#made4math Monday, July 30

We were having the discussion on Twitter about paper gradebooks. I create mine in Excel. So, without further ado, here is my #made4math Monday.

I do Standards Based Grading in my class. We also have to keep track of attendance for our students can lose credit if they have missed more than 18 (unexcused) days in my class over the course of the year. To help our administrator, we are to submit paperwork when students have missed 10, 16, and 19 days in our course. Our grade book does not do a great job when it comes to attendance, so I keep a paper copy as well. I print one of these for each class at the beginning of the year (each tab has each class in it) and type the students' names into the document. I can add names at the bottom easily if new students come in. In each block, I write the date absent. When we get the report back from admin as to what days are excused/unexcused, I circle in red the dates that are unexcused so that when I go to do the next set of reports, I can tell which days count.



I am hoping that this won't be as necessary in the upcoming school year since we are getting a new grading program, but if it is, I'll be ready.

The second Excel file I have to share is the file I print my grade book from. I have one tab for each class and at the beginning of each nine weeks, I make sure that my student list is accurate and type in the learning targets, starting with the first one I am grading that nine weeks. This has where I started at the beginning of the fourth nine weeks.



Under each learning target, there are 4 boxes to record scores. I write in the scores the students earn and then transfer them into our electronic grade book. You may wonder why I keep a paper gradebook. The main reason is that I am a little paranoid about our computer gradebook. There have been times when I have gone to enter grades and the internet is down or slow. If I am having trouble entering the grades, I can wait until a better time. In addition, I tend to be slow about entering reassessments into my computer. However, with a paper copy, I can see how many times a student has reassessed a certain learning target and I like being able to see the trend of how my students are doing on reassessments at a glance. I guess I'm still a bit old school in feeling more comfortable in having a paper copy, which is actually kind of ironic since I have used an electronic gradebook program for as long as I have been teaching (20 years!) and at the time I began teaching, that made me on the cutting edge...

Both Excel documents are set to print gridlines. I have also added borders to make things a little clearer for me (especially in the gradebook). Please feel free to download the files from box and use them as you see fit.