They Call Me "Mister"

Teaching in LA

16 Jul

Whiteboarding

Posted in Uncategorized on 16.07.12 by Frank

In modeling, it’s called “student mode”

i’m kinda bummed because i coulda sworn i took a picture of the more recent version of this whiteboard, where the entire bottom left quadrant was blocked off with the words “AD SPACE AVAILABLE”

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15 Jul

How I do SBG — With POINTS

Posted in Uncategorized on 15.07.12 by Frank

Many people seem to do SBG just slightly differently from each other, so I figure I’d throw my flavor into the mix.

(This post is primarily for those familiar with SBG, Standards-Based Grading. If you’d like to learn more, I suggest these fantastic resources.)

Instead of telling you the whole system, I’ll go over just one piece that as far as I know, I do differently from most others – How the grade for each unit is calculated.

The old system

Last last year and the beginning of last year, I determined a student’s grade on a unit based on a tiered A/B/C system that I believe many other SBGers use, or something similar. Here’s how it worked (see grade tracking sheet below for reference): To get a C on the unit, get a 4 on all “C” objectives. To get a B on the unit, get a 4 on all “B” and “C” objectives. To get an A? Yep, 4s on “A”, “B”, and “C” objectives. What if you did that, except got a 3 on one “C” objective? Then you didn’t even get a C. D for you. The idea behind that was if you’re in that situation, a “C” objective should be pretty easy for you, and since it has such a huge impact on your grade, you should be very motivated to get that one objective done, which would then skyrocket your grade.

Below is the grade tracking sheet for last last year’s unit on waves and sound.

Several things weren’t working for me…

Problems:

  • It’s possible that I just suck at explaining how this works since no other teacher seems to report major problems of their students not understanding their system, but this confuses the $#!+ out of my students. “C” objectives are the more “major”, fundamental stuff, and “A” objectives are the “minor” stuff. What? Seems backward. Not only is this a problem because they don’t know how to figure out their grade, but it’s difficult for me to explain how to improve their grade and why.
    T: Okay, right now you have all the ‘B’ objectives but not all the ‘C’ objectives. You need to focus on the ‘C’ objectives first so you can at least get a ‘C’.
    S: But aren’t the ‘B’ objectives worth more?
    T: … mm, that’s not how it works. Right now you’re missing a ‘C’ objective so you’re actually at a D. The first thing you should do is make sure you have at least a ‘C’, which means you need to get 4s on all the ‘C’ objectives.
    S: … I have a D???
    T: …
    S: …
  • Part of this system is used as motivation. That, later realized, is actually bad. But it’s worse that the students don’t even get the motivational aspect because they don’t get the whole system.
  • Many units are emphasized differently, but are weighed the same (since they’re all A/B/C with no quantitative values). I don’t want the mechanical energy unit to count the same as the circular motion unit.

I had to remind myself that the purpose of a grade is to measure, not motivate. I was using the wrong tool for the wrong job.

So… to make my students hate me even more, I switched up the already-confusing grading system on them mid-semester! :oD Oh, the things you can get away with in this district. Sorry, teachers-who-aren’t-even-allowed-to-implement-SBG-at-their-schools :o(.

The new, current system

Instead of putting each objective at a different A/B/C level, I assign that objective a number of points. Yeah, I said it. There are points, which is like the dirty word in SBG, but I believe this still follows the spirit of SBG. “Big” objectives are worth 10 points. “Small” objectives are worth 5 points.

Below is the grade tracking sheet for this past year’s unit on waves and sound.

Short version, if the student gets a 4 on that objective, they get those points. Their percentage grade on that unit is simply the number of points earned, over the number of points possible. (More details in the embedded document at the end of this post.)

So, what about the idea that you must get all the “important” stuff first to get a decent grade? Still works with this system. From the teacher standpoint, a student who gets all the “big” objectives and some “small” objectives does represent more mastery than a student who somehow gets most “small” objectives and few or no “big” objectives. From a student standpoint, the points tell them to go for the “big” objectives first. To get a high grade, the student still has to knock out the “big” objectives and most or all of the “small” objectives, just like before.

Improvements:

  • It’s easier to calculate their grade on the unit. They still don’t get it, but at least I don’t have such a hard time myself trying to explain it. “These are how many points you have. This is how many is possible. Take what you have, divide it by points possible.”
  • It’s so much easier to explain what to focus on to get their grade up and why.
    “There are several objectives you didn’t get. Of all of them, focus first on L2. It’s worth more points than the others. If you get L2, it will bring your grade up twice as much as if you got any other objective.”
  • This system IMO is now better geared at measuring and has lost the attempted motivational aspect. If the student shows mastery on a “small” but supposedly more difficult objective, then that’s what it is.
  • The weight of each unit depends on how many objectives are in that unit and whether they’re big or small objectives. A unit with many “big” objectives might be worth 65 points and is naturally worth more than a minor unit with few objectives, possibly worth 25 points.

Ever since switching to points, I haven’t missed the old system. The new system is still about evaluating students based on their mastery of content and skills.

Of course, this is not to say any system is better than the other, but like almost everything in teaching, what works in one class may not work as well in another. I’ve found my system so far works better for my students.

I’ll probably switch things up again this upcoming year, haha.

Below are other details of my grading system that may compliment what I’ve explained above, or just provide unnecessary or confusing detail:

No Comments »

14 Jul

Is My Class Just About “Paying Attention”?

Posted in Uncategorized on 14.07.12 by Frank

For the past few years, I’ve asked my students to do two assignments.

  • Class survey (anonymous)
  • Letter to next year’s students (name attached)

There is no credit or grading for these assignments. I just ask them to do it and hope they’re not jerks about it. Pretty much everyone’s cooperative. The jerks are absent. (Unfortunately, this does make the data a bit self-selective. Although, I’m kidding about jerks. I don’t think of any of my students as jerks, but the data is self-selective depending on attendance.)

First, a little background on the letter to next year’s students. It’s what it sounds like. There are no strict requirements, but some suggestions on what to put. Students mostly end up putting what to expect, and some advice based on their own experience in my class. I stole this from someone else. Sorry, I forgot who.

What I found most boring, then annoying, then interesting this year was how common students advised others to “pay attention“. “Make sure you pay attention.” “I should have paid more attention.” “All you have to do is pay attention.”

The first few times I read the advice, I thought “woop dee doo, great generic advice everyone…” Then I realized most didn’t offer any advice beyond that. When almost every letter that offered advice only offered that advice, I started getting annoyed. “Is that all they learned in my class??? I thought I was doing inquiry-ish stuff. They make it sound like this class is one giant lecture! What about learning from mistakes? Doing test retakes? Collaborating with other students? Doing the homework because the practice is helpful? Participating in small group discussions? Thinking until your brain hurts? Asking questions???” Apparently none of that mattered. Well, a small handful did suggest retaking tests, keeping notes and handouts, and a couple suggested doing the homework despite it not being worth credit.

I remembered that the reason I did these assignments was partially as feedback for myself, so instead of getting defensive, what does this all mean? Based on this evidence, I might infer several things:

  1. These students didn’t really find anything in my class helpful and found the most success through “paying attention”.
  2. These students did find other things helpful, but just suck at recalling and expressing these things, so they lump everything into the general advice of “pay attention”
  3. These students are conditioned through their schooling and my class that school is about “paying attention”, so when they give advice to other students, they give the advice that’s been doled out to them throughout their schooling career
  4. These students don’t think of other helpful advice because I haven’t emphasized or even gone over what helps them succeed in this class, school, and/or life

These are the things that I could come up with. Could be a combo.

Some of these I can address by altering my directions and questions (“What advice would you give that’s different from what you’d give for your other classes?”), but my intution tells me their responses represent more than lousy communication. I’d say a large responsibility that is within my immediate control goes to #1 and #4, that students didn’t think success in my class depended on anything other than paying attention, and I just plain sucked at communicating and fostering the factors for success I have in my head. In fact, can I even express, specifically, what a student needs to do to be successful in my class?

So… to do: Come up with 3-7 concrete things that will play the biggest factors in a student’s success in my class. Concrete means specific. No broad shit like “try hard”. Also, these should be non-obvious, so not like “show up to class”. Although some students probably don’t understand the connection between attendance and success, so I’ll have to fiddle with my definiton of “non-obvious”. Next, decide how I will communicate these expectations to students and how to most effectively ingrain these through the year in the curriculum and activities.

Let’s take an example. One thing I believe is a key to success in my class: Do the homework. How do I communicate this to students? Tell them. Remind them. Stick it on a poster titled “How to succeed in this class”. Possibly the most important thing I have to do: Make sure this is true. Does doing the homework actually help you succeed in this class? I better damn well make sure it does. Assuming my homework assignments are meaningful and helpful, I may need to get students to reflect on the correlation between their homework completion and their performance in my class. Just because students do things that lead to success doesn’t mean they realize that’s what’s happening.

Mm, sounds like lots of work. I’ll really have to take a look at whether students need to think and ask questions in my class. I’d like my class to be like that (all inquiry-ish and whatnot), but their feedback seems to indicate otherwise.

If you asked your students to give advice to next year’s students on how to succeed in your class, what do you think your students would say? What would you hope they say? What do you do to increase the chances of that happening?

(The class survey and instruction for the letter to next year’s students are posted below.)

One comment »

14 Jul

Is My Class Just About “Paying Attention”?

Posted in Uncategorized on 14.07.12 by Frank

(Reposted from my Posterous account)

For the past few years, I’ve asked my students to do two assignments.

  • Class survey (anonymous)
  • Letter to next year’s students (name attached)

There is no credit or grading for these assignments. I just ask them to do it and hope they’re not jerks about it. Pretty much everyone’s cooperative. The jerks are absent. (Unfortunately, this does make the data a bit self-selective. Although, I’m kidding about jerks. I don’t think of any of my students as jerks, but the data is self-selective depending on attendance.)

First, a little background on the letter to next year’s students. It’s what it sounds like. There are no strict requirements, but some suggestions on what to put. Students mostly end up putting what to expect, and some advice based on their own experience in my class. I stole this from someone else. Sorry, I forgot who.

What I found most boring, then annoying, then interesting this year was how common students advised others to “pay attention“. “Make sure you pay attention.” “I should have paid more attention.” “All you have to do is pay attention.”

The first few times I read the advice, I thought “woop dee doo, great generic advice everyone…” Then I realized most didn’t offer any advice beyond that. When almost every letter that offered advice only offered that advice, I started getting annoyed. “Is that all they learned in my class??? I thought I was doing inquiry-ish stuff. They make it sound like this class is one giant lecture! What about learning from mistakes? Doing test retakes? Collaborating with other students? Doing the homework because the practice is helpful? Participating in small group discussions? Thinking until your brain hurts? Asking questions???” Apparently none of that mattered. Well, a small handful did suggest retaking tests, keeping notes and handouts, and a couple suggested doing the homework despite it not being worth credit.

I remembered that the reason I did these assignments was partially as feedback for myself, so instead of getting defensive, what does this all mean? Based on this evidence, I might infer several things:

  1. These students didn’t really find anything in my class helpful and found the most success through “paying attention”.
  2. These students did find other things helpful, but just suck at recalling and expressing these things, so they lump everything into the general advice of “pay attention”
  3. These students are conditioned through their schooling and my class that school is about “paying attention”, so when they give advice to other students, they give the advice that’s been doled out to them throughout their schooling career
  4. These students don’t think of other helpful advice because I haven’t emphasized or even gone over what helps them succeed in this class, school, and/or life

These are the things that I could come up with. Could be a combo.

Some of these I can address by altering my directions and questions (“What advice would you give that’s different from what you’d give for your other classes?”), but my intution tells me their responses represent more than lousy communication. I’d say a large responsibility that is within my immediate control goes to #1 and #4, that students didn’t think success in my class depended on anything other than paying attention, and I just plain sucked at communicating and fostering the factors for success I have in my head. In fact, can I even express, specifically, what a student needs to do to be successful in my class?

So… to do: Come up with 3-7 concrete things that will play the biggest factors in a student’s success in my class. Concrete means specific. No broad shit like “try hard”. Also, these should be non-obvious, so not like “show up to class”. Although some students probably don’t understand the connection between attendance and success, so I’ll have to fiddle with my definiton of “non-obvious”. Next, decide how I will communicate these expectations to students and how to most effectively ingrain these through the year in the curriculum and activities.

Let’s take an example. One thing I believe is a key to success in my class: Do the homework. How do I communicate this to students? Tell them. Remind them. Stick it on a poster titled “How to succeed in this class”. Possibly the most important thing I have to do: Make sure this is true. Does doing the homework actually help you succeed in this class? I better damn well make sure it does. Assuming my homework assignments are meaningful and helpful, I may need to get students to reflect on the correlation between their homework completion and their performance in my class. Just because students do things that lead to success doesn’t mean they realize that’s what’s happening.

Mm, sounds like lots of work. I’ll really have to take a look at whether students need to think and ask questions in my class. I’d like my class to be like that (all inquiry-ish and whatnot), but their feedback seems to indicate otherwise.

If you asked your students to give advice to next year’s students on how to succeed in your class, what do you think your students would say? What would you hope they say? What do you do to increase the chances of that happening?

(The class survey and instruction for the letter to next year’s students are posted below.)

Student Feedback – End of Year Letter

Survey End of Year 11 12

No Comments »

14 Jul

How I Do SBG — With POINTS

Posted in Uncategorized on 14.07.12 by Frank

Many people seem to do SBG just slightly differently from each other, so I figure I’d throw my flavor into the mix.

(This post is primarily for those familiar with SBG, Standards-Based Grading. If you’d like to learn more, I suggest these fantastic resources.)

Instead of telling you the whole system, I’ll go over just one piece that as far as I know, I do differently from most others – How the grade for each unit is calculated.

The old system

Last last year and the beginning of last year, I determined a student’s grade on a unit based on a tiered A/B/C system that I believe many other SBGers use, or something similar. Here’s how it worked (see grade tracking sheet below for reference): To get a C on the unit, get a 4 on all “C” objectives. To get a B on the unit, get a 4 on all “B” and “C” objectives. To get an A? Yep, 4s on “A”, “B”, and “C” objectives. What if you did that, except got a 3 on one “C” objective? Then you didn’t even get a C. D for you. The idea behind that was if you’re in that situation, a “C” objective should be pretty easy for you, and since it has such a huge impact on your grade, you should be very motivated to get that one objective done, which would then skyrocket your grade.

Below is the grade tracking sheet for last last year’s unit on waves and sound.
Waves – ! Study Guideline

Several things weren’t working for me…

Problems:

  • It’s possible that I just suck at explaining how this works since no other teacher seems to report major problems of their students not understanding their system, but this confuses the $#!+ out of my students. “C” objectives are the more “major”, fundamental stuff, and “A” objectives are the “minor” stuff. What? Seems backward. Not only is this a problem because they don’t know how to figure out their grade, but it’s difficult for me to explain how to improve their grade and why.
    T: Okay, right now you have all the ‘B’ objectives but not all the ‘C’ objectives. You need to focus on the ‘C’ objectives first so you can at least get a ‘C’.
    S: But aren’t the ‘B’ objectives worth more?
    T: … mm, that’s not how it works. Right now you’re missing a ‘C’ objective so you’re actually at a D. The first thing you should do is make sure you have at least a ‘C’, which means you need to get 4s on all the ‘C’ objectives.
    S: … I have a D???
    T: …
    S: …
  • Part of this system is used as motivation. That, I later realized, is actually bad. But it’s worse that the students don’t even get the motivational aspect because they don’t get the whole system.
  • Many units are emphasized differently, but are weighed the same (since they’re all A/B/C with no quantitative values). I don’t want the mechanical energy unit to count the same as the circular motion unit.

 

I had to remind myself that the purpose of a grade is to measure, not motivate. I was using the wrong tool for the wrong job.

So… to make my students hate me even more, I switched up the already-confusing grading system on them mid-semester! :oD Oh, the things you can get away with in this district. Sorry, teachers-who-aren’t-even-allowed-to-implement-SBG-at-their-schools :o(.

The new, current system

Instead of putting each objective at a different A/B/C level, I assign that objective a number of points. Yeah, I said it. There are points, which is like the dirty word in SBG, but I believe this still follows the spirit of SBG. “Big” objectives are worth 10 points. “Small” objectives are worth 5 points.

Below is the grade tracking sheet for this past year’s unit on waves and sound.

W – ! Objectives

Short version, if the student gets a 4 on that objective, they get those points. Their percentage grade on that unit is simply the number of points earned, over the number of points possible. (More details in the embedded document at the end of this post.)

So, what about the idea that you must get all the “important” stuff first to get a decent grade? Still works with this system. From the teacher standpoint, a student who gets all the “big” objectives and some “small” objectives does represent more mastery than a student who somehow gets most “small” objectives and few or no “big” objectives. From a student standpoint, the points tell them to go for the “big” objectives first. To get a high grade, the student still has to knock out the “big” objectives and most or all of the “small” objectives, just like before.

Improvements:

  • It’s easier to calculate their grade on the unit. They still don’t get it, but at least I don’t have such a hard time myself trying to explain it. “These are how many points you have. This is how many is possible. Take what you have, divide it by points possible.”
  • It’s so much easier to explain what to focus on to get their grade up and why.
    “There are several objectives you didn’t get. Of all of them, focus first on L2. It’s worth more points than the others. If you get L2, it will bring your grade up twice as much as if you got any other objective.”
  • This system IMO is now better geared at measuring and has lost the attempted motivational aspect. If the student shows mastery on a “small” but supposedly more difficult objective, then that’s what it is.
  • The weight of each unit depends on how many objectives are in that unit and whether they’re big or small objectives. A unit with many “big” objectives might be worth 65 points and is naturally worth more than a minor unit with few objectives, possibly worth 25 points.

 

Ever since switching to points, I haven’t missed the old system. The new system is still about evaluating students based on their mastery of content and skills.

Of course, this is not to say any system is better than the other, but like almost everything in teaching, what works in one class may not work as well in another. I’ve found my system so far works better for my students.

I’ll probably switch things up again this upcoming year, haha.

Below are other details of my grading system that may compliment what I’ve explained above, or just provide unnecessary or confusing detail:

Grading Rubric

No Comments »