Finally ... Back for Good

My long absence if finally over! I was very fortunate to be able to take off time to travel to Ethiopia to bring our new son home, and to then spend a few weeks on parental leave helping my family adjust to adding a one-year old to our family. Many, many, many of you have been extremely helpful, supportive, and generous with me during this time - I REALLY DO APPRECIATE IT.

That being said, I'm finally back to doing what I love to do - teaching. I did have some time to think about my role as a teacher while I was away, and I'll be making a few changes as I finally get back in the swing of things. Some of these changes will be small (I've started a new blog that is only for communicating what we do in class everyday at hammondccmsdaily.blogspot.com) to large (moving away from traditional grades to standards-based assemment ... more on this to come).

As always, please contact me if you have any questions ... and check back on this blog - I'll be posting more often!

Behavior Rubric

For those who could make it to Parent Teacher Conferences, it was great to visit with you. For those who didn't make it - we missed you. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

I wanted to take a minute to explain how I figure grades in my classroom, and how the behavior rubric that I use compliments your child(ren)'s grades to give a complete picture of their performance in my classroom.

To begin with, I feel that grades should show how well a student is meeting the standards in our classroom - and nothing more. I think grades should show if a student understands the material and skill in a class, or if they're struggling and need some extra assistance. Unfortunately, grades don't always do this. If a student has a few missing assignments and/or late assignments, it can greatly affect their grade - sometimes, as much as a letter grade or two. For example, a student who's done "B" work but who has missed a few assignments will often receive a "C" or a "D" on the report card.

To avoid this confusion, I don't take points off an assignment if a student turns in an assignment late. I don't give students zero points if they miss an assignment as well - instead, I make them do the assignment. If they don't do it, they receive an "Incomplete" grade on their report card until they complete all of the assignments.

It would be easy to think of this grading policy as being soft or too lenient ... to think of me as a pushover, or as a teacher who doesn't value classroom behaviors such as completing work and/or finishing work by a certain deadline. That's certainly not the case - I value these skills, sometimes more than the subject matter in my classes. Students do need to learn how to behave, how to work in groups, how to complete their work on time, etc. - I just choose to separate these behaviors from their grade.

As a result, I created the behavior rubric to show how I feel your child(ren) are performing in the areas of participation, behavior, work completion, and group work. Looking at your child(ren)'s grades, along with the behavior rubric, should give you a better picture of how well your child is learning AND behaving/working in school.

If you have any comments, please leave them in the "comments" section below - I value your input, and I think that it's good for others to hear opinions on my classroom as well.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Just a reminder - Parent / Teacher conferences are this week! We'll be open for conferences on:

• Thursday night from 5:00 - 8:00 pm, and
• Friday from 8:00 am - 12:00 pm. 

Remember, there's no school for students on Friday. You're free to come during anytime during these hours - you can meet with all of your child's teachers, or just some of them - it's your choice.

Understanding Political Differences

During the next few weeks, students in the 6th grade will be learning about the basic principles of the two major political parties in the United States - the Democratic and Republican parties. With the mid-term elections coming up next week and dominating our current event headlines, I thought it would be important for students to understand the basic differences between the "right" and "left", Republicans and Democrats, "liberals" and "conservatives," etc.

Once a student has demonstrated that they have a solid understanding of the differences between the two parties, they'll move along to another project (more on this in another post). Those that need extra help will continue working with me until they know the basic differences between the parties.

To judge how well the students understand these differences, they'll be taking an online quiz that I created. If you're curious on what the students will be quizzed on, or if you want to test your own knowledge, click on the link below or click on the link to the left to take the quiz!

https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/jcsd1.us/viewform?formkey=dFM5LURCN252UnJ4czVTMmRUREd2TWc6MQ

I'm Back!

I meant to post this before I left on my recent trip, but things were awful busy and I didn't get this posted - my apologies. I missed school last Friday (10.16) until yesterday (Thursday, 10.22) - my wife and I are adopting a child from Africa, and we were able to make a quick trip to Ethiopia to meet our newest son for the first time.

This wasn't the best time for a teacher to miss school - this week was the last week of the quarter, and many students and parents are stressed out as the first quarter grading period comes to an end. If you (or your son / daughter) is worried about their first quarter grades, please contact me - we'll figure out what we need to do. I won't let my absences affect a student's grade - it's not their fault that I was gone.

So, sorry for the late notice. If it matters, I'm back!

Google Docs

Last week, our district gave our students Google Docs. In my opinion, Google Docs is the most useful piece of technology that has been offered to students and teachers.

Google Docs isn't a flashy piece of technology - it's really just a web-based version of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. This doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but it is - students are now able to open and access their documents from any computer. This means that students won't have to worry about printing assignments at home, bringing documents on a "jump-drive" or disk to school, emailing their assignments to teachers, etc. Using their Google Docs account, students can access their computer files anywhere that they can get on the internet. (Click here to see a short video on how Google Docs works.)

Google Docs is also a collaborative tool - this means that students can work together on the same documents at the same time. Teachers can also "share" files with students - teachers can give students copies of school assignments, lecture notes, presentations, etc.

Students can access Google Docs to the link on the right. To login, they use their Powerschool ID and password.

Current Events

A big part of the 6th grade Social Studies curriculum is studying current events. It's more important than ever for our students to understand what's happening in the world, and for them to see how events around the world affect their lives right now and into the future.

To study the current events, we start each Social Studies class by watching CNN Student News. CNN Student News is a 10 minute, commercial-free newscast designed for students. It's a non-biased newscast, making sure to show opinions of both the "Left" and the "Right." We always follow the news with a class discussion, where students can test out their ideas and express their opinions with others.

To assess students' understanding of the news, every two weeks the students analyze a political cartoon based on the news stories we've watched. When analyzing the cartoon, students are asked three questions:

1. Which current event is the cartoon referring to?
2. What is the meaning of the cartoon?
3. What is the artist trying to say in the cartoon? What is his/her agenda for drawing this cartoon?

The last question is the most important question for students to answer - it's a critical thinking skill that teaches students to carefully analyze the media, to see how others use bias and propaganda to try to influence others.

Note: To see a broadcast of CNN Student News, click on one of the links to the right. You can watch the most recent episode of the news, and read other stories as reported by the crew at CNN Student News.