Ever since I have been using Standards-Based Grading in my classroom, I have noticed that I have been making my assignments much more purposeful. In the past my schedule would look something like this:
Monday:5.1 vocab/notes, guided practice
Tuesday: 5.1 guided practice, independent practice
Wednesday: 5.2 vocab/notes, guided practice
Thursday: 5.2 guided practice, independent practice
Friday: 5.3 vocab/notes, guided practice
Etc..., etc..., etc...., the boring cycle continued. Every now and then I would throw in a cool activity or two, but I would stick with the routine for the most part. I would assign problems just because it was independent practice day and not necessarily because it was what the students needed at that time. I would "worksheet" the kids through the chapter and then we would test at the end...simply because we had "covered" the material.
Now that I am working with SBG I feel like every assignment I give has an actual purpose. I am trying to learn more about what my students know or how I'm going to teach them something in particular. I don't lecture. I don't really give too many notes. I don't give homework. I give very carefully selected assignments.
The reason I am able to select the assignments so carefully is because I know what each of my students know and are able to do. Instead of giving endless worksheets, I give "mini-quizzes" several times a week. When the students are performing well on the mini-quizzes I give them their standard test.
It really seems like this system might stick around my classroom permanently.
"Now that I am working with SBG I feel like every assignment I give has an actual purpose"
ReplyDeleteHaha... seems like an obvious thing we should all be doing, but SBG definitely helped me with this too. It helps to have a systematized way of keeping us accountable instead of just trying to always keep the purposes in mind somehow. Glad to see you're finding some success with SBG. :o)