The first day of class: not too shabby

First confession: I was a little nervous today in anticipation of introducing the standards based grading system to my freshmen. I had written a concise but informative description of how I planned to implement the system in my syllabus, but I also decided I wasn't going to introduce it by just reading the syllabus together. That just would have been too wordy and boring. So instead I told them they could read all the details in the syllabus (indeed their first assignment is to sign a mutual agreement of expectations that I also signed and that their parents need to sign), but that I would explain the system using visuals and we'd have a discussion.

Second confession: I cribbed *a lot* from my friend Bowman to introduce the concept of standards based grading to my freshmen - in particular, he came up with a wonderful analogy between SBG and the game Angry Birds. So I will also give him all the credit for just how well they responded to the explanation. It was actually kind of thrill to see their positive reactions. 

First, it was obvious that they really welcomed the idea of having it be made very clear on every homework what they could work on and what skills they were required to master. I thought they'd be intimidated by it all, but instead they were really receptive. In fact, some of them almost anticipated some of my visuals with their questions. I think showing them a sample homework and explaining how it would work really helped (see sample homework image below).

Second, they clearly loved the idea that they could fix their knowledge of content with my unit goals component. I'll be interested to see which students end up actually pro-active about it, but at least today they made it clear that they understood they could be rewarded for improvement as well has penalized for not being pro-active about understanding the skills and content necessary for the course.

So we'll see how it goes, but third confession: I'm quite relieved that introducing my grading system was not as painful as I feared. In fact it only took about 15 minutes total with their questions and my visuals. 

I'll also say that while they didn't seem immediately sold on the concept of having a notebook solely devoted to my class, and the idea that we'd be gluing handouts in it, they clearly perked up at the idea of designing the cover of their portfolio. I had already decorated a cover for my portfolio and so I showed them mine and challenged them to make theirs look better because I'm a terrible artist. We'll see what they come up with next week!

SBG 1: The Syllabus

School is definitely around the corner: proctors have arrived back on campus, classrooms are being decorated, and the tone is being set for an exciting new year. In the midst of it all I have spent some time rethinking how I will apply SBG in my class, and have had some really thoughtful conversations with colleagues here about the process as well. In fact, the number of people on campus who are going to use SBG in some form this year has grown exponentially over the summer, and so it's been an exciting opportunity to talk with people from many other disciplines about how they plan to do it.

I drafted the syllabus for my freshmen and I think it articulates fairly well the grading system I will employ. You will notice that this end result is a much adapted concept from what I wrote a month ago, and in particular I have cut down drastically on the number of standards I hope to keep track of.

So here is the plan. Below is a table explaining how the final grade will be calculated.

How will this work? I am conceptualizing the 'Unit Goals' component of the standards grade to be a chance for students to reassess on summative, content driven assessments. The 'Essential Skills' component of the standards grade is a chance for them to reassess continually on formative assessments.

So let's start with the 'Essential Skills' component. For every assessment I give (whether it is homework or a quiz), I will grade their proficiency in mastering a certain set of standards on a 1-4 scale. Depending on the homework, I will grade all or just some of the standards in the table below, as announced in class.

STANDARD	ID	DESCRIPTION
Using Evidence	ES 1.1	I support my argument(s) with specific, relevant, accurate, verifiable, and logical evidence
	ES 1.2	I support my argument(s) by accurately drawing on or critiquing evidence from several points of view
	ES 1.3	I ensure that any facts I give to support an argument demonstrate a logical connection with my argument
Writing	ES 2.1	I can use word choice that is thoughtful, relevant, & precise
	ES 2.2	I ensure that my writing has clear organization so that each sentence and paragraph supports an overall structure that is logical and builds to a compelling, persuasive conclusion
	ES 2.3	I ensure my writing is appropriate to purpose and audience
	ES 2.4	I ensure my writing lacks spelling and grammatical errors

That's only seven standards, which is a much more manageable amount than what I had earlier, and I like that I (and maybe eventually the students!) can pick and choose which standards I want to grade for each assignment. Students can always improve their standard grade in later homework – the more they show mastery in a skill, the more their grade will reflect it in the end (more on that later).

Yet I wasn't comfortable with just allowing students the chance to reassess on skills - I felt like they should also have the chance to reassess on content. This is why I built-in the 'Unit Goals' component. The way this will work is that at the start of each unit students will receive a table to glue into their portfolio that includes a list of essential questions. By the end of each unit they will answer these essential questions and be graded according to the following rubric:

  

STANDARD	ID	DESCRIPTION
Content Knowledge	UG 1.1	I support my answer with specific, accurate, and verifiable evidence, drawn from discussions in–class, and from primary/secondary sources
	UG 1.2	I can use primary sources carefully, considering questions of point of view, context, and audience, as well as gaps in the available records
	UG 1.3	I can clearly, thoughtfully, and thoroughly explain and analyze the connection between all evidence and the arguments I make
	UG 1.4	I thoughtfully evaluate facts for their reliability and relevance to support my answer

The goal is to boil the list of essential questions down to only 2-3 per unit. I originally had 5-6 questions for a unit, but a colleague smartly reminded me that many of my questions could be combined. I will work on these essential questions throughout the year, and it will be a great exercise in thinking about what are my 'essential' questions! It seems so obvious now that this will help me backward design, but in all honesty this whole process has been rather revolutionary in my own planning of units. 

So, going back to the grading - let's say a student does not answer a unit question well because they did not use a lot of evidence, then they will have the chance to reassess. To do this, they just have to schedule a quick 5-10 minute discussion to formulate a reassessment. As my colleagues have pointed out, this is a great chance to allow a student to do a more 'personal', perhaps creative kind of project to demonstrate understanding (e.g. write letters between historical figures drawing on evidence; making a documentary etc.) I like to think of this actually as a more focused way of giving motivated students extra credit. The goal is to work together to come up with another assessment to demonstrate that they have a 4-level understanding of a certain standard.

So what will the grading look like? I will give my students the following rubric, which I adapted from MissCalcul8.

LEVEL	NUMERIC EQUIVALENT	HOW YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND IT
Exceeds expectations	4	I completely understand this skill and can repeat it without supervision with few, if any, mistakes. I would be comfortable explaining this skill to someone else.
Meets expectations	3	I understand this skill but there are times I make mistakes when I do it on my own. I still need help in figuring out where I am going wrong because my ability do apply the skill is inconsistent.
Needs practice	2	I have basic understanding of the skill, but I often get stuck. I need some more practice because it is clear I am having trouble applying this skill.
Beginner	1	I have very little understanding of the skill. I try to apply this skill, but it does not come naturally. I am frequently unsure of how to start with this skill.

I also love her StarWars rubric, which I will also introduce to the students.

The real problem is how to translate all of this into something that makes sense for their final grade. I decided the fairest way of dealing with this will be to weigh the final grade more heavily toward the last level grades. So this means if a student started off in the 1-2 level, but by the end of the term scored in the 3-4 levels, their positive progress will be what is most reflected in the final grade. Conversely, if a student was a master most of the term, but started to slack towards the end because they got lazy and ended up losing their mastery, that downfall will also be reflected in the grade. I have started playing around in my EasyGrade Pro gradebook with how I will keep track of all these records - I will post in the future how this weighing and record keeping turns out.

Some last thoughts: as you will also notice, I kept a fixed part of the final grade. For example, grading assessments in a more traditional fashion is still 20% of their final grade. So let's say I give an assignment where students read selections from the Epic of Gilgamesh and answer questions based on the reading. They will get a grade that falls into the 'assessment' category for completion (e.g. they answered 4 out of the 5 short essay questions thoroughly, so they get 4/5) and maybe get separate standards grades for ES 2.1 and 2.4. Then I may have them write a focused essay that forces them to reflect on how the Epic of Gilgamesh helps them to understand Mesopotamia and the Neolithic Revolution, and that will also be graded for completion as well as all 7 ES standards.

I have also kept the 'Citizenship' portion of the grade because I think my students need feedback as to their behavior, and although I very much understand that it is not easy to objectively grade a student's participation, I think writing thorough and specific comments on the report card about a student's behavior will go far to help explain the student's proficiency as a punctual, engaged student.

The 'citizenship' portion also allows me to start a new way penalizing students for late work. I used to take points off for dilatoriness (5% for one day late, 15% for two days late, 50% for 2+ days late), but I decided there may be a simpler, less drastic method. Each assignment will be marked according to its timeliness per the scale below:

0        1        2

Not turned in        Late        Met deadline

This number will go into the 'citizenship' part of the student's grade. It won't murder a child's grade (it's only 10% of their grade) if they are constantly late, but it does penalize them in a track-able way.

And finally the final exam. I plan to make it clear to students that it is the chance to show me what they have retained. Throughout the year they will have had the chance to see the skills in which they are strong and weak, and to improve the latter. The final will be their opportunity to pull it all together and show me what they understand from the term in its entirety. And theoretically the SBG portion of their grade will give them a chance to know exactly how  and what they need to study to do this.

Interactive Notebook

I have the good fortune at the moment to be writing this post in Oxford, where I am chaperoning students for three weeks while they take a course here. A few times now different students have asked me what I do during the day while they are in class, and when I tell them that I am doing work, I inevitably receive a brief look of confusion and then the question, "What work do you have to do? Can't you just reuse what you did last year?" It never fails to amuse me when students reveal that they can't always conceptualize the amount of work teachers put into their classes (even when they complain about how much work it takes for them to prepare for a 15-minute presentation for a class, and thus forget that we subject ourselves to a much higher standard of engagement every day!).

So what exactly have I been working on? Well, three of the problems I face with my freshmen world history class is: 1. their inability to organize themselves; 2. their inability to succinctly and yet thoroughly take notes, particularly because English is a second language for most of them and so their processing time is a bit longer to be able to articulate concepts learned in class; and 3. the fact that they do not revisit their notes until they absolutely have to (i.e. an upcoming assessment).

In the three years I have taught at my school, I have gotten a lot better at anticipating the organization problem, and so it's become second-nature for me to do things like use visual and audio reminders so that students write down something important, or to remind them to use their planner etc. etc. As for the second problem, I have used a weekly assignment called a 'journal sheet' that allows students to reflect on what they learned for the week, and it also forces them to read the news. A sample journal sheet is below.

Journal Sheet (2011-12)

The problem with the journal sheet, however, is that every year it does not become as much of a routine as I would like. So one of my goals is to figure out how I will implement a more interactive way for my freshmen students to handle their notebook since this could attack all three problems at once. I first got this idea when my friend Bowman introduced me to this post: http://statteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/algebra-2-interactive-notebook.html .  The idea is simple: students maintain a physical notebook throughout the year which is solely devoted to your class and is a space for them not only in which to take notes, but also to reflect and build on what they have learned. The latter idea is my favorite thing about the interactive notebook. I know that a lot of teachers have tried digital solutions to my three problems (particularly by using OneNote and sharing notes/assignments via the school network), but instead of inviting the demons that come alongside relying on computers (other software distractions; low battery supplies; internet outages), I want to keep it simple for my students and use actual notebook paper. Plus I think it gives students the advantage of being creative with their own hands, as you'll see below. I can debate the advantages of forbidding computer use in my classroom in a future post, but for now here is how I have decided to implement the interactive notebook in my class:

• I will create my own interactive notebook along with the students. This way they will have a model notebook which to refer to throughout the year, and I will theoretically be able to use it as an example to show students at the start of the next year. But I will also call it a 'portfolio' rather than an interactive notebook, just so they recognize that the object is meant to be a place for everything to be collected, not just notes.

• At the start of the year students will design a cover for their portfolio in order to personalize it and give them a sort of 'ritual' in which to embrace its importance. This website had good instructions and a rubric: http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/lessons/ushistory/isn.cover.directions.htm 

• At the start of each unit I will give students a template like the one below to paste into their portfolio so that they have a sense of what the essential questions are for each unit and what sources we will be looking at (which will hopefully also reinforce the importance of source material for historians).

Students will paste such a table on a page but leave space (perhaps a whole left-hand page) for revisiting it at the end of the unit, with the goal of drawing a picture (or pictures) of the main elements of the unit near the table. We will also use the table to revisit the essential questions and reflect on the sources in class or as homework.

• I will not use the right side of the notebook as an 'input' side and the left side as an 'output' side. While I understand that is a critical part of the interactive notebook, I hesitate  to use this format for two reasons:
• Since this is the first time I am doing an interactive notebook, I am having a hard time conceptualizing what I want my students' 'input' side to look like when they are simply taking notes from a class discussion. This website: http://kalamitykat.com/2012/01/08/interactive-notebooks/  has wonderful photos of what an interactive notebook can look like, and she has a great suggestion that students NOT turn the page in their notebook unless explicitly asked by their teacher, so if they need more paper for notes, they just glue loose-leaf pages to the page and fold them. Yet I don't think this would be practical for my class, seeing as how throughout the year my students struggle to learn what is the best way for them to take notes. This means that normally their notes end up having different lengths (some write what appear to be transcripts of class, while others are better at being succinct), so it is hard for me to imagine the chaos that would ensue if class was stopped so some students could grab loose leaf paper for their notebook. So I would rather have students discover how they want to take notes and not be limited by having to leave the left side of their notebooks blank. 
• I am 99% sure that my students will NOT do anything on the output side unless it is made a formal assignment, so I will have to frequently give reflection/application assignments for the students to do in their notebook (both in and outside of class). Thus I do not think leaving the left side blank is necessary - they could do the reflection/application assignments in the space after their notes.
• Some ideas for what kind of reflection/application assignments I could give are here: http://mrsgannon.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/assignment-table.pdf  and here:  http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/lessons/ushistory/lpwhatishistory.htm and here: http://www.mrgreer.net/notebookleftside.html . The last website also has a wonderful explanation of the rationale for interactive notebooks, including the fact that "students need to revisit a newly learned concept at least 7 times to be able to have embedded it into their long-term memories".
• Note that the basic idea of Cornell notes is embedded in the interactive notebook, so I will just have students periodically go over their notes as an assignment (a wonderful site for using the Cornell note system is here: http://statteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cornell-notes-in-math-class.html)

• http://kalamitykat.com/2012/01/08/interactive-notebooks/also has a great idea for creating a little pouch that students can use to insert vocab cards. I love this idea because I do not usually assign identifications on my quizzes and exams because my tests are weighed toward analytical short and long essay questions, but having students create their own vocabulary cards would be another great way for them to review the material. Here's another helpful site in that regard: http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/lessons/ushistory/ch1vocab.htm, so expect a future post once the year starts on what criteria I will use for students to create their own vocabulary cards.

• The downside to this whole system is that I will have to grade the portfolios fairly frequently in order to ensure that the students are serious about taking notes and reflecting on the material. Yet I do not think this has to take a lot of time, and will give me a better sense of just how students are taking notes in my class; I found a sample rubric here http://www.ljhs.sandi.net/faculty/MTeachworth/avid-summer-05-institute/oh12interactivenotebookrubr.htm which is good, and which I can use perhaps bi-weekly when I check their portfolios. But if I assign a reflection assignment as homework, then it would be easy to grade it simply for completion. Nonetheless here is where I will have to put in some further thought because I plan to use the Standards Based Grading system, so I need to consider how I will incorporate the interactive notebook.

Any feedback/suggestions about my thoughts here would be wonderful! And of course I plan to post about how this plan all works out in the fall…

P.S. Just so you don't think all I'm doing is work and chaperoning here in Oxford, I want to reassure you I have time for exploration and fun this summer as well! :)