SBG Part 6 - What about assignments?

Once of the nice features of SBG it that it really lends itself to the backwards design process.  Using state standards to write learning goals, using learning goals to write assessments, and then designing instruction to support the assessments.

Because my academic standards assessments are 100% of a student's grade, if I expect that my students will do their assigned work, it had better be high quality and completely aligned with the learning goals.  I have to convince the students that if they don't do assigned work, their grade will suffer.

I truly believe that homework should be used for students to practice skills that they are in the process of learning, and that if they make mistakes while they are practicing, they should not be penalized.  Sports analogies are particularly apt:  mistakes on the practice field are fine - it's performance in the game that counts.

I expect students to have their assignments done to the best of their ability when they walk in the door of my classroom.  If they have trouble with a question, I expect them to reason through as much of it as they can and write down as much as they could figure out along with a note about their confusion.

I check assignments for completion at the beginning of the class period.  I enter assignments into the online gradebook as either 'T' for turned in, or 'M' for missing.  Students can fill out a small form to get the grade status changed from 'M' to 'T', although I make a comment that the assignment was late in the gradebook.  Assignments are all in a 0% weight category.  I enter this information mostly so parents can see their student's trend in assignment completion.

Students quickly find out as the school year starts that even though assignments are not directly part of their grade, they cannot attain high levels of achievement without doing the assignments in my class.

Cheating becomes a non-issue.  Students usually copy assignments in other classes to get points for the assignment.  In my classes, the only way for students to earn points is to learn from assignments and then show me what they know during an assessment.

As far as extra credit assignments go, there are none.  What can you do to get your grade up?  Study and reassess a standard.  No word-finds in this class!

SBG Part 5 - Reassessing

If you put any stock in what Carol Dweck wrote about in Mindset, then encouraging students to have a growth mindset while implementing a traditional grading system often sets them up for failure.  

Let's say a student does poorly on the "Unit 3" test.  If you as a teacher are unwilling to allow them some way to reassess after they upgrade their level of knowledge, I don't see how that promotes a growth mindset.  What that says to the student is that even if they are willing to put in work to improve their level of knowledge, you as a teacher do not value that effort.  I think that send the wrong message.

Here's what I tell students that they must do in order to reassess a learning goal:

New information showing additional learning will replace old information.  You may reassess provided that you have:

• fully completed ALL assignments related to that standard (standard codes are listed at the top of every assignment)
• checked your answers for all assignments related to that standard using the key in Mr. Weiger's notebook
• documented an effort to engage in additional learning (e.g. tutoring, additional practice, test corrections, studying, etc.)

You must fill out an online reassessment request two workdays in advance of any reassessment.  You may only reassess one standard per day.  You must reassess before or after school.  The deadline for any reassessment is the last day before the final week of the semester.  No reassessments will be allowed  during the final week of the semester.  Any grade changes due to reassessments made after Q1/Q3 ends will be reflected in your S1/S2 grade.

I post my before/after school availability on a google calendar on my class website.

Here's what the reassessment form look like.  Some good meta-cognitive questions are included - click the link to check it out.

The new score is entered over the old score in the gradebook after the student reassesses - even if if goes down.  This ensures students take reassessment seriously.

I put a comment in the gradebook that says for example, "original score:1, reassess:4"

A nice aspect of this system is that it puts most of the responsibility for the reassessing process on the student.

SBG Part 4 - The written assessment process

I have gone through many iterations of how to do assessment, but I think I've hit on something pretty good this year.  Here's how it goes:

• I assess more frequently on fewer learning goals.  This allows me to conference with every (usually) student  immediately after each assessment.
• My tests are printed in a specific format:
• they have a cover page containing only the student's name, period, and any relevant given information (formulas, constants, etc.)
• the questions are sectioned by learning goal
• at the beginning of each section, the learning goal code and description are listed along with a score box
• The first student who is done with the test comes up directly to me and I grade his/her test.  This has several benefits:
• I get to have a individual conversation with each student.  I always greet the student by name and then take the time to briefly connect with them in some way besides the test we're about to grade.
• If a student has written an answer that I am unclear about as I read it, I can ask the student right then and there to clarify their answer.  I can take that into account when score the test.
• I can give the student immediate feedback.  Not the next week.  Not in two days.  Not tomorrow.  Immediately.  This is a big deal.
• I can give specific ideas for them to remediate if necessary.
• The second student done with the test stands in the "on-deck" circle near my desk.
• The third student who is done puts their test in a wire bin, sits back down at their desk and works on whatever I have assigned students to do after the test.
• Pointing into the wire bin is an old video camera that I have permanently checked out from our media center.  It serves as a DIY document cam.
• The video camera is hooked up to the video port on my digital projector.
• Since the cover page of the of the test does not contain any test questions/answers - no problem.
• Other students who finish, put their test on the bottom of the stack in the wire bin.
• When I am done conferencing with the first student, he/she goes into the lab area to update his/her notebook:
• enters scores on unit score tracker in science notebook
• color codes scores on tracker with a colored pencil:
• 4 - green
• 3 or 2 - yellow
• 1 or 0 - red
• puts assessment into his/her personal manila folder containing all written assessments
• puts manila folder in a different wire bin
• sits down at desk, calculates new science grade using notebook grade tracker page, and then works on assignment
• When the first student leaves, the student in the on-deck circle comes up to get their test graded
• The student whose name is being projected on the board gets their test out of the bin and waits in the on-deck circle.
• The process continues until I'm done grading all the tests or the bell rings.
• If I don't get to conference with all the students, I grade those tests after school and pass them back the next day.  Since I typically don't have many to grade, I have more time to leave detailed written feedback.

SBG Part 3 - Students track their own grades!

I haven't posted a grade sheet in my class for the last two years.  Students track their own grades and can calculate their current grade at any time.  Here's how the system works:

As I've mentioned before, I have the students glue my grading policy into their notebooks at the beginning of the year.

On the very next page in their notebook is a calculation page that they can use to help them calculate their current grade.

The first two notebook pages in any unit always consist of:

• a unit overview page (example) that contains:
• the essential question for the unit
• the learning goals for the unit
• vocabulary from the unit
• the MN state standards related to the unit
• a score tracker page (example) that allows students to track their assessment and reassessment scores

To calculate their current grade, the students use the calculation page.  They:

• add up all the assessment scores in their notebook (using the most current score for any one standard)
• count how many standards they've been assessed on
• divide the sum of their assessment scores by the number of standards they've been assessed on
• This gives them a score that is between 0-4, which they can compare to the grading policy page in their notebook to convert to their letter grade.

Easy-peasy!

SBG Part 2 - Grading Scales

I grade students on a 0-4 scale based on their level of knowledge or ability on learning goals that are written as "I can" statements in student-friendly language.

At the beginning of the course, I have them glue my grading policy into their science notebook.  It contains the following rubric:

Score	Description
4	Expert  - My response shows I understand the content/ skills completely and can explain them in detail.  (This means no mistakes on an assessment, or only a very minor error)
3	Proficient - My response shows I understand the important parts about the content/skills. (This means only minor errors on an assessment)
2	Developing - My response shows I have a general understanding of the content/skills, but I’m also confused about some important parts. (This means that it's obvious to me that the student understands some of the material, but is also confused about some of it)
1	Beginning - My response shows I have minimal understanding of the content/skills. (This means that it's clear that the student understands very little about the concept)
0	No Evidence - My response shows I have no understanding of the content/skills (This means that the student clearly understands nothing or close to nothing about the concept)

I also provide students with a chart in the grading policy that allows them to convert their 0-4 scale grade to a letter grade.  In the chart below, I have included that information, plus the minimum percent for each grade bin.

A+	4.00	100
A	3.99 - 3.80	95
A-	3.79 - 3.55	88.75
B+	3.54 - 3.20	80
B	3.19 - 2.85	71.25
B-	2.84 - 2.55	63.75
C+	2.54 - 2.20	55
C	2.19 - 1.85	46.25
C-	1.84 - 1.55	38.75
D+	1.54 - 1.20	30
D	1.19 - 0.85	21.25
D-	0.86 - 0.55	13.75
F	0.54 - 0	0

There's no formula that you can use to convert a 0-4 scale to a percent scale.  I have tweaked my scale a few times over the last couple years.  You can check out the excel file that I use to work on the scale.

My grade bin sizes are not exactly equal, but it's the best I have been able to do so far.  There are two factors that drive my bins:

• I want a score of 3 to equate to a grade of 'B', so that means a middle 'B' must be equal to 75%.  Similarly, 2 should be 'C' and 1 should be 'D'.
• If a student assesses two standards, and earns for instance a 3 and a 4, I want the scores to average out to 'B+', not 'A-".

Speaking of averaging out, I am limited to a traditional online gradebook called i-Cue.  While I would like to eventually have tiers of standards where some standards are weighted more heavily than others, I feel that it would get too confusing for students and parents.  

All standards are in one category that counts toward 100% of a student's grade during most of the semester.  I have a comprehensive end-of-semester final that I weight as 10% of the semester grade, so the academic standards end up being 90% of their grade.

Our online gradebook defaults to the standard 90-80-70-60 scale, but teachers can edit the percentage bins as they please, so I can warp the gradebook enough to achieve my basic needs for SBG.

I can also suppress the percentage score that students and parents can see.  I do this because parents and students are not used to seeing a score of say, 50% to equal a 'C'.  Percentages have a different meaning in my class and it's not important information for students or parents.

If you use i-Cue in your school district and would like me to help you set up i-Cue for SBG, I'd be happy to help!  :)

SBG Part 1 - Justification

I have been wanting to write about my standards-based grading (SBG) implementation for a while, but being on a panel discussion tomorrow has given me the push to actually do it!  :)

I am splitting up the topic into several posts so I don't put you into a TL;DR situation...

First, why do I use SBG in my classes?  I believe that:

• students' grades should reflect what they know or what they can do for that particular course.
• grades should inform students as to their strengths and weaknesses.  
• homework is for practice, and that students should not be penalized for mistakes while practicing.  
• if students upgrade their skills or level of knowledge during a course, their grade should reflect that.  
• traditional grading systems often give a false indication of a student's skills.

The posts that follow will address each one of these points.