2nd+Group+Meeting+Notes

__**Major Points from Saturday Meeting, March 8th:**__ Saturday we began by discussing our philosophy of grading. After discussing our individual philosophies, we found that even though we teach different content or at different levels there was a common theme. That common theme is that we are teaching the 'whole' student and not just the content area. We are preparing students for productive living. Although our grades reflect student mastery of our subject areas, they also include components which should enable the student to be successful outside the classroom. We discussed at length and included several examples to support this philosophy. As we have new students we monitor and adjust our practices. In other words, our philosophy is a 'working' philosophy, not something set in stone.

__**Major Points from Sunday Meeting, March 9th:**__

Chapters were discussed individually.

Chapter 1 ~ The author defined Learning achievement as "performance measured against published standards and learning outcomes." We disagreed with this definition. We look forward to how the author will expand on this. Fairness was another major word defined by the author. We assumed that from looking at the explanation this would justify accomodations made for students. Fariness would also be applied to differentiated instruction. Group work was discussed at length. The author suggests student involvement is included in the grading process. We have noted that students have gotten more involved in the grading process in math since the performance based assessments. Christy noted that in the middle school she involved students with an expectation sheet which is very similar to rubrics.


 * __Major Points from Friday Meeting, March 14th:__**

Friday's meeting started with the fact that we wonder if our system is really broken. The feedback we have gotten from students and test scores is that what we are doing works.

Fix 1: We agreed with this fix. Students shouldn't be given grades specifically for effort, participation and adherence to class rules. We feel that those behaviors are incorporated into the practice such as homework.

Fix 2: We are training students to be successful outside the classroom. Therefore, we must hold students accountable.

Fix 3: Nancy & Christy disagree with the statement. Lee agreed, so there was discussion. The decision to give extra credit could be varied with content. In math, Lee and Nancy give multiple opportunities to master concepts (corrections, retests). Christy encourages students to broaden their understanding of social studies by attending movies at the film festival or reading a novel. Since those activities aren't required to pass the class, but broaden understanding, she gives extra credit. After reading the first groups notes, I think we would agree that extra credit needs to be based on professional judgement.

Fix 4: No way! Students should absolutely receive a zero on assignments where blatant cheating has a occurred. Again, students need to be held accountable and that goes back to grades.

Fix 5: Attendance shouldn't be an explicit part of a grade. For the most part, absences are taken into account when students practice the skills learned in class. Often times, students don't do as well on assignments when they have been gone. The other group did have a good point: what about classes like vocation or gym?

Fix 6: We agreed that perhaps the author thought of 'old fashioned' group work where a few students did the work and everyone got the same grade. Christy assigns each student a job within the group and then grades accordingly. Nancy in a sense gives students jobs, as well. She has those students that understand the material explain to those who don't. Lee has students check answers with each other and if there is a disagreement, they must reason out the answer.

Fix 7: We were unsure of the how practical this would be. The thought of entering grades by standard and benchmark seems very time consuming and confusing. There has to be a distinction between when students are practicing the skill and when they are being assessed.

Fix 8: Maybe we didn't understand this fix, but we thought we are giving clear expectations to kids.

Fix 9: Again, we discussed the meaning of these.

Fix 10: Quality assessments are a must, but what does it mean for assessment to be reliable? How can we write quality assessments when we have little or no training? Is this something that chaos will help with next year?