Andrew sent this:
Hi Ben,
I am enjoying the blog immensely and reaping tons of benefit from engaging with it.
Before I commented more re: the assessment piece, I wanted to do some research [read: googling] about terminology, to make sure that I was not blathering on without dotting my i’s. (I feel very at ease in your blog community; I simply did not want to be a time waster who couldn’t take a few minutes to check his assumptions…). I ended up searching these sites:
http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/howto/basics/grading-assessment.html
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/assessment/studentprogress.htm
Looking at the above two links and the blog’s discussions crystallized in Robert Harrell’s assessment letter, I feel confident that I am “getting” the grading/assessment nexus, and understand that much more how genius it is to embrace the three modes as the real crux of the standards and of what we attach a grade to.
However: how often are we putting a grade down? We’re dynamically assessing at every twist and turn, of course, but how often are we taking a rubric and identifying performance/progress? This is where I am…feeling as if I am not understanding how this will look on paper.
At the end of the first week of school next year, I know that I better have a grade or three in “Skyward” (our online gradebook). And they better not all be As/4-5s, unless deserved. I’ve had much more luck [read: attentive kids] when honoring the power of the Big Brother/Skyward and encouraging parents and students to check it frequently than when I demonstrated flagrant disinterest in collecting work and quickly tabulating the scores.
So what would that look like?
I’ve gotta be truthful: I cannot bring Circling With Balls into November [as the sole activity]. I sure as hell want to, but I don’t have the skill. It was so awesome this past year, though, I certainly want to do as much as possible.
But, in tandem with this, I am seriously considering using Michael Miller’s Sabine und Michael to center myself, and adding high-frequency structures, student-driven structures, song and reading-driven structures as I go. (e.g., I really want to read Arme Anna in December or January).
I mean, right now I don’t know if I will teach these kids again. This’ll be a second year teaching German 1 as my sole German class. So I just want to get them as enthusiastic as possible and begin a healthy language learning experience for them (8th grade middle school and one class at the high school).
So – how do you imagine a physical/digital gradebook using Robert’s mode-based rubrics? And what thoughts do you have about “applying them” during the crucial first marking period?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!!
Drew
[ed. note: – I’m just throwing Drew’s questions out to the group. They are questions we must answer and the sooner the better. Let me say what I hear Drew saying: Drew wants a plan for the first two months to make the grades accurately reflect effort and studiousness and to “out” those kids who take advantage of the incredibly positive first weeks (see this site/resources/workshop handouts/ben slavic workhop handouts) but then aren’t assessed properly because we have so much fun that we forget we have to grade them, which is folly in schools. Drew really is right on in raising this point. Proper assessment early on is a must. Drew says he might “center himself” – an excellent term – with Sabine und Michael. It’s a good idea. In the first few weeks, the main source of numbers for my own gradebook is the daily assessment process at the end of the class with the ten yes/no questions on the PQA we did that day. I lean heavily on those grades. But the problem is since all is new, all is about them, all is comprehensible, etc., the kids all ace those daily quizzes. If there is ever inflation in my gradebook, it is when I am trying to personalize my class. Too much success! I have to admit that I have erred in this area for the past five years in a row by having too much fun with the early year CI/Personalization activities like Circling with Balls and not finding out who my really lazy kids are – the kids who will actually have lower grades later in the year because they believe that is what they are supposed to do and who they are in a classroom. The other part of the question I leave to Robert and Frank – who is traveling in Greece right now – and Nathan and anybody else who is up on the big Robert thread of the past four weeks: “How do you imagine a physical/digital gradebook using Robert’s mode-based rubrics?”]