We made a significant breakthrough on jGR today in my department. We changed the math because we knew we needed to. I grade everything on ten points and, up to the breakthrough today, that meant the following for my students:
- 5 = 10 (100%)
- 4 = 8 (80%)
- 3 = 6 (60%)
- 2 = 4 (40%)
- 1 = 2 (20%)
Now, 0 is still 0, but the other grades (remember that this is based on ten points) now are:
- 5 = 12 (120%)
- 4 = 10 (100%)
- 3 = 8 (80%)
- 2 = 6 (60%)
- 1 = 4 (40%)
This brings hope to the kid while keeping the fangs in her grade, allowing me to stay true to the rigor piece and to hold the kids accountable in the really fine way that jGR brings. It is still a hammer.
Let’s take the kid who works at the level of 2 (doesn’t respond, doesn’t use stop signals, blurts) on jGR. When she realizes that she is in deep doo-doo with her grade with that 2 – which in my system is 50% of her grade, and she sees that half her grade is going to be a 20%, she might give up and we must own that it is in fact an unreasonable grade for a kid when they have never actually been taught how to interact with a teacher before. This is better.