The Data Speaks!

I was super excited/nervous for final exams to come around this year. I mean, this is what all the grading reform has been leading up to--right? All my hard work hinged on one test score. Well, the moment came and went and I am pleased to say I have great news. I graphed my final class averages (all the standards tests) and the final exam scores. The correlation was certainly positive, but I needed a number! After using the conveniences of Excel (**drumroll**) 0.89 correlation coefficient!!!!! This is super exciting. I almost could have given my students JUST the final exam.

A few things I noticed:

• The Special education students were the subgroup that had the lowest correlation coefficient. However, it was still 0.74. 
• The high performers had the highest coefficient at 0.91. 

I am anxious to see what May will bring with the state testing. So far all the tests (to include the final exam) has been made by either me or my department. The state test in May will be the true measuring stick for what I've been teaching this year.

On another note, I haven't been updating as much as I had hoped for this year. I will, of course, do my best to post relevant information in a timely manner. That may or may not happen more often next semester.

First Assessment - Grading

My students took their first big standards quiz on Wednesday. I had no idea what to expect about grading. I didn't know how long it would take or how difficult it might be to score it correctly. So far I have finished two out of four classes and it is taking about twice as long to grade as it would have last year under the old system. However, last year I only used multiple choice tests. I could easily go through and mark off a, b, c, d, etc... This first standards quiz was strictly free response and essay. Therefore, I am not basing my "time it takes to grade" on this one assessment.

Overall, I like this system a lot better so far. The usual points or percentage systems never really made me too happy. Even though I have only graded two classes, I am pleased with the results. The kids who are currently failing are the kids who don't know what they are doing and that is a small percentage. I have one in each class right now that is failing. The rest are spread out As through Ds. The quiz scores match up perfectly, I feel, to what the students actually know.

Tomorrow I will be handing the quizzes back. The students are going to chart their own progress. They all have a "standards" tab in their binder (go me!). I will work on giving some valuable feedback to each student. I want them to know exactly what they should work on in order to improve their score.

I'm excited to give the quizzes back. I'm interested to know how long it will take for the students to really catch on to the grading system. I am sure once they fully understand it, they will appreciate it.

I'll keep you updated! As always, feedback is welcome.

1/3 Grading Scale

So we needed a way to translate the rubric scores to percentages because our district's grading scale is more percentage based (0 - 100). The district scale is:

93-100 A

85-92 B

75-84 C

70-74 D

0-69 F

We wanted something more specific than just 4, 3, 2, or 1 because it is possible for a student to master some of the level 3 content and all of the level 2 content. It wouldn't make sense to give that kid a 2 or a 3. We needed some middle ground. We considered using .5, but we also felt like that wasn't specific enough. After much discussion we settled on a .33 grading scale. Here it is: 

4.0 – 100% A

3.67 – 97% A

3.33 – 92% B

3.0 – 90% B

2.67 – 83% C

2.33 – 77% C

2.0 – 70% D

1.67 – 67% F

1.33 – 63% F

1.0 – 60% F

<1.0 – 50% F

So if a student mastered the level 3 content and got a minimal amount of level 4 content correct, he or she would receive a 3.33. That indicates proficient with a low-partial proficiency at advanced content.

Also, the top tier from 3 to 4 is not split into even sections. We decided to make a 3.33 a 92% B instead of a 93% A. It didn't make sense to have three opportunities for an A and only one for a B.

... and David

My name is David Hawkins and I am the other of two contributors for this blog. Ashley has already introduced herself and together we plan to tackle a problem that we have noticed in our classrooms over the past years.

I have taught science at the same school for four years and I am beginning my fifth with a significant change in my grading system. I have an undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and graduate degree in secondary education. This year I will teach Biology, Honors Biology and a co-taught Inclusion Biology to freshman with the exception of a couple of sophomores. 

As Ashley has described, our school has made some incredible adjustments to the structure over the past few years.  The looping, Small Learning Community creation, an extended day for students, dress code, multiple intervention strategies, and more have provided us supports and systems for implementing a standards based grading system. We both saw a need to improve how we were assessing our students learning and communicating it in a meaningful and useful way.  After listening to Ashley’s ideas about standards based grading and doing a little research, I decided to team up with Mrs. Walther and take on this endeavor. 

Our blog will serve as a sounding board for us and hopefully we can generate some useful feedback through comments.  Neither of us has written books on the subject and both of us are humble enough to take advice and learn from anyone.  As Ashley stated, this will be a good reflecting tool so that as we carry this on into the sophomore year of these students, making changes to our systems will be more effective.

Meet Ashley

I'm Ashley Walther and I'll be one of the two contributors for this blog. The other is my colleague, David. He will introduce himself shortly.

I am a fourth year math teacher at an inner-city school in Knoxville, TN. I have my BA in Mathematics and my MA in Curriculum & Instruction. I've experienced both middle and high school, but the majority of my time has been spent at the high school level. I've taught every grade from 6 to 12. This upcoming year I'll teach solely freshmen.

My school does what is called "looping". The teachers follow the students for two years. The ninth graders I have this year I will have again as sophomores next year. In addition to this set up, we also have core-academic teams. David is the science teacher on my team and I am the math teacher. Ever since we became teammates, David and I have struggled to find ways to make grades more meaningful to students, teachers, and parents. We independently started talking about things that were hovering around the standards-based grading category.  Once we realized we were both talking about doing the same types of things, we knew what we had to do. We got permission from our administrators and this year we are jumping head-first into standards-based grading.

This blog will follow our journey through the ups and downs of SBG. Hopefully we will detail our trials and tribulations so that others may benefit from our experience. I also hope that this will be a good record for us next year when it is time to make changes.

This blog will be strictly about SBG, but you can also follow my math blog here. Most of the posts on this site will be duplicated on my math site, but the math site will have more than just SBG.