How to read a Standards-Based Report

Since I've moved away from traditional grades in favor of assessing students purely on our classroom standards, I've had quite a few parents and students express their frustration in understanding how well students are doing. This is completely understandable - the scores and feedback on classroom work looks completely different than what most of us have experienced in school.

 To get a clear picture of how students are meeting the standards, you'll need to look some reports that are a little different than what you'd normally check in PowerSchool. To make this easier, I've attached a document that will help you access reports that are designed to show how well your student is meeting our standards in Social Studies and Literature. Click here to access the document to help you see a standards-based report.

When you check to see how well your student is doing, try to pay attention to a few things besides their overall score ... this will give you a MUCH BETTER idea of how your son / daughter is doing in class. Here are things to look for when looking at a standards-based report:

• How well is my son daughter doing in each individual standard? Look to see which standards your son / daughter understands really well, and which they need to focus on.
• How well are they behaving and working? The Life Skills standards will give you feedback on your son / daughter's behavior, work ethic, group work, and participation.
• Are they turning their work in on time? I've marked each assignment that is missing and/or late. Missing and/or late assignments don't affect their scores on each assignment, but it's still important to know if they get their work in on time.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I'd be happy to answer them.

Boxsled Challenge Survey

The Boxsled Challenge is an annual 6th grade event, and we want to make the challenge better each and every year.

Please click here to fill out the survey so we can use your feedback to make the race better for next year's students!

Midterms and Standards-Based Assessment

You may have noticed that your son / daughter didn't receive a traditional letter grade for their Social Studies and/or Literature courses this quarter. In Social Studies, students received a number score and an abbreviation ( 03.00, PR). Here's what those numbers and letters mean:

• 04.00     AD     = Advanced at the classroom standards
• 03.00     PR     = Proficient at the classroom standards
• 02.00     PA     = Partial Proficient at the classroom standards
• 01.00     BG     = Beginning to understand the classroom standards
• 0.00       RA     = Refused to complete classroom assignments.

Many students have asked how to convert those numbers and letters to grades. I've heard a lot of students ask, "Mr. Hammond - what letter grade is a 3.00?" or, "If I'm proficient am I earning an A?"

The simple answer to those questions is no - standards don't translate into letter grades. Instead, they simply tell if students understand the standards that I'm expected to teach in the 6th grade.

If you have any questions, or you'd like a handout to show you how to access a standards report instead of a traditional progress report in PowerSchool, let me know.

You can leave a comment on this blog, call me at school, or send me an email at rhammond@jcsd1.us . I look forward to hearing from you!

Current Events Quiz on the Egyptian Revolution

Click here to take the quiz on Google Docs over the revolution in Egypt.

Parents - you're welcome to take the quiz as well! 

Standards Based Grading - It's Almost Here

First of all, I'd like to thank those of you who were able to make it to the parent night last Thursday. Your questions and comments really helped me think about how I can make the switch to Standards Based Assessment work for all of us.

I wanted to let you know that the recording system in Powerschool is almost ready to go, and you'll soon be able to see all of the student assignments in Powerschool. Based on your feedback, we've also decided to add behavioral standards (late work, group work, behavior, participation) as well - you should be able to check these on Powerschool as well.

Remember, this is a pilot program in our school and we're still working out some of the bugs - I want to say thanks for your patience ahead of time. As always, please call, email, or swing by if you'd like to talk to me.

Thanks!

Standards Based Grading?

You may have heard from your student that, "Mr. Hammond isn't giving out grades anymore."

Is that true? Well ... sort of. Instead of giving traditional As, Bs, Cs, etc., I'll be using Standards-Based Assessment (SBA) reporting this semester in my reading and Social Studies classes.

There's a lot of confusion about SBA reporting vs. traditional grading systems - to help clear up some of this confusion, and to explain how this will work in my classroom, I'll be hosting a parent night this Thursday (February 4th) in my classroom at 6:30. I'm not sure how long we'll take - it depends on the number of parents and discussion that happen at the meeting. I hope to see you there!

In case you can't make it, or you want to get a head start, here's a short video helps explain one of the reasons that I'm moving away from traditional grading systems.

Current Events quiz on Google Docs

The Social Studies standards ask if students can "demonstrate an understanding of the people, events, problems, ideas, and cultures that were significant in the history of our community, state, nation, and world."

Whoa - if you're thinking what I'm thinking, that's a huge statement. The standards do narrow this idea down a bit in a sub-benchmark that asks them to "discuss current events to better understand the world in which they live."

That's still a lot, isn't it? We watch the news everyday, and we cover a ton of topics. I don't think it's reasonable to ask students to know every fact from every news story that we talk about. The more I think about it, the standard isn't that they KNOW current events - it's that they DISCUSS current events.

That's one thing that we do quite often in our Social Studies classes - we discuss what's going on around state, country, and world. If I could, I would use our discussions as a way to assess how well students comprehend the news. Unfortunately, that's not entirely possible. Some students are skilled at classroom discussion, but quite a few aren't. Some kids are shy. Some don't have the same background knowledge to understand what's happening. And some kids talk too much and don't let everyone have a fair say ...

That's why I created this quiz over the CNN Student News podcast that we watch in class. Instead of asking students to recite facts about all of the events we watch and discuss, the quiz asks them to pick one topic of their choice. They'll then answer 8 - 10 questions on that particular current event. Some of the questions are

•  factual knowledge (where is this country?), 
• some check to see if they understand the current event (why did this happen?), 
• and some go deeper to ask if they understand how the events around the world may impact their life (why does this matter to us in Buffalo, WY?).

So - while this quiz isn't a discussion, it comes close. It's not used to grade kids, score kids, or label kids - really, it's just a way for me to see what each individual student knows about the news, and how well they understand how these events impact their lives. Which, really, is what a discussion does - it allows to people to share ideas and learn from each other.

Enough said ... Click here to take the quiz on Google Docs. (BLUE DAY)
                       Click here to take the WHITE day quiz on Google Docs. (WHITE DAY)