough that it is still their project.

What I had not noticed in John's post was a link to Kelly (a year ago today) where she describes how she grades her physics classes. If I had noticed this when it was posted, I could have saved myself quite a bit of work. As it happens, a lot of what she does is what I ended up with. Only better. Seriously, how did I miss this??

I like that she has a No Data option as well. I have had kids who could use an entire piece of paper to not answer a question.

I adore her checkoff list. This is something I have struggled with when a skill appears multiple times on the same assessment. I have always sort of made a judgement call on which number to actually assign. I had never thought about just assigning the lowest score, but that makes a lot of sense, especially when you allow reassessments.

I think I understand how she figures her scores into a final grade, but I am pretty sure I need something more cut and dried. I am trying to convince my admin to let me do this, and if he has to stop to figure it out, I'm not sure it will fly.

All in all, I am loving this set up. I think my big roadblock right now is how my standards are written, but hey, I have a whole week to get that figured out :)

Revising My Grading One (?) More Time

I am in my classroom for the first time since May.

I switched over to standards based grading a few years ago, and while I love the way it sets up my classroom, I have yet to find that perfect balance. I have been grading on a 4 point scale and I don't like it. This seems to be the most popular set up, but for me, it has just turned into a nightmare.

Assigning a 1 means you don't get it. Did you totally get it? Good, you get a 4. What if you just made a minor error? Okay, 3.5. But what if you started out like you knew what was going on and then wandered off somewhere? Is it a 2? Did you explain it well the other day during whiteboarding? Maybe it should be a 3.

This is where I really start to have issues. I found myself so often making a judgement call as to whether or not I thought the student really got it.

I am totally intrigued with the binary set up that some are moving towards. This makes it more black and white. You either get it (1) or you don't (0), right? The problem is that I do like a little bit of gray, kind of a light at the end of the tunnel. Some kids just aren't quite there yet and I am a bit nervous about a 0 being taken the wrong way.

So here's what I got:

2 = You got it. No errors, you have mastered this idea.

1 = You are on the right track. There may have been some errors, be it in the arithmetic, set-up, units*, but you at least seem to have an idea about what is going on.

0 = Yeah, you don't get it.

Is this still binary or do we call it tertiary? I'm not sure, but I am pretty excited about getting rid of that middle ground.

Part two of my overhaul involves how I mold this into a letter grade. In my 4 point system, I counted two grades for each standard. The highest mark received was added to the most recent mark. This worked out to being a percentage out of 8 total points for each standard. This worked okay. Some kids never seemed to really understand how their grade was figured, even when I had the keep track on their own.**

With this system, I am going to drop the highest and go with only the most recent. There are few things more frustrating than kids thinking they can forget everything after the test. And so much of what we do in chemistry builds on itself that I can't really allow that to happen.

Now comes the translation. I am still playing with this for a couple of reasons.

First, this is where the only resistance I have ever had from my principal comes in. I am having an incredibly difficult time getting him to let me move away from percentages. I'm not sure why. Well, okay, I'm sure he believes he will have to field more calls from parents. I'm going to hit him up again tomorrow after I finalize my system.

Which brings me to the hard part. Here's my thinking.
*Three or more 0 can't get you through the class.
*0 on any objective and the majority of the other scores are 1 = D.

Now here's where I get stuck. There are some ideas in chemistry that simply must be understood. Conservation of matter, lab skills, nomenclature. (There are more, I am working on my list.) These are the "gold" standards. You must have a 2 on all of these to get an A or B.

*2 on all gold standards, 0 on any objective and the majority of the other scores are 2 = C.
*2 on all gold standards and no more than two 1 on the others = B.
*2 on all standards and and at least two capstone projects = A.

This could change. I am rewriting my objectives today so that they fit more into this grading scheme and also so they are easier to understand. I am thinking I will have 10 gold standards and probably another 12-20 others. (Going to have to call them "blue" I suppose, school colors and all.)

What do you think? Does this even make sense? Is it too hard to follow?



*Not labeling numbers are killing my kids. From here on out, you can't convince me that you have mastered the idea until you label everything. I am pretty sure someone wrote about this at some point this summer, but I can't seem to locate that post. Whoever you are, thank you for putting that out there!

**Of course, an alarmingly large portion of that group didn't know where any of their percentages came from.

My Not-So-Active SBG

I have an issue with starting, but not finishing posts. This results in an overly large "Drafts" folder that more often than not gets pushed aside and forgotten. Every once in awhile I go back and see if what I started is still relevant to what I am doing now.

Today, I got lucky and found this:
I am sitting in our brand new gymnasium over in a corner, waiting (probably in vain) for the parents to come visit with me about their child. Ever notice that the parents that come to parent-teacher conferences are NOT the ones you really need to talk to?

So I have opened up my Google Reader for the first time in I don't know how many days. 397 unread posts. My first thought was to just mark all of them as read and figure out what to do in Geology next week, but it's been so long since I have heard what is going on in other people's classrooms that I decided to at least skim through some of them.

Riley has a "new" post on Active SBG.

Active SBG means:

1. Emphasizing the learning that grades represent, and trying to avoid holding grades as the final product of education.
2. Allowing students to react to their grades. Grades are the beginning of a conversation, not the end.
3. Helping students to understand their grades by organizing them into topics (vanilla SBG).
4. Actively keeping students informed by assessing their skills often and giving them feedback as soon as possible.

It's #1 that really has me stuck. It seems like the more I emphasize the learning process, the more my kids seem to emphasize the grades.

This post was started over a year ago, but I am in exactly the same situation, right down to not being sure what I am going to do in Geology next week.

I mentioned a while back how my SBG adventure is stuck in a rut. So I decided to start the Great Non-Grading Experiment. Actually, I didn't so much decide to start it as I accidentally clicked on the wrong box in our grading program.

Now, kids are still getting grades. I still have all of the same targets entered into the grade book. We use PowerSchool, and when you enter in your assignments, there is a little box that says "Do not include in final grade." Somehow, this box got checked.

So here I am totally oblivious that I am entering grades, but they are not visible to the outside world. Last week, some brave soul finally came up and asked me when I was going to put grades in because she wasn't sure if she was going to be grounded for Spring Break. Our internet was down that day*, so I asked her to get her grade sheets out and tell me what she thought she had.

This trimester, I am infinitely better about having kids keep track of their own scores. They get a grid with each target and I am even having them color code those scores. (If you have kids keep track, I highly recommend the color coding. Green = Good, Yellow = Almost, Red = Bad)

Anyway, we sat down and she immediately started figuring percentages. Her score sheet was all green except for one red box, so I had her look at her scores and tell me what she thought her grade should be. She looked at me like I had just asked her to explain string theory.

"What do you mean, what do I think?"

I nearly laughed at the total confusion on her face. She honest to goodness had no idea what I was trying to ask her. So we spent the next several minutes discussing what all those colors meant. We finally decided that  she should end up with a B+ and that she would come in and relearn what she had missed on that lone red target.

I have never felt so good about giving out a grade. So I decided to give it a try. The next day, I told the entire class that they would need to set up an appointment with me to discuss their grades. A stunned silence followed by that teenager look that says "is she serious"?

I have sat down with over half the class now to mixed reviews. Some kids really jump at the chance to defend that one bad score. Some still try to figure percentages. Some are hoping they can BS their way through until Mrs. Schroeder comes to her senses and just unchecks the box already.

I think I like it. One of the things that has always bothered me about the SBG idea is the percentages I am supposed to assign. They never really worked out like I wanted, and this just skips right over that part. The big issue I have is getting to everyone. The time and energy involved in this is incredible. I am working on a way to incorporate it into class time, but I have a terribly needy first hour and it makes it hard to give one individual my full attention. I got away from our Manic Mondays for awhile, and I am thinking I will revive that and work it in.

So just like everything else, we will see how this goes.


*Good Lord, have you ever tried to work on a day like that???

Sinking in the Ocean of SBG

To say that I am struggling this year, really doesn't begin to describe this feeling.

A couple years ago I dove right in and switched over to Standards Based Grading. I loved (and still love) the idea of kids showing mastery on specific learning goals.

However, as some of you know, it can quickly become overwhelming trying to keep up with assessments, reassessments and fielding questions and criticism from the confused administrators, parents and children.

For the first month or two of a new class, I have to explain, again and again, why there is no entry in the grade book that says "Quiz 2". I think this comes back to the whole points chasing theme. We have focused so much on points and grades that it is extremely hard for those kids to let go and focus on the learning.

Some kids buy in right away. They get what I am doing. Some are even relieved. These are typically the kids who have struggled or those kids who have never needed the safety net that busy work points provide.

Some dig in their heels and refuse to come along with me. These are the grade junkies who don't really care about their education unless it makes them look good on paper. Points is points and that is what is important.

Some kids don't really care one way or the other, there is still no way I am going to make them do any work.

I also think there is a small group who simply don't get it. They seem to be so confused by the whole process that they simply accept the number at the top of the page and move on.

Try as I might, I can't keep this up if the kids don't buy into it. And it is nearly impossible to convince some kids to focus on the learning when other teachers don't focus on it at all.


Then there are the targets. I'm still not sure about my targets. I have gone through at least one year in each of my classes with the targets that I have written and I like them, or at least rewritten them to where they are less horrible than they were. They are good goals, but some are easier to assess than others.

And that right there is my big obstacle. The target must be written so that anyone who reads it can figure out what exactly it means. I had a few targets that were pretty vague. This works pretty well when I am writing test questions that I want to ask, but don't really fit in with any of the other targets.

I have also had targets that were not nearly vague enough. For example, I wanted kids to know that a milliliter contained the same volume as a cubic centimeter. So I wrote a target specifically for that. Well, there are really only so many ways you can ask that question. When a target is too specific, you kind of back yourself into a corner when it comes to assessment.

In my Chemistry and Physics, the targets are more skills based. I find this so much easier to handle than my Astronomy, Ocean, Meteorology and Geology classes where the targets are based more on the big ideas. I am pretty happy with my Chemistry and Physics targets, my big problem now is developing ways to assess them. I give tests and quizzes. I would love to use other assessments, but I haven't reached that comfort zone when it comes to the unwritten. That is one of my priorities this year is to step out into that abyss.

My other big issue, as mentioned, is my Big Ideas targets. I think my targets, for the most part are pretty good, but I don't have a cut and dried way to measure how those targets are assessed, so it always feels so subjective.

So I am slowly getting there. I only have a couple issues that I really need to work through. The thing is, they are pretty big issues and I can stare at the problem for hours and never get my mind wrapped around a solution.

Baby steps. I didn't get in this mess in a single day, so I can't expect to get out of it too quickly. This has been a huge change in my classroom that I have taken on more or less alone* in my district. I think I have a long way to go, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of comfort level. Once I can breathe again, I can take a step back and look at it  from another angle.


*In the words of Spongebob, "Not you guys! You guys are awesome!"

This is Why My Job is So Much Harder

During my seminar, students are not allowed to go anywhere if they are failing a class.

Yesterday I sent a student to a teacher whose geography class she was failing. Today, she was so excited that she was now passing that class. She said that by going in to talk to him about her grade, he was willing to give her an extra 50 points just for having a good attitude.

I really can't compete with this.

SBG and the Nightmare that is Grading

So I've implemented SBG. More or less. I have written my targets. I have savagely edited my targets. I have overcome mutinies and parental skepticism. I have brightly colored signs all over my room reminding kids what they need to learn.

Now, how in the name of everything scientific am I supposed to keep track of all this?

This is my first full year of grading by standards. While there are a lot of tweaks I need to make for next year along with a couple of major adjustments, the foundation has been laid and I just need to build on it.

Or out from it. I am so on board with all the calls to get rid of grades. I am so frustrated with kids coming into my room the last week of school wondering how they can get just a few more points. I flat out asked some of the kids if they were more concerned with grades than with learning. Talk about some blank expressions.

So here it is. A break down of the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE TARGETS
My Chemistry, Applied Chemistry and Applied Physics targets were pretty good. I ended up editing them a little bit, but this is more of a skill based class and I found that to be easier to assess. Can you balance a chemical equation or not?

The big problem I had were with my Earth Science Classes (I get to separate out into Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology and Ocean Science). I tried to make the target too skill based. This resulted in beyond epic failure. The thing about the Earth is that it is a system. Everything is interconnected and it makes it hard to separate out those ideas. And even when you do, those ideas do not easily translate into skills for assessment. For next year, those targets are going to be more ideas based. I'm sure this will probably result far fewer targets and we will circle back around several times to those ideas. How in the world I am going to teach in that way, I have no idea.

THE GRADING
Man, I'm beginning to hate that word. I created a semi-complicated way of recording students' grades. Each target was (ideally) assessed at least twice with a score of 4 points each. So each target was worth 8 points. To determine how many points each student received out of 8, I took the most recent score and added it to the highest previous score. So assume little Johnny received the following scores of five assessments on balancing equations: 3, 2, 3, 4, 3. The most recent score (3) is added to the highest (4) for a total of 7 out of 8. My kids were so stunned by the Modeling and just the introduction of not getting an actual test grade that not many of them even stopped to consider how the number was actually determined.

I like it, but I don't.

I read Marzano's Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading. I am now reading Guskey's Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Marzano's book talks about how to set up levels within each standard. So in order to get a 1 out of 4, the student must answer this question correctly. In order to get a 2 out of 4, a second, more difficult question must be answered correctly. And so on. I like this and am going to try this next year with a little adaptation. There has been a bit of discussion about binary grading lately that I has me intrigued. If I can get it set up, I would like to make a standard out of the "1" question. You either get it or you don't. A separate standard would cover the "2" question. You get a 1 or 0. To me that seems like there would be less interpretation between the levels. That seems like an awful lot of work, so we'll see how far I get with that.

THE FEEDBACK
I was pretty inconsistent on this. I got swamped later in the year and just couldn't sit down and get it done to the level that I wanted. This is going to be a main focus for me next year. I am thinking about having kids assign their own scores based on what I have written as feedback. I'm sure that will go over well.

THE RETAKES
These are gone. It became so unmanageable I took to hiding in my closet during my plan period. Especially in the second trimester (Chemistry), everything builds so much that we ended up assessing every target over and over anyway. If I can write my targets well enough, this shouldn't be a problem.

THE RECORDING
This got better as the year went on. I kept a bright orange notebook on my desk that contained a spreadsheet for each unit that we covered. The targets were written at the top and the scores were recorded. Red pen indicated a test, black was a quiz, pencil was a retake, any other color was something else (projects, etc.). I know this reveals a bit of my OCD, but it helped me keep track of why a certain kid was missing a grade since I wasn't recording it as "Test 3" anymore.

I started working on a Google docs method of recording grades that would also let me add in feedback. I know Riley has Active Grade available, but for some reason, I just never got the hang of it. Maybe if I can sit down for an hour or so without any interruptions (this seems to be my issue with a LOT of things) and just play with it I could get it to do what I want. I also see Shawn is working on something that I'm sure will shake the education table. I love the idea of getting rid of scores. I think my curriculum director might be somewhat tolerant of the idea, but my principal probably won't want to deal with all the questions it is sure to generate. He's kind of a don't-rock-the-boat sort of guy. Maybe I just won't mention it to him.


On the whole, I like the general set up of SBG. It makes so much more sense to me as opposed to the more traditional method of recording grades. I asked my kids at the end of the year if they liked it or not. 79% said they preferred it, so that is really encouraging and it also gave my principal something to grab onto other than me saying how wonderful it was.

So that's how last year stands. Now that the dust has settled and I can breathe again, I'm going to sit down and start over on my Earth classes. Chemistry just needs some light editing and it's good to go, but those big ideas are what is going to do me in next year.