Getting Ready for School
I’ve been puttering on my syllabus and classroom routines for a while, and yesterday I finished the first draft. I posted my syllabus and posted it on Twitter to all the folks who influenced it (@bowmanimal, @kellyoshea, @misscalcul8, and @samjshah). I woke up this morning to a good Twitter-conversation (with @MagisterWarren added) about implementing standards-based grading (SBG) among different constraints (department heads, final exams, etc).
It led to lots of #foodforthought, that’s for sure! I hope that by refining my SBG implementation and creating a stronger classroom culture, my class will get to the point where students assess like monsters too.
First thought to chomp on: grading policy
I’ve been peeping around math and science teachers’ blog posts on SBG, trying to find:
1) A good way to set up my grading policy in ActiveGrade
2) A good way to set up my skills list
Last year, I converted my skills grades into a grade out of 100 points, which I then weighted 30% in my EdLine grade book. I used a skills list without any core or advanced standards (another grading policy suggested on ActiveGrade).
A+ = 100, minimum grade of 3 on all standards, average of 3.7
A = 95 (not sure why I didn’t make it 93…should have!), minimum grade of 3 on all standards, average of 3.5
A- = 90, minimum grade of 3 on all standards, average of 3.3
B+ = 87, minimum grade of 2 on all standards, average of 3.3
B = 83, minimum grade of 2 on all standards, average of 3
B- = 80, minimum grade of 2 on all standards, average of 2.7
C+= 77, minimum grade of 2 on all standards, average of 3.3
C = 73, average grade of 2.7 across all standards
C- = 70, average grade of 2.5 across all standards
D+ = 67, average grade of 2 across all standards
D = 63, average grade of 1.5 across all standards
D- = 60, average grade lower than 1.5 across all standards
Second thought to chomp on: conjunctive SBG and grouped topics
I would love to improve my skills list by grouping it by topic and setting up the 4, 3, 2, and 1 like Jason Buell, but similarly to him, find that most math teachers have straight skills lists. I also like Kelly O’Shea’s method for conjunctive SBG, but have no idea how to create such a method for math.
Any thoughts on improving my conversion grading policy or setting up conjunctive SBG for math?
2 Comments
Andrea
Hi Kristina,
I like your policy. I’m also using active grade this year. I like how you combine the minimum and the average. I didn’t think of that. I combined average and mastery for my conjunctive grades. Here’s a link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/100L-EKkzVFXkhqvkmbCKcHOGxZHMTl-hQglkW5vaW50/edit
I’m still tinkering and will be interested to see what you do. I got a verbal okay from the headmaster last year to proceed with sbg. I just emailed her my whole grading policy to see what she thinks. She has been much more supportive of my efforts than my department head.
Kristina
Hi Andrea, good idea! I might try mastery instead of minimum this year. My school gives a lot of latitude to teachers for trying new things in their classrooms, so I’m grateful for that–but the flip side is, there’s not a lot of feedback.