Thoughts on formative and summative assessment training and nice a coordinate plane foldable

     Yesterday I finished my training on formative and summative assessments. Everything that I am learning is so different than the way I have graded for years. I am a very traditional teacher and have been using percents forever to grade kids. Unit tests were weighted at 50%, quizzes and 25% with homework being the other 25%. My homework has always been viewed as a learning experience and they were given a completion grade for doing the assignment. The comment from one of our trainers was, "if it can be copied, it shouldn't be graded," hit me like a ton of bricks. I have been placing grades in my grade book for years that is homework I know some of my students copy from each other. After a long discussion with Gina and Mike, two of  my math colleagues at work, we made the decision not to grade homework or give it a effort grade. Wow, I am nervous about that. Are the kids going to do the homework or not?  
      We now grade only on the knowledge the students can demonstrate and our grades will be 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0. The way we need to grade now is a complete shift but it some ways it seems like it will be easier and a much more accurate reflection of what the kids really know.  As a department, we decided to start doing Standards Based Grading next year and the first step is to figure out what our formative and summative assessments will be. We are developing a plan of what all of our changes are going to look like and placing them on our syllabus. I really need time to wrap my head around all of this. I am so glad that my entire department, there are 7 1/2 of us, are jumping in and doing this together! We work well together and will all have the same criteria so that will help. I am so glad I already have been allowing kids to retest, see Retesting a new idea for me, as that is a large part of what we talked about today. I know this is all just ramblings but it is what is floating around in my head. If you've read this far, thanks. Tomorrow we finish the second day of training on Standards Based Grading. I'll keep you posted of our progress.  

     I can't have a post without sharing a foldable with you. This is one of my favorites from last year on the Coordinate Plane. It takes time but there is so much information on here and it's all in one place. The kids really liked making it as well. Click here for the original from   Amy Harrison at teaching in a virtual reality. Her pictures are much better than mine so visit her site. Thanks for sharing Amy!
  

Coordinate Plane  Foldable Cover

middle of foldable

Inside of foldable

Til next time,

Jan

Retesting - a new idea for me

          This year after reading several blogs, I decided to let students retest if they wanted to. After all what is my goal for my students? I want them to learn the material and since all of math is built on previously learned skills they should retest. I did put some parameters on the retest. The students need to fill out a form, reflect on what they need to learn and do 3 activities to improve their knowledge in that area. The 3 activities need to be stapled to the retest form, along with their test and reflection. One of the activities can include a tutoring session with me after school. The other 2 are on their own. They can not retest until all of these steps have been completed. There is a 2 week window to retest.
      So how has it worked so far? The students who have completed the activities and retested have improved their test grades about 2 letter grades. I was impressed at that improvement. Some students tried to sneak in assignments that were done in class already. (Of course they had to try didn't they?) Guess what? If they did not do the activities the test grades stayed exactly the same. I mean they didn't improve their grades at all. Now I check very carefully to make sure they are new activities. Sarah at Math = Love has a great form that I have used this year, (thanks Sarah), and I shared it with the teachers in my building. Kathryn Smith, one if our reading teachers, revised the form to create this newer retest form. The original looks better as a few of the lines are missing on this picture.

Click here for Request to Retest document.

     The only negative is that I need to make up and grade another test. Luckily I've been teaching a long time and have lots of different forms of tests. I am so happy that I decided to try retesting this year. I don't know why I haven't done this before.

                                                                              Til next time,

                                                                                      Jan