My Plan - February 12, 2012

This one should be brief. If you don't know about standards-based grading, check out this link. Warning: be prepared to spend HOURS reading through all of the links, and links to those links, and... be sure to read the comments and go to those links, too.

I am already 5 weeks into the semester (block schedule) of Geometry and just started reading about SBG last week (I don't know how it took soooo long!). I don't have a clear enough picture to go into it full-fledged, and our district grading policy doesn't leave room--currently...

Soooo... I'm going to do a hybrid version.

• I'm going to keep teaching the order of the text, which isn't a big deal, because it's a good text. I'm going to, for now, use the chapters as the topics, and break them down into skills. Each student will get a skill list to track their progress and we'll assess what we've learned every other day, and remediate the days in between.

• I think, for now, I'm going to designate every Friday as a remediation/enrichment day. We usually have a vocab and skills quiz on Friday anyway. The remaining time will be used for students to go back and master prior skills. There will be several resources available: our textbook website and video tutors; google; Accelerated Math cards; geogebra; notes/textbook; peer tutoring; me; and anything else I can think of. I'm going to give questionnaires for the first several weeks so students (and I) can pinpoint how they learn best. Then, we'll begin to make individualized plans to meet each student's goals.

• There will be chapter tests (organized by skill) and the students will be able to reassess specific skills. I am going to use the form someone was nice enough to post (I have to start writing down sources!) for reassessment as well as diligently looking for/constructing as many project/activity-based lessons as possible.

I don't know how much I will actually get done. It's going to be an experiment and will definitely be fluid. I am set on taking as much time as needed to plan and to get things organized and am prepared for things to be a little chaotic. My main goal is the organization and communication, though. I want students to see what they need to learn and want to learn it. I'll take what I learned this semester and cement it into a full-fledged plan for the fall. My question is, if the school board doesn't bite on SBG, how do I implement it into an 'averaged' grade-scale? I have some ideas (25% of skills by end of qtr1, 50% by qtr 2, etc.), but those are work arounds that don't achieve what SBG is capable of.

Any thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions, please let me know below.