SBG in 5th Grade 2010-2011 (Year 1)

With school starting in less than a month, it's about time that I put all of my SBG ideas together in one place. I feel right now like my brain is this fish bowl with the SBG ideas swimming around inside like little gold fish. I see them all; just not all at the same time. And they're a little slippery and hard to hold, too.

I have made a chart for assessments that I am comfortable with. I am think it will be well-received by anyone in the district who would question the labels as I gleaned them from the ODE performance level descriptors. Take a look:

State Performance Level Descriptors*

Advanced: Students performing at the advanced level show excellent progress by using grade 5 concepts and skills to solve complex problems. They consistently demonstrate deep knowledge and skills across the standards.

Accelerated: Students performing at the accelerated level show good progress by using grade 5 concepts and skills to solve a variety of problems. Students use informal and some formal reasoning to evaluate and justify the reasonableness of a solution. They communicate mathematical thinking and solutions in a clear and concise manner.

Proficient: Students performing at the proficient level show adequate progress by using grade 5 concepts and skills to solve familiar problems. They apply mathematical concepts, terms, and properties to problem situations. Students use informal and some formal reasoning to evaluate and justify the reasonableness of a solution. They communicate mathematical thinking and solutions using a combination of informal and mathematical language.

Basic: Students performing at the basic level show progress by using some grade 5 concepts and skills to solve simple problems. Students solve problems for which the method or solution is easily recognized and straightforward.

Limited: Students performing at the limited level demonstrate skill and understanding of mathematics below the performance required to reach the basic level.

* Selected from http://education.ohio.gov/GD/DocumentManagement/DocumentDownload.aspx?DocumentID=19333

The next part of my diabolical plan is to teach. I will be entertaining. My lessons, activities, and projects will be engaging. Students will leave math tired. Students will learn.

There will be homework. I hope that given longer periods of time to teach than I've ever had before will reduce the amount of homework, but alas, there will be work to practice at home.

Formative assessments will not be "graded". Please don't confuse that with "ignored." Feedback will be given, I will learn from the homework, and there will be scratch-and-sniff stickers! But they will not go in the gradebook.

Summative assessments will take the form of quizzes, tests, conversations, problem sets, projects, etc.

Students will be given a checklist of the indicators, written in their language, on which they will also record their assessment scores.

Students will be expected to work harder, spend one-on-one time with me, ask for help, remediate, and reassess any indicator which is scored a 1 or 2. Only one reassessment can be done per day.

There will be multiple assessments for each indicator. They can and will be spread throughout the year.

There.

This feels good and it feels right.

While I have the framework in place, I have some unanswered questions. I would greatly appreciate help from anyone with an opinion.

What about......

.....kids who think they don't have to do homework?

.....online grades? (I struggle whether to use the most recent grade or the median for the indicator. Either way, we use Easy Grade Pro for parents to monitor their student's grades. EGP displays the mean.)

.....grade cards? (And then there's the end of the 9 weeks! Do I report the median of all of the indicators? Would the mean be acceptable for the end-of-term grade? Do I take the mean or median of the most recent assessments?)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the academy....oh, wait. Wrong speech.

Seriously, without following great teachers on Twitter, I would not have done any of this. I would still be struggling with the discrepancy between grades and learning and too much emphasis placed on homework.

Please feel free to offer comments, suggestions, and answers.

Grad School Blues (insert appropriate harmonica music here)

Last night, Ryan and I were discussing our graduate classes. He's frustrated that his prof uses the phrase "elbow partners" and much of his sessions consist of "round-robin-reading" of PPT slides. I lamented that I am in a class teaching the basics of differentiated instruction, including this week's focus on creating an effective learning environment.

Seriously?

For this we are paying thousands of dollars---each?

Take, for example, this question that was a section of my work from last week:

"Choose one to discuss during your online discussion.

'Do students all seem to learn in the same way or at the same pace? Or do some process information differently and at a different pace than others? How do you know?'"

Ok.

I have always held that a master's degree doesn't necessarily make a better teacher. After all, I know a teacher who has a master's plus and uses that education to pop in videos on a more-than-once-weekly basis.

But I do expect to learn something new...for my money and effort.

Back to the couch. Our conversation progressed to whether I am too critical because I taught for 16 years before going to grad school. Whether brand-new teachers who go straight through to grad school need this level of instruction. Whether adults should ever be asked to take "museum walks" around the lecture room.

Then he said it. Maybe we are the ones who should be professors. Now there's a new idea.

Should we be looking to share what we understand about kids, teaching, and technology?

I don't know if that's in my future. I know I'm not done with kids yet. I have 5th graders to teach and SBG to implement.

And besides, I don't have my master's yet. I'm not qualified.

Please feel free to discuss this topic with your elbow partner.