K+Stutheit

//How confident am I that the grades I assign students accurately reflect my school's **published content standards** and **desired learning outcomes?**//

Group Meeting: Tuesday 2/26 7-9pm Monday 3/3/08 4-6pm Wednesday 3/5/08 4-6pm Friday 3/7/08 2-4pm Monday 3/10/08 4-6pm Wednesday 3/12/08 4-6pm Sunday 3/16/08 1-3

Individual Hours: ( 2hours) Monday, 3/3/08 7-9pm Identified my learning goals for Geometry Area test. Determined what was advanced, proficient, basic, below basic. Rescored period #1, period #3 tests. (1hour) Tuesday, 3/4/08 7-8pm Research and read literature on the internet about grading practices. (1hour) Wednesday, 3/5/08 6-7pm Play with power school to see what the effect of changing my category weights is on student grades. Considered making formative evaluations 0, 10, 20 percent of the final score. Interesting the results I saw. (2hours) Sunday, 3/9/08 6-9am Established learning goals for chapter two in trig. Determined levels of performance per grade. Will score tests traditionally and by these set expectations. (1hour) Tuesday, 3/11/08 6-7pm Researched information on formative and summative assessment. (1.5hours) Wednesday, 3/12/08 8-9:30pm Reflect on personal practices; list learning goal for chapter seven (solving linear systems) and align quiz and test to learning goals. (2hours) Sunday, 3/16/08 11-11:30am, 7-9pm Prepare for final group meeting. Determine learning goals and level of proficiency for solving systems of equations. Finish wikispace work and final summary.

What do my grades really mean?
 * //Reflections on Chapter One//**--Setting the stage

I feel pretty good about the fact that even though I am guilty of everyone of those "grade breakers," I have out grown them and at this point feel that my professional judgement is pretty sound regarding the use of zero's, extra credit, etc. The group assessment piece is interesting: I do lots of group stuff, but always tested/assessed individually. When I give group tests/quiz what I find is that level of concern is increased so that increases level of engagement. These are nice peices to put together, but I feel like this becomes a learning tool, not an assessment tool. In all my years of teaching, I have never had a student question his grade if they can see the documentation (all homework and test/quiz scores). I keep waiting for a student or parent to question why all the A's on homework aren't negating the C's and D's on tests that ultimately lower test scores... I have had students quickly figure out that because homework is not counted as much that maybe doing it isn't critical. I have yet to have a student that didn't attempt/do his homework get above a C. I'm not sure that I can go there anyway--could I give a student an A if they had not lifted a finger outside of class/school to learn the material? I think the book (the expert that it is) would say that if the student could master the outcomes at an advanced level, then the student deserves an A. Maybe the key is the quality of the assessment--it must be a good assessment to measuring not only standards, but also level of proficiency.
 * //Reflections on Chapter Two//**--Fixes for problems that Distort Student Achievement

The chapter heading scared me--I'm not sure there are teachers much more poorly organized than I...However, I think this chapter had the most meaning for me. In order for me to truly feel good about the report card grades that I'm giving students, I have to determine what a grade of A, B, C etc look like. What does it mean to be advanced in the study of area and the Pythagorean Theorem? What about proficient? After I have determined what students learn and to what degree, I need to communicate this with students. I'm unsure about the best way to do this. I can give examples of student work...but I don't want to give the test away. I suppose as I teach the unit I can point things out that you must be able to do/understand to be advanced; that would be do-able if I have pre-determined them. I really think that quality time spent sorting this out will let me sleep easier at night about Trig grades. It is such a quandry to me to know what an A looks like in such an advanced math class... The last fix about quality assessments is huge. I'm not sure that I can make any permanent changes to my grading practices without a serious look at the quality of my assessments.
 * Reflections of Chapter Three--**Fixes for Low Quality or Poorly Organized Information

I tackled the issue about which statistic of central tendency to use when I did my action research. I think what stood out to me as the most significant point from this chapter is the use of zeros (or non-use). This troubles me because the best way to get students to do thier make up work is to enter a zero. It is amazing how quickly students will get in and see me about make up work the instant I enter that zero. I guess then that the entering of zeros becomes a communication tool more than a grade tool. That is okay--if the assignment is weighted as zero. I played with the weighting of categories, but I never tried weighting assignments zero. Maybe I should play around with that.
 * Reflections on Chapter Four**--Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculations

Supporting learning, what a concept. I struggle to get my arms around the idea that assessment could be used to help student learning beyond the motivation factor. I think this is an important idea--grades are not motivating, but genuine learning is motivating. At several group meetings the importance of student self esteem has been brought up, and I think I firmly hold to the belief that self esteem increases because of hard work; it can't be created from grade inflation or any other artificial construct.
 * Reflections on Chapter Five**--Fixes to Support Learning

How much do we count formative versus summative evidence? I'm confused about this. The author clearly states that ONLY summative evidence should be used, but then clarifies that with discretion some formative evidence might be used. I think that in mathematics it is easy to prepare students for summative assessments as homework is paper and pencil as are most assessments. Perhaps, I need to develop more performance assessments that are not just pencil and paper. Put that on the list of what to do before I die. What do English teachers do, really what will I do when I assign full writing assignments, and there should be a re-write option. Is that different than on demand pencil and paper exams. Absolutely.

One thing that this chapter helped me with was the idea that it was okay if I back filled formative grades when students passed the summative assessment. I felt pretty strongly that if a student could pass the chapter test by the end of the chapter, then that was all that mattered. Learning goals reached--learning goals not reached.

I suppose that the impact of this book study on my practices are still developing. A year ago when I started, personlly, this hellish journey I did not anticipate that it would cause the head aches that it has. I think I might see a light bulb at the end of tunnel. Or maybe some light is just being shed. The opportunity to conference in big groups, small groups, with technology has had a huge impact on me. Listening to my professional peers reflect and in some cases defend their current practices has stretched me as a teacher. I have grown. AFGE :) In addition to that I feel strongly now that before a unit I need to define for me (and my students) what I expect students to learn and to what level. I have arrived at the fact that if I have these things straight in my head before teaching the unit, I can truly help students learn my content. I still struggle with teaching the "whole" student (responsibility, work ethic, academic honesty...) and where that should be reported. I guess that question that still swirls around is "what do grades communicate?" Do I want my grades to reflect a student's ability to tackle a math problem or the character of the student?
 * Final reflections...**

When we started this, the books author posed the questions: These questions seem a lot more loaded now. I think the learning outcomes will be the work we did on our essential maps, but I'm not confident in what our published content standards are. Are they the performance indicators on our standards? Is there a cloud of questionability surrounding them? Does that need to be done prior to writing assessments?
 * 1) //How confident am I that the grades students get in my class are consistent, accurate, meaningful, and that they support learning?//
 * 2) //How confident am I that the grades I assign students accurately reflect my school's published content standards and desired learning outcomes?//

I can't believe that after 18+ years of teaching I'm still wrestling with this issue. Can we just not give grades??? Strictly a pas/fail school. :)