Homework and SBG

As the year draws to a close, I look back to see what went well and what didn't go so well. Since I am doing Standards Based Grading, I have not been grading homework/practice problems. In fact, since I stopped grading homework, I have done a rather poor job of even checking to see if my students have done the homework/practice problems at all. This needs to change for next year. Somehow, I need to not only check to see if my students are doing practice problems, but I think I need to factor it into their grade somehow. At least if it's in their grade, they do make some attempt most of the time (even if they copy it).

However, I am not real thrilled about putting in some sort of homework grade. I feel that if it's practice, they shouldn't be graded on correctness. They are still learning the material and won't necessarily have it all correct. When I used to grade homework, I did it by completion - 5 points all done, 3 points partially done, 0 points not done (or not much). I don't want to go back to that - it would put a huge imbalance towards homework/practice problems based on how I do my grading now.

So, what do you do about homework/practice problems when you are doing Standards Based Grading? I know true SBG doesn't factor in homework at all. For my students, I don't think that is the best answer. How would you incorporate a homework/practice problems grade to help encourage students to do the practice problems? Or what would you do differently to ensure that students do practice? I look forward to your comments.

(Lack of) Practice and the SBG Blues

State tests were 2 weeks ago. Spring Break is approaching. It must be time for students to start to get lazy...

I gave my assessment today on graphing logarithmic functions and properties of logarithms. I gave 3 practice days in class - more than I had anticipated giving. We had an unexpected snow day on Friday, which is when I had originally planning on giving the assessment. As I was circulating around the classroom as students practiced on Wednesday and Thursday last week, it was obvious that students had not done a whole lot of practice. Two weeks ago was state test week so we were on a goofy schedule. I still taught. With the exception of the one practice set, I suspect that students didn't do a whole lot of practice. I know they did one since there was time in class for them to work on it.

My higher ability/motivated students did pretty well. They almost always do. They prepared for their assessment, albeit in some cases at the last minute. However, most students did not put in the practice time they should have prior to review time. To add to this, the end of the grading period is tomorrow. I had several students telling me today that they wanted to reassess on previous learning targets. They have known for a week that the deadline is tomorrow. I am not expecting many of those students to do well.

Why, oh why, do students put off preparations? Why do they choose not to practice (well, I somewhat know that answer - Sam eloquently blogged recently about it)? How do you differentiate in math class when part of the issue is that students don't know what they are doing because they don't practice? I know I have more questions but the bottom line is that right now I don't have any answers and this frustrates me.

What Emily blogged about as far as no longer doing homework intrigues me. Not sure if I'm ready to go there though. Part of my concern is making sure that students do get enough practice. How much is enough? 5 problems? 10 problems? 2 problems?

I just have so many questions and no answers. I think part of what has shook me about this assessment is that I felt I taught the material well and it is obvious that the students didn't learn it as well as I thought. Is the goofy week of state testing to blame? Did I not do as good of a job as I thought I did? Is it on me or my students? Is because Spring Break starts at the end of the day tomorrow?

I am sure there are some things I can do better. I am not doing formative assessment like I should. I need to incorporate it much better into my routine. I am confident that being an EnCoMPASS Fellow beginning this summer will help me to improve as a teacher, however, that doesn't help me at the moment. Let's just say that I definitely need Spring Break, even if it's only from Thursday through Monday. I need the time to regroup. Maybe I'll get some answers between now and the end of break. In the meantime, I'll continue to ponder.

Frustrated and Discouraged

I haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I have been rather busy trying to keep on top of school work and life in general. However, I am compelled to post about midterm exams.

**Blogger's Note: I know at the end of this I am posing a lot of questions. Right now, I have no answers. Please feel free to add your own answers and comments at the end. Thanks. --LMH

I generally feel that this year has gone well. I have been doing what I felt was a good job teaching, although I know there are a lot of things to improve on. Students have been doing well. Some have been reassessing. Grades for the grading period have looked pretty good this year. Generally, I feel that my students have been "getting" what I have taught. Then midterm exams hit.

In my 21 years teaching, this has to be the worst year yet for midterm exams for me. My students did so poorly. We were to give exams over two days and I did a multiple choice portion and a non multiple choice portion, both of which I made up. I went through as I have done in previous years and put together a review sheet that had one or two of each type of question on the review (although I did find out that I missed one). I gave two days in class time to work on the review so that 1) students would (hopefully) complete the problems and 2) students would have time to ask questions. I allowed students to compile an 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of notes and formulas (they could not have example problems on it).

Students did NOT do well on the non-multiple choice portion at all. I had some of my more motivated students ask me about a couple of the questions that were on the review that were a little different than questions they had seen before. I knew when I put them on there that they were not the exact type of question I had on an assessment before, but I also felt that they had the requisite knowledge of the mathematics involved to solve the problems. There were two word problems on there that students had seen before. The one question I had inadvertently left off the review was a question that involved algebraic manipulation and I felt that students should have had the requisite background knowledge to successfully solve the problem. They struggled and in some cases, didn't even attempt these problems.

What I cannot for the life of me figure out is that in spite of warning students that they needed to do all of the problems on the review, they did not listen. In spite of telling them they really should take the time to put together their own note page so they could review the material, I had many students come in without a note page and I had several students who had a copy of a note page that another student had compiled for himself and that he shared. I cannot figure out why students who had done decent or well on assessments over the course of the year did so poorly on the midterm exam. What in the world did I do wrong? How can their midterm exam grades not even come close to what their grades have been all along?

Is Standards Based Grading to blame? Are my students so focused on the short term that they truly don't focus on really learning and owning the material for the long term? I honestly think this last question is a good part of the reason. I am thinking of a few students who choose to reassess (and reassess often in some cases) and they earn 4's, 4 1/2's and 5's many times but then did not do well or attempt some of these other problems at all. Am I setting up a culture in my classroom (not intentionally) emphasizes short term learning? How do I change that?

Second Thoughts on Assessment

First off, I do want to apologize for the lack of posts. I have to be honest, I am still very overwhelmed, although I am now at least planning 2 to 3 days ahead rather than just for tomorrow. I still don't feel like I am in my groove yet.

In Algebra 2, I am getting ready to give my second assessment. Like last year, I am assessing each learning target twice. However, I am counting the first assessment and if the student has earned their 5 on the first time, they do not have to do the second assessment. I have been having second thoughts about this after I gave their first assessment two weeks ago. I know why I had decided to do this. I wanted students to give a better first effort on the assessment and when I didn't give a score on the first time, students tended to skip the problems. Also, this gives students their first chance at a reassessment. But, there are a couple of things causing me to have second thoughts.

First off, after the first assessment, I had several students already asking for a reassessment. I put them off, telling them they would have another chance at it in a couple of weeks. At that point, and now, still, I am thinking that I should have let them reassess right away if they were ready. Now that it's been about two weeks, I'm not sure they will do as well. Secondly, some students are now facing 6 skills to assess on this time around. I am starting to think that I may have set them up to not do as well because of that. Thirdly, we had professional development today and one of the speakers talked about Standards Based Grading. Well, she didn't call it SBG, but it's SBG. She was talking about using exit cards to assess where students where on a particular skill. Normally, you would use this for formative assessment, however, if all students showed they understood the skill, she suggested that you could go ahead and record that as mastery of the skills. The teacher would only do this if all students showed mastery. That got me thinking about giving assessments that only worked with a few skills. I asked her about how a teacher would justify assessing in this manner when at the college level, almost every class gives assessments at a much larger interval. Her response was to inform students that your concern was that they showed they learned and understood the material and that if they have done that successfully at high school, they would be able to adjust once they reached college.

Now, I don't think I am willing to assess formally that often, however, it is really getting me thinking about putting 6 learning targets on an assessment. I am seriously considering after this assessment to go ahead and go back to assessing 3-4 skills at a time and just assessing once. Thoughts from the peanut gallery? Leave them in the comments. Thanks.

Revised SBG Scale

I have been pondering this on and off over the last week, and even though I am on vacation, I need to flesh this out some more. I started revising my SBG scale and I am stuck. I have posted twice about why I am changing this summer (here and here). I have figured out what changes I am going to make, but I am struggling finishing it up. Here is what I used to do and what I am going to do this year (same document):

I took most of my descriptions from Lauren DeReche's post - I liked the simplicity and clarity. I hope that will help clear up some questions. However, as I have looked at people's descriptions, they have been using a 4 point scale and I'm just not comfortable with doing that. So I am sticking with my 5 point scale. I am struggling with what to name level 4 and 5. At the moment, I have "Mastery" for 5 but I am considering "Master" for 4 and "Expert" for 5. The "Limited," "Basic", and "Proficient" all came from what we use in Ohio for the state test scores. The upper two levels are "Accelerated" and "Advanced." I didn't like those for what I was doing here. The 4.5 level, I think I am going to call ____ Plus (whatever I name the 4 level). I only give the 4.5 if they make one minor arithmetic mistake but have the concept.

Please help! I need names for 4 and 5 as well as confirmation that my descriptors make sense. As always, leave what you got in the comments. Thanks in advance for your help!

SBG Changes?

For the past two school years, I have done Standards Based Grading (SBG). I have done a 5 (6?) point scale:



I am not totally happy with the scale (I blogged about it here earlier this summer) and I got some great comments. But I'm not totally sold either. I am contemplating changes. I'm not totally certain which one(s) I am going to make, but this is what I am thinking:
1) If I keep the current scale, I think I am going to make the 0 a 0 in the gradebook (instead of 5/10). I had students who played the system and made no attempt on a skill but since it was a 50% going in the gradebook instead of a 0%, they were able to pass (when they really shouldn't have) because they did "just good enough" on enough other skills. I am thinking this may solve the problem I talked about earlier with students passing who really shouldn't have.
2) I am having second thoughts about using a 5 point scale. Our state test is on a 5 point (Limited, Basic, Proficient, Accelerated, Advanced), so staying with it wouldn't be all bad - it could correlate to that potentially. However, there are some things that appeal to me about a 4 point scale. There could be two levels of "not there yet" - students who have significant conceptual errors - and two levels of "more or less have it" - students who have the concept but have other errors not related to the concept or students who truly understand the concept. The 4 point scale may be easier for me in grading. However, I'm not sure how I would correlate it to percentages. It seems that, as I have looked at others scales, more tend to be on a 4-point scale rather than a 5-point scale (not that what everyone else is doing is going to sway me).

Anyone have some guiding thoughts to help me here? I'd like to get this issue straightened in my head sooner rather than later. We have about 4 weeks until school starts, so I guess I better figure this out...

SBG and Grades

I blogged recently about some of the issues I have with SBG when it comes to reassessments. The other issue that I did not touch upon is equally as thorny. When you are the only one doing Standards Based Grading and you have to give a percentage grade, how do you go about doing it?

The past two years, I have taking my scale and converted it to scores out of ten points.



Basically, I added 5 to each numeric score and made it a score out of 10. The first year, I felt pretty good about where grades ended up. I can't say that this year. I had 2 students who passed Algebra 2 who probably shouldn't have passed the course. I am wondering if I have my scores correlated to the appropriate grades.

In Ohio, we give students a score on their state tests based on the following 5 point scale:
Basic
Limited
Proficient
Accelerated
Advanced

Now, granted, some of the names are misnomers to me because in order to be "Proficient," you earn about 40% of the possible points on the test. Plus, the skills that are tested (at least for the Ohio Graduation Test) are from 8th through 10th grade and if it's supposed to be a graduation test, I feel it should also test 11th and 12th grade skills. However, I'm not presenting the names as an attempt to argue about the OGTs today.

BUT, I do think I need to possibly change how I grade and stay with the idea of a true 5-point scale that our state testing uses. I am struggling with how to adjust the worth. I figure to drop the "0" and work with 5 true points. Our school grading scale is:
0-65% F
66-74% D
75-84% C
85-92% B
93-100% A
We give percent scores on the report card as well as on progress reports.

The first two should be, in my mind, something along the lines of little or no knowledge and some knowledge. Neither of these scores should be passing. Since 66% is passing, I'm not totally sure how I want to break these up. One thought I have is the lowest should be 5/10 (50%) and the second lowest 6/10 (60%) or 6.5/10 (65%).

The middle score is I think too high currently at 8/10 (80%). I am thinking it should be at 7.5/10 (75%), which is the lowest C in our grading scale. However, if I do that, where do I put the second highest score? 8.5/10 (85%)? 9/10 (90%)? Do my increments really need to be equal? I still want the top score to be 10/10 (100%), but then I still have the issue of what do I do with the students who have the concepts down but make one computational error (whom I tended to give a 4.5 -> 9.5/10 (95%)) or have the idea down except for one minor conceptual error that was not specifically related to the concept being graded. So that brings me back to a 6 point scale rather than 5 points.

So many questions, so few answers. How do you adjust your SBG in a non-SBG grading world?

SBG For The Rest of the Students

Today was the last day with students. I have a half day tomorrow and then I will have finished my 20th year teaching. Kind of hard to believe. I have been thinking about several things over the last few days but sitting down and actually blogging about it has been hard. Part of that has to do with all of the other stuff going on. My daughter and I will be heading to Rock the Mall on a turnaround bus trip she earned through selling Girl Scout Cookies. We leave about 11 pm Friday night, ride all night to DC, head to the event, and get on the bus to head home. We'll get in around 4-5 am Sunday morning. I've been getting ready for that. I'm also trying to do some other things to finish the year out as well.

So I sit here Tuesday evening trying to blog the thoughts I've had over the last few days as I close out this year and begin to think about the new one. I suppose I'll have a few posts over the next few days.

Right now the biggest thing on my mind is how next year is going to shape up. My schedule (as of right now) is 1 class of Math 2 (lower ability sophomores - think Geometry without proofs) and 5 classes of Algebra 2. I've taught Math 2 before - it's been 2 years since I had it last, but I haven't done it under SBG before. Since we have to do curriculum maps over the summer, they will be helpful in setting up my Learning Target lists for the year.

As far as Algebra 2 goes, there will be no Advanced Algebra 2 class next year. That means my classes will have students from freshmen, who should be pretty strong mathematically, to sophomores, who are where they should be, to juniors and seniors, who could very well struggle. To be honest, I am little concerned. I think a lot of it goes back to what Michael Pershan blogged about earlier this week.

I did look at my SBG data for this year. I'll spare you all the data like I did last year (SBG Analysis), mainly because I think it's more important to be aware of the overall picture. Like Michael blogged, my top students almost always come in for re-assessments. It doesn't matter whether they are in my Advanced Algebra 2 class or regular Algebra 2 class, almost every freshman student I had came in for at least one re-assessment at some point of the year. If you include my top sophomore students as well in that group, you will find that the top students, as a whole, come in to re-assess. I believe most of them come in because they want to improve their grade, although some come in because they they know they know it better than they showed on the test. Most of these students are successful in improving their scores.

Beyond the top students, most of my other students do not come in for re-assessments. Although this does concern me as a whole, it really concerns me about the lower ability students. Looking ahead, I want to make sure that they do not get lost, especially knowing that Algebra 2 next year will have a much smaller amount of review from Algebra 1. I'm not sure what to do. I am pretty sure that I do not do the best job of reinforcing with my students that they need to re-assess. I am not sure how to best go about doing that without seeming like I am nagging them like their mother. However, I know I need to do a better job with them on talking about SBG on a more regular basis.

However, I am still troubled about those lower level students. I am thinking about a few of my lowest ability students in Algebra 2 this year who really struggled with the second half of the year. How do you get them to come in and get help and re-assess? They are high school students - almost adults. How do you get them to feel it is worthwhile to come in and get help and follow through with actually preparing and re-assessing. These are students who have struggled with mathematics for a while. Their numbers will be growing, since the State of Ohio has not only mandated that the Class of 2014 will graduate with 4 math credits, but also that one of those credits must be Algebra 2 or its equivalent. My numbers of students who have struggled with mathematics (and will most likely struggle with Algebra 2) will continue to increase. How do I help them to be successful?

I have thought about personally inviting the student to stay after school (or come in before school, or during my planning period) for help. However, many of my students, especially the juniors and seniors, work. As I've mentioned before, many of my students receive free or reduced lunch and work may be more a necessity rather than just to earn some extra money for fun. How do you impress upon them that their schooling needs to take more of a priority? How do you get them to realize that it's okay to come in and get help? Another thought I have had was to set up something after school on a weekly basis where students could come in and get help and I'd have some sort of snack for them. Or donuts in the morning for a before school help session. I would hope that food would help to bring them in, although it can get pricey for me depending on numbers and how often I did it. Also, if I get too many students in the door, it becomes more like class and less a help session for a struggling student.

I know I'm rambling a lot here - as many of you know, I tend to blog what I'm thinking with the hope that somehow it works itself out through the process. I feel really stumped about this one. How do you get the struggling students in for help and back in to re-assess?

Assessment Questions

Something else I am going to be revisiting is how I'm doing assessments. For the first 19 years of my teaching career, I did unit tests, sometimes with quizzes in between. This year, I teach 2-3 Learning Targets and then quiz - the most recent Learning Targets for feedback, the preceding 2-3 Learning Targets for a grade. Right before Christmas Break, I revised the feedback problems to "feedback or 5" - if students could show me they knew it, they could earn their 5 and were exempt from the problems on the next quiz, otherwise, they got feedback.

I have to be honest, I'm not happy with this system. I feel like I've lost instruction time. I spend more time than I'd like between reviewing and assessing. About a third of my students don't try anything on the feedback problems. However, when I surveyed my students, they liked having less concepts on a test. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year, but I'm pretty certain that it's not going to be the way I did this year.

Lately, I've also been thinking about how assessment needs to be in class. I have always been a "given them a test to see what they know" person. With the revisions in testing coming from the Common Core, I have started to wonder about giving my students a task instead of a test for assessment. For example, when we did transformations in December, I had my Advanced Algebra 2 students do a matching activity in pairs. Could I count that as their assessment? Granted, I would need to modify it a little so they would explain why they matched the way they did, but could that count? If I'm going to use that as their assessment, do I allow them to use their notes? Can they talk to other groups? Should they even be allowed to do it in pairs? Normally when I give a test, students are not allowed to use their notes, books, or talk to other students. Does that change now?

I'm curious what you all think - please, if you will, address my questions in the comments. Thanks.

Assessment Survey

In response to my blog post yesterday about why I think students aren't attempting feedback questions, misscalul8 asked, "Have you tried asking the students why they don't try the feedback problems or ask them how they study?" To be honest, I've never been a fan of asking my students survey questions, especially not ones that may give them the chance to criticize me. I suppose that goes back to the little gnawing fear that they'll all say I suck as a teacher as well as that I'm afraid that they won't take it seriously. However, during my half hour drive into work, I thought to myself that maybe it would be a good idea to ask them. I suppose that I am getting more comfortable in my own skin as a person and as a teacher.


I only surveyed my Advanced Algebra 2 students (17 students there today) - I figured they would take it the most seriously and thought that it would give me a good idea whether it's worth asking my regular Algebra 2 students the same questions. I have included all responses but I obviously didn't edit their grammar. So, without further ado, here is the survey and their responses, followed by my comments in blue:

Please answer the following questions honestly. Your answers will help me assist you in your learning of mathematics and will not affect your grade in any manner.


1) How do you normally prepare for a test or quiz in math?

• I try to learn what it is we're being tested on, since I usually don't understand when we learn it in class.
• I look over questions that I'm not sure about, until I understand them.
• Student doesn't do anything (2 students)
• I just pay attention in class and write things down.
• Good amounts of sleep.
• Do practice questions.
• The review sheet. (3 students)
• Study like crazy when it comes closer to the time of the test.
• I do the review sheet and sometimes take notes.
• Go over what the test is on.
• Listen in class.
• Practice.
• Do math problems / review sheet.
• All of the homework. extra problems worked through, and the review sheet.

With this being my Advanced class, I expected them to have some sort of plan for preparing for the test. Also at this level, I am not surprised to see that 2 of them do nothing. I remember being in high school math classes and not really doing anything to prepare for the test because I felt I knew the material well. It wasn't until I got to college (and Calculus) that I really had to study and it took me a bit to figure that out. I'm not hugely concerned with what I see here.


2) When you are given a review sheet for an upcoming test or quiz, do you work through the problems?

none 1

less than half 4

about half 3

more than half but not all 7

all 2

I am glad to see that more than half do at least half of the review sheet. At least it's not a waste of my time. I would like to see more in the "more than half but not all" and "all" categories though.

3) What do you think would help you better prepare for tests or quizzes in math? Why?

• (main point) More explanation of how to do the things, because in class we go too fast and I get confused.
• Pay more attention to what I'm confused about.
• Sleeping more. I would be more alert in class.
• If I could remember how to do the feedback problems I would be better prepared because I don't ever remember how to do the feedback whether I look over them again or not.
• Review games
• Review every question I do not know.
• Nothing really.
• If I did my homework it would help.
• Do one problem from each section on the test, like the problems on the test, not exact ones, the day before the test. (**I think she meant for the class or me to do these problems.)
• Practice the problems over and over.
• Nothing. I catch on or I don't, how I work doesn't matter.
• More review sheets or fun worksheets. Do homework problems on the board.
• Do more work.
• To do more problems to practice.
• More study guides.
• Coming up with a fun idea to help us understand better and pay attention more.
• Student didn't answer.

I want to start with the first response. This response bugs me. It is the only one I have in this class. If I slow down much more, I am going to lose about the top third of students in my class because I will be going too slow. I already have issues with my 2 brightest students as far as attention issues in class (and some of those times they really should be paying attention). Maybe this student shouldn't be in the "advanced" class if this student isn't keeping up. The only other response that bothered me was the one about doing one problem from each section on the test the day before. Both of these students are freshmen (our Algebra 2 comes after Algebra 1) and they do need to be aware that an "Advanced" class doesn't mean I hold your hand the whole way.

I was pleased to see that most of the responses pointed out things that the particular student should be doing. I was a little nervous to see these responses as the question could be taken as what more I could do to help them prepare. I have the feeling that when I have my Algebra 2 students do this, there will be more suggestions as to what I can do instead of things they could do.

This year, I have tried something different with testing. Instead of giving a "unit test," I have given quizzes with some problems that are for a grade and some where you get feedback only.

4) Do you like this method better than unit tests? Why or why not?

• Yes and no because we are moving too fast and I sometimes forget the stuff we are being graded on and yes because if I do understand then I can possibly get an exempt on it the next test.
• I really like this method, it makes me feel more comfortable knowing that if I don't understand the feedback questions then I will get help.
• Yes, so we know how we're doing.
• I like the fact you give us quizzes with the graded problems but I don't like that you put feedback on there because I feel I need more practice.
• Yes. You get breaks in between quizzes instead of one big test.
• Yes because that is less you have to study for.
• I'd rather have a unit test because if we learn too much at once then I get confused.
• Yes, because I see problems like that more than once. It helps me understand what I did wrong on the test.
• Yes I like this better, especially when you exempt it from the next. It gives me a heads-up.
• Yes, but I HATE how we learn 6 learning targets, then take a quiz on the first three. I forget some stuff learning new things between.
• I don't really care either way.
• For sure!
• Yes, I do. It doesn't make it as big of a test.
• Yes, I like having only some problems graded.
• Yes, because only the first few problems are graded.
• Yes, because it helps you prepare for the next quiz.
• Yes, I like this method because it's easier to see what I do wrong.

I am somewhat glad to see they like this method better. At least the length and amount of tests seems to be enough. However, with testing every 5-7 class days, I'm not sure that's the best way to prepare them for what's coming in the future. I think the student who wants the unit test really doesn't want the unit test, because then it will be a larger amount of material.

On the other hand, I'm not real thrilled about continuing to have to make up reviews and quizzes for every 5-7 class days. 

5) Do you attempt the feedback problems? Why or why not?

• Sometimes, if I actually understand it.
• Yes, because I usually get 5's.
• Yes I do because if I get them right I don't have to do them on that test.
• Yes because I want the feedback
• Yes most of the time because I want to see if I know it.
• Sometimes I do but sometimes I forget about it.
• Most of the time. I only don't if I don't understand it.
• If I know them.
• Yeah because you tell us to, and it gives me a good understanding of where I am.
• Yes, because it's on the test.
• Sometimes I don't.
• Yes, sometimes, when I know how.
• Yes, to at least attempt them.
• Yeah, because you tell us to.
• Yes, that way I know what parts of the problem I have to work on for the next test.
• Yes, so I can see how I need to study for the next week.

This was somewhat telling, but not as much as I had hoped. I was a little surprised to see that some students weren't attempting feedback problems because they didn't know how to do them. I guess I had hoped they would go as far as they could so I could offer feedback on what they did know.

6) Have you come in and re-assessed a learning target?

yes 13

no 4

No surprises here. Most of these students want to do well.

7) If you answered yes to question 6, why did you decide to re-assess?

• Because I failed it on the normal test, and needed time to learn it so I can get a better grade.
• I re-assessed because I understood what I missed, and I wanted to correct it.
• Because I like getting 100%s
• I decided to re-assess to try and get extra points and keep my grade up.
• It wasn't a four or above.
• Usually the stuff I missed was stuff I knew how to do.
• I decided to because I knew I know the problems and I knew I could get the answer right a second time.
• To get my grade better.
• I didn't get a five when I knew I could have.
• I did bad.
• I didn't do good.
• To get a better grade.
• I learned what I did wrong and wanted to fix it.

A mixed bag here. I am glad to see some students wanted to show they knew the materials. I am seeing more "improve my grade" type comments here. Guess I need to work on how I present SBG better.

If you answered no, why did you decide not to re-assess?

• 2 students didn't answer.
• I stick with my original grade.
• I haven't yet because I have a 100%, but will re-assess because I screwed up one of the learning targets.

The one student who answered "I stick with my original grade" is kind of an odd bird. Very bright student who gets many things very quickly, but not always in the same way everyone else does. This student is an Emotionally Disturbed student who is mainstreamed for my class. I guess I'm not really surprised by that response from this student. I think the 2 no answers bother me more than anything here. I was hoping for some insight.

I think I'm going to give the same survey to my Algebra 2 students. They have a quiz tomorrow and at this point I'm thinking I'm going to give it to them after they are finished. I am expecting some different responses and even some different tones in their responses. Should be interesting...

An answer to my quizzing dilemma?

Another round of quizzes, another blog post on how my students aren't doing so well with my current system. But this time, I think I'm getting closer to a why.

On the last day before Christmas Break, Cathy Hamilton spoke to us. A good part of what she talked with us about was the poverty mentality. The district I teach in has 52% of our students on free or reduced lunch. That number could potentially be higher since there may be families who don't apply for free or reduced lunch (pride issues). The part that resonated the most with me was about how people who are in poverty are in "survival" mode. They are thinking about the present and getting through today. Future is not very prevalent in their thoughts. People in the middle class are future-focused. They talk to their children about what they're going to be when they grow up, going to college, and other "future" things. People in poverty don't do that. They are focused on getting through today. Another difference is how people in poverty look at their situation versus those in the middle class. People in poverty feel that it's just their luck things are the way they are or it's just the way it is. If their child is bad in math, "that's just how our family is." Unlike people in the middle class, they feel they don't have a choice. People in the middle class talk about choices. If a child from a middle class family did something wrong, they made a "bad choice." Middle class people offer their children choices to make all of the time. They do their best to help their children make the best choices.

So, getting back to my quizzing issue. To recap - this year I have been giving quizzes every 3 concepts or so. The most recent 3 learning targets I give them feedback only. The 3 learning targets that I have already given feedback on (the earlier ones) are graded. Most of this year, students in my Algebra 2 classes have been concentrating on the graded learning targets and making less and less of an attempt on the feedback ones. I did try right before break allowing students to earn their 5 (they mastered it!) on the (normally) feedback problems to see if they would put forth more effort on the feedback problems. In my Advanced Algebra 2 class, my students put forth better effort on the feedback problems and not quite half earned the 5 on at least one of the three learning targets. They had another quiz yesterday with the same deal and only 1 student earned a 5. In my Algebra 2 classes, I had a handful of students earn 5s on their quizzes before break. They have their quiz on Friday.

Also lurking in all of this is my Math I classes. They seem to do better with the 3-3 system. It's actually really surprised me. Usually, since they are the lowest ability students, they tend to give up much easier. They almost always do all of the problems - they take it very seriously. I don't think I'll change it to unit tests for them. In fact, I did that this time (we had a 4 learning target unit) and they didn't do as well. With this next unit, back to teach 3, quiz 3, teach 3 more, quiz 6 (3 graded, 3 feedback), repeat.

So... do I have an answer? Well, the more I think about this, the more I think it goes back to this poverty/survival mentality of focusing on the present rather than the future. My students are in a survival mode in their lives and that translates over to school. Teenagers as it is don't focus on future things much anyway and I think that my students even more so are concentrating so much on the present and surviving that they don't look toward what they could do to get ahead. As far as their quizzes go, they focus on the graded material because that is the "present" in my class - it's what needs to be dealt with now. Surviving in my class means doing the best they can on those graded learning targets. In many cases, I am thinking that they don't even attempt the feedback problems because they aren't focusing on them in their preparation for their quiz since it's not factoring into their grade now. They are probably thinking that they'll learn it when they need to for the grade. I am also now wondering that if the drop off in re-assessments I'm seeing has to do with the same thing. If their grade is "acceptable," why bother trying to improve it? If it's not "acceptable," now the student has to do re-assessments to get the grade up just enough to be "acceptable" again.

Answering the question creates other questions. How do you get students who are so focused on doing what needs to be done today to shift their focus? If my students are focused on the present, is doing the 3-3 method I mentioned earlier really the best thing? They're not doing much on the feedback problems. I almost feel like it's a waste of time. I don't like doing quizzes every five to seven class days (it eats up class time, it's a pain to prepare assessments that often, not to mention it feels like I am constantly writing quizzes and grading them). Am I better off going back to the way I was doing it before ("unit" tests with some feedback quizzes)? Is there a better way? Anyone out there in a similar socio-economic situation and doing SBG? I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you do assessment. Even if your socio-economic situation is not like mine, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what to do about my assessment dilemma. What I do know is that what I'm doing is not the best way. Now I have to figure out what that "best" way is.

Time to change?

Yes, it was another quiz day in Algebra 2 today. Yesterday, I had them work on review problems over all the learning targets (not just the ones being tested). Still had quite a few students not make much of an attempt on the feedback only problems. If you haven't been following the saga - here is my last post and it has the previous ones linked to it in the second paragraph.

So, as I was grading today, this was the thought I had:

(For those of you seeing this for the first time, I teach, quiz 5-6 learning targets - 3 that were previously quizzed and students only got feedback, 3 that have not been previously quizzed and were the most recently taught and give feedback only.)

Starting with the next quiz (which for my classes will be the last one before Christmas Break), I will still grade the older 2-3 learning targets. On the "newer" learning targets, if a student shows they totally understand it and would earn a 5/5 on it, I will record that 5. On the next quiz, when everyone else is doing those learning targets for the grade book, those students who earned the 5 on the previous quiz will not have to do those problems. I will still write feedback for those students who didn't earn 5/5 so they know what they need to work on, but I won't record a score.

My hope is that students will take all the learning targets seriously, not just the graded ones. I have a growing group of students who are not even attempting the feedback problems.

Thoughts??? Please comment below on what you think. I hate to change mid-stream, but I'm not sure what else to do here. Thanks!

Quiz Time Blues Again

I just gave another round of quizzes over the last few days. I am not pleased with how it's going. This is nothing new. I can't decide if it's because I'm not happy with doing teach 3 - quiz (3 for feedback/3 for grade) - teach 3 or because I have a lower-ability/less-motivated/less-knowledge-of-Algebra-1 group of students this year.

As we continue with the quizzes - grading the three concepts that were given feedback only the last quiz and giving feedback only on the three most recently taught (details on my SBG system this year is here and reflections on why I wanted to make changes from last year is here), I am seeing that several students are not trying or making little effort on the feedback only questions. It is not a majority of students, but with each new quiz, I am noticing there are more students each time who are not attempting the feedback questions. This worries me and I feel it defeats the purpose of giving the questions for feedback only the first time. The students are cheating themselves of the opportunity to seeing what they know about the problem in a practice situation.

I have been giving them review sheets for the concepts that are being graded since in some cases it has been 2 weeks or so since they had the original instruction on the topic. I suspect what that is doing is focusing the students on preparing for only those problems and they are not doing much preparation on the newer concepts. I am afraid that if I give review sheets with all 6 concepts, we will be spending one day reviewing and another day quizzing every 7-8 class days. As much as I don't want to dwell on what content I am covering over the course of the year, I am already concerned that I will not get to many concepts that I should be for Algebra 2.  Last year I ended with exponentials and logarithms and I am deeply concerned that I'm not going to get there this year with their lack of Algebra 1 skills and the time I've had to spend remediating those skills - and that's not factoring in the additional number of testing days (and some review days).

In two of my three Algebra 2 classes, students expressed that they weren't ready for today's quiz. Now, I know it's not due to lack of time and energy we I've devoted to it in class. They weren't ready because they weren't prepared. Students aren't preparing well - they aren't taking the time to work through problems as they should be. I have watched as I have helped students who have wanted the help and seen several students not using the time well. They choose to talk instead of starting the problems. I'm not sure if it's due to lack of confidence in doing the problems or if they don't want to after spending class time listening and (maybe) taking notes. The last few sections I have given students a note sheet to fill in. I did this partially because we were doing graphing systems of equations and inequalities and I thought it would be helpful to have the problems with graphing spaces ready to go for them. I also did this because I thought if they had the examples in front of them, they would actually take notes. I'm not sure how well that worked.

I'm at a bit of a loss tonight. I cannot continue to go backwards. Students have to learn they have to pick up the slack at some point. I feel like I am wasting time quizzing every 5-7-10 class days if they aren't preparing for all of the concepts. Part of the reason I changed to the quizzing concepts twice system was that I thought they would do better on the concepts since they had a chance to get some written feedback from me as a part of the process. If students aren't even going to attempt the feedback-only problems, then the purpose of quizzing this way is moot. I could go back to the way I assessed last year (at the end of a "unit" with a couple of days of review in front of the assessment) and end up with the same results with hopefully less wasted time, not to mention less stress since I would only have to prepare an assessment every 2-3 weeks. Part of what also appealed to me about the teach 3 - quiz 6 - teach 3 - quiz 6 system was that it would be smaller chunks for students to focus on and hopefully they would find that to be more manageable.

So what to do, what to do? At the moment, my plan is to put the How to Study Mathematics article that crstn85 referenced in her recent blog post in front of my Algebra 2 students tomorrow. I am going to do it a little differently. I gave the article to the Advanced Algebra 2 students today (since some of them were still finishing their quiz) and had them read the introduction (through the middle of page 3). Then I counted them off and had each pair read one section instead of one page. Each pair shared with the class what they thought was important. I did not have a chance to share the Cone of Learning with them - I am going to do that tomorrow. My hope is with my Algebra 2 students to get through all of that in class tomorrow. I also had my husband print out in color 11" x 17" Cone of Learning posters that I am going to put up around the room. I want a visual reminder to my students that they need to take an active part in mathematics.

I need to continue to reflect to see if this is how I want to continue to assess, or if I want to go back to what I was doing last year, or if there is a different way I want to try. If I am going to make changes, ideally, I would do it after the end of the 2nd 9 weeks in January. I just don't know what the "right" answer is. If anyone has some thoughts to share that would be helpful, I sure would appreciate it. I am having a hard time separating myself emotionally from this decision. There is a part of me that feels that I am failing my students here. I feel like I am teaching them (not intentionally) to prepare for the short term rather than learning the material thoroughly. Intellectually, I know that this group of students does not have good study skills and that is part of it, not to mention that there are several students who are not strong mathematically. Their experiences in Algebra 1 isn't helping the situation either. Regardless, I have to work with the students I have, where they are at, and make the best of it I can.

Frustrated

Last year with my Algebra 2's and SBG didn't seem this frustrating to me. We are in our last week of the grading period right now and of course kids seem to now care because they are in that lovely point chasing mentality. We had a quiz yesterday - same format I have been doing all year - grade 3 learning targets and feedback on 3 (although I only did two because if I waited for the third one it would have been so long since we did the earlier 3 that I don't think they would have done well). The 3 graded were graphing linear equations (slope-intercept form), write equations given 2 points or 1 point and slope of the line, and write equations given a point and a line either parallel or perpendicular to it. The 2 feedback were solve a system of equations by graphing and solve a system of equations by substitution (both 2 equations 2 variables systems). As I have been doing since the second quiz, I did give them a review page with answers over the three to-be-graded learning targets before the quiz.

The students did okay on the graded learning targets. They didn't knock it out of the park, but my real sense about this group is they are not going to be knock-it-out-of-the-park students unless they do more preparation on their own. When I got to grading the feedback portion, most them had no clue on how to graph the two equations together. Same kids who did pretty well on the graphing one equation on a coordinate plane. Same kids who were able to solve for y to get the equation in slope-intercept form couldn't do it on the back. Directions said to graph and students were trying to do substitution (most unsuccessfully). Or in several cases (way too many to count and way too many for my comfort), students didn't even attempt the feedback only problems.

It's like they don't even see the connections between material we have done previously to what we are doing now. And they certainly aren't retaining things well. Today we worked on more substitution problems, which we did Thursday and Friday (and I gave them a notes page to try to guide them to either take notes or fill in what was important) and I would say from what I saw about half still had no clue what they were doing and most of the other half was struggling to remember where to start.

I am frustrated at this point on many fronts. I am frustrated that I am teaching Algebra 1 stuff to my Algebra 2 students. I am frustrated at how long it takes them to get concepts. I know I can't change that one, but I need to find a way to deal with this better and quick or I am going to be one really frustrated teacher all year. I am frustrated at how dependent my students are. I am frustrated that I haven't done or felt like I can do my goals of incorporating reasoning and sense making materials or being less helpful (see this post for details). There is a part of me that thinks that if I tried to bring in reasoning/sense making activities that it would help my students. Then there's the other part of me who looks back at days like today where I see my students so dependent and not willing to think or try something on their own and I wonder if it's really worth trying.

Getting back to the SBG bit - with getting back their quizzes today and the end of the grading period being Friday, I had several students wanting to reassess. Most of the ones that came up knew what they had done wrong. Those who didn't, we worked through their problems and I think they better understand it. But part of my concern at the moment is that my students are working to just learn the three learning targets they are getting graded on and not working on the big picture. I don't know if that's because of the system I'm using (grade 3 - give feedback on 3). I'm not sure if I'm helping by giving them review problems on just the three learning targets being graded. Well, I guess I'm helping some because they are preparing, but I cannot continue to spend lots of time reviewing if I am quizzing every 5-8 class days. I'm not sure what the answer is to this one.

At this point I just have a bunch of questions and no answers. My thoughts are still pretty jumbled on all of this. I'm hoping that just getting some of it out here will help straighten my thoughts eventually. @cheesemonkeysf probably said it best - my subconscious has to be working through this somehow even though I don't feel like I have any answers. Hopefully it comes to me soon.

A win - maybe

One of my Algebra 2 students gave me absolutely no work on his quiz yesterday writing equations given two points on the line, a point and a slope of the line, or given a point and a line that is parallel or perpendicular to it. As I was walking around checking how students were doing with the problems they were to be working on, he had his head down and was visibly frustrated.

I asked him what was going on and he said that he had the right answers but got no credit for them.

I responded that I had no idea where his answers came from - if he figured them out in his head, or guessed, or looked off someone else's paper.

He replied that he's not a cheater.

"I'm pretty sure of that. So how did you come up with the answer?" was my response.

He started to explain that he used the graph and figured it out from there. He didn't have any work because he kept the grid clean so he could work out the four problems. I shared with him what I was looking for work wise and why it was important to understand how to work the problem that way (especially since problems won't always work out so neat and clean).

I told him to wait a minute and went to get some graph paper. When I came back I told him to use the graph paper and show me how he got his answers on the four problems. I left him to work through it and he came back up towards the end of the period.

He began by saying he explained it to another student and she followed so he thought he had it for me. He proceeded to explain very articulately how he arrived at the equations for the problems with 2 points and 1 point and slope given - and I should add, very accurately. He demonstrated he understood what it meant to be a point on the line and how to write the equation in slope-intercept form (which is what I had asked for). I revised his score from 0 to 5 on the spot - he demonstrated he understood it. At that point, the period was ending and we left it that he would come back tomorrow with explanations for the other two problems.

I am hopeful the student will come back with the explanations tomorrow. I am also hopeful that he will make a better effort in the future to demonstrate how he is arriving at his answers so that I can see he truly understands the concepts.

Winning here with one student, at least, I hope....

Surprises abound

A surprising thing happened today as I had my students working on correcting their quizzes today. (See here for the original plan.) As my first period students were working on correcting my quizzes (and wanting me to answer questions as opposed to asking peers), several students asked to reassess. I had forgotten to say anything about wanting to re-quiz them on Wednesday and after seeing that several students were motivated to reassess on their own, I opted to not give a re-quiz to my Algebra 2 classes. For two of my three classes, my students were rather motivated and worked hard on correcting their quizzes. I think I have between 10 and 15 students coming in for reassessments between my three Algebra 2 classes (that's out of about 70 students). I am pleased to see them taking initiative.

I chatted with my principal during my planning period today. As I continue to reflect on my students' quizzes, I am really disturbed with the errors they made. These are things that should have been corrected/caught and fixed in Algebra 1. I had a brief discussion with my fellow math teacher with many years experience before talking to the principal and he is seeing the same things from his students (the ones I had last year in Algebra 2). It's as if the students aren't retaining what they have learned. As I talked with my principal, she made the point that they may have learned it wrong and continue to make the same mistakes because that's how they practiced it. This, for me, reaffirmed the importance of giving the students the answers when I give the practice problems so they can confirm that they are doing the problems correctly.

My principal is also about incorporating the real world where possible. As we discussed the situation, I expressed that I am almost afraid to put a real world situation in front of them, especially given what happened last week. It's almost as if my students don't know how to think. Put something even a little challenging in front of them and they freeze. But I also know that the real life situations can help motivate them. I started to look through the Math Forum Problems of the Week to see if I could find anything that caught my attention, but I didn't find anything right off the bat. I also looked at YummyMath but I didn't have a whole lot of time to dig through to see if I could find something that specifically had one variable equations. So, I'm still looking with a short time frame (for Wednesday!) to find something real world to help motivate solving equations.

I also have to figure out how to teach them to think - how to work with these types of problems. But I suppose that's a post for another day. For now, I'm off to bed. As always, comments are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read my ruminations. They help me sort through it all.

And the saga continues...

I have been in a posting flurry the last week (check here and here for the ones that will relate to this post). Here is the quick update....

I gave quizzes Friday in my Algebra 2 class - I graded the learning targets on solving and graphing inequalities, solving and graphing compound inequalities, and solving absolute value equations. I have not finished grading the quizzes - I still have feedback only to give on solving absolute value inequalities, determining if a pattern is linear, and finding slope. On the portions that I graded, the solving equations and inequalities was not looking good. I still have students trying to subtract the same quantity from the same side of an equation or inequality. There are other errors (not distributing well, computation errors, and dividing both sides by different numbers to name a few), but that one is the one that bothers me the most. I did some quick analysis and I found once I took the time to look that it wasn't as bad as I thought, but it's still not where it should be.

Here's my plan for the start of the week -
Tomorrow (Monday), I am handing back their quizzes. I will give them the answers as I have been doing, but before I do so, I am going to direct them to take 3-5 minutes and really read the feedback that I have given them. After giving them the answers, I have marked 6 students in each class as "experts" - there were 3 concepts, 2 quizzes so 1 student for each quiz on each concept (that means 2 experts per learning target). The remaining students I am going to direct to work on correcting their quizzes and if they are struggling, they need to see the "expert" for their trouble. I am hoping that this will get them really looking at their quizzes to see what they're doing and that the peer help will help get them in a better place with the material.

On Tuesday I am going to pair them up and set up a "scavenger hunt" type activity - answer at the top of the page, new problem to work on the bottom of it. Students will work on the problem and go find their answer to find their next problem. I am going to pair them deliberately - a student who has a stronger understanding of solving equations with a student who does not have as strong of an understanding. Each student will need to work out the problem. Hopefully this will help strengthen the weaker students while putting the stronger students in a mentoring role. I am going to mix equations and inequalities.

On Wednesday, I am going to give another quiz on the same learning targets (those students who have already mastered the learning target obviously will not need to redo) - my goal is two-fold: I want students to see what reassessing will do for them and I want them to feel some success (which I am hoping will happen!).

I really don't want to spend the extra time at the moment, but I feel that if I don't have 95% of my students with solid linear equation solving skills, I am going to have an incredibly difficult hill to climb with them. I'm really not sure what else to do - I have about 50%+ of my classes who don't have (in my opinion) a solid enough grasp of the skill, so we need to make sure they've got it. There are other issues I'm concerned with (mainly their lack of willingness to "think" and work at stuff), but this is the most pressing thing at the moment.  I hope this is the right decision....

Review - or lack thereof

In the past, I have given "unit" tests. Taught the concepts that (loosely) fit together, did a couple of days of review at the end of the "unit," and then gave a test (which was about every 2-3 weeks). Last year, I started doing feedback only quizzes, which I ended up abandoning - I have *never* done quizzes well. I wasn't completely happy with how things went testing wise last year. Here are my previous posts on the revisions I made from last year.

So, at the moment I am teaching 3 concepts and then quizzing 6 concepts - the most recent 3 are being given feedback only, the 3 before that are being graded. For example, most of my classes are getting graded on Learning Targets 4-6 this week and being given feedback on Learning Targets 7-9. I'm not really sure I'm liking this at the moment. My main beefs at the moment are -

1) I feel like I am constantly assessing my students. At the moment (especially since these are easier concepts that are mostly review for my students), I am quizzing about every 5 days (or once a week). Multiply that times 3 preps and you get the picture...

2) I am not reviewing with students in class. There is a part of me that says that my students - especially the ones in Algebra 2 and Advanced Algebra 2 who want to be heading to college - need to learn to do some outside preparation. I think the reality is that my students have no idea how to prepare for a math test. Without doing some sort of review in class, I don't think they do anything to prep for a test. For the upcoming Advanced Algebra 2 and Algebra 2 quizzes (Thursday and Friday respectively), I put together a short review sheet just over the Learning Targets that are being graded (4-6) along with answers. I'm intending to give some time to answering any questions from it, but I don't want to devote a whole period to it. If I do that, I will end up losing a lot more time in the classroom and I don't think that's the answer either.

3) Writing feedback on quizzes certainly takes a long time. I can't honestly say I'm "being less helpful" in them. I am really making an effort to not use the second person pronoun unless I am saying something positive - and sometimes, that is really hard. (Thanks @RobertTalbert for the suggestion.) But I think it is less critical to students and I am hoping they are more receptive to the comments.

Any comments or suggestions from my readers? I'm especially struggling with #2. I am not sure how to best accommodate review for my students (who I think probably need it). Do I just bite the bullet and review in front of every quiz? Do I restructure and go back to giving tests at the end of each "unit" and throw in feedback only quizzes in the meantime? Does someone else have some other brilliant suggestion? Please help! Thanks in advance. - hope to see you in the comments.

Grading Policies Revision

On my #summerlist, one of the things I want to do is revise SBG in my classroom. (see this post and this post for past discussions). Here is my revised Grading Policies page for the upcoming school year:



Changes I made:

• I am going to quiz students twice. First time I am going to give feedback only, as I had intended to do but didn't stick with. Second time will have the feedback-only concepts tested and (up to) three new concepts for feedback only. From what I read from others during the SBG Gala, it seemed that more people felt that a feedback only option made sense for the first time students saw a concept on a test, and then grade the second one.
• The one I am having the debate on at the moment is whether or not to require students to show me their original practice problems before allowing a reassessment. At the moment, I have it in there but there is a part of me that doesn't want to deal with the hassle of it. I am a little afraid that it will discourage students from reassessing because they have to do the problems and if they didn't do them originally, that will be more work for them to do before reassessing. However, I think it is also a good idea because it will force students to have done the original assignment (at some point) if they want to reassess and maybe it will instill in them that they should be doing the problems in the first place. **I revised this to give students an option of what work to submit with the reassessment request. 
• I am limiting students to three concepts a reassessment.
• Students will have to apply for reassessment (a la Sam Shah). Since not all my students have easy access to email (or so I think), they can either email me or hand me the written information. Last year I had a tutor form they could get and fill in. I think by having written out at the beginning of the year what needs to be done to reassess, it will encourage students to refer back to this sheet throughout the year.
• When applying for reassessment, students will have to explain what they have done to prepare for the reassessment. They will also have to correct the problem(s) they were not successful on earlier and explain what they did wrong. I really think this will be the key for students to be more successful in reassessment.

Please, please, please, take a few minutes and look at what I have put together for the next school year and offer your feedback in the comments. This is not necessarily final, but it is as close as I am going to get it at the moment. Thanks so much!

SBG Gala #6

Welcome to the 6th installment of the Standards-Based Grading Gala! If you are finding this for the first time, here are the previous installments:
#1 at MeTA musings (July 20, 2010)
#2 at Always Formative (September 6, 2010)
#3 at Teaching Chemistry (October 21, 2010)
#4 at Action-Reaction (December 23, 2010)
#5 at Quantum Progress (February 18, 2011)

If you are new to SBG, it is worth your time to go back and read the previous SBG Galas, for we have some of the same people and you can see how SBG has grown and changed for them.

When I posted the original call for posts, I asked for some posts of how SBG has worked (or not worked) in your classroom. I have noticed more and more people in the twitter-blogosphere looking at SBG and I know I'm looking at making changes myself. Personally, I know that reading what others have done with SBG helped me immensely in setting up SBG in my classroom, so I hope that we can help others who are trying to do the same. One last thing to add, make sure you take the time to read the comments in these posts too. Sometimes there are some even better pearls of wisdom from others there. Without any further ado, I bring you the blog posts for this version of the SBG Gala:

SBG Year in Review/Reflections

Chris Ludwig (Science Education on the Edge) brings us 2010-2011: My Standards-Based Grading Year in Review.

Newcomer Roger Wistar (Abort, Retry, Succeed?) shares with us his first year with SBG in Reflections on SBG.

Geoff Schmidt (Pedagogue Padawan) is Looking Back Before SBG in his post.

Scott Schaefer (I Taught My Dog to Whistle) shares with us The Evolution of my Grading Practices.

Amber Caldwell (Maximizing Learning) blogs about her second year with SBG in SBG: The Pied Piper.

@druinok (Teaching Statistics) shares her first year reflections in SBG: Reflections on SY 2010/11.

Lisa Henry (An "Old Math Dog" Learning New Tricks) did an analysis of students who reassessed as a part of her SBG year in review in SBG Analysis.

Tweaking SBG

Andy Rundquist (SuperFly Physics) reviews his SBG year and offers his revisions for next year in SBG with Voice Revisions.

Kelly O'Shea (Physics! Blog!) shares how her SBG system and is trying to figure out how to handle Those Darn Quarter Grades in her post.

Dan Anderson (A Recursive Process) made a change mid-year and shares the results in A Small Tweak and a Feedback Inequality.

Lisa Henry (An "Old Math Dog" Learning New Tricks) reviews her first year with SBG and is pondering several tweaks for next year in Time to Tweak.

Other SBG Stuff

Shawn Cornally (Think Thank Thunk) fights for the assessment soul of a student in Standards-Based Grading: Passive Aggression.

Bret Benesh (Solvable by Radicals) ponders whether SBG should be SBF in his post.

Sam Shah (Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere) shares how he asks his students to request reassessment in To Reassess (or, how to make more work for me).

Cheesemonkeysf (Cheesemonkey wonders) in her Mathematical Language Manfesto talks about including mathematical language skills in SBG.

Stuff from my Google Reader

Blog Carnival (which is what we use to collect submissions), went flaky during this round of the SBG Gala. So, here are some posts from my Google Reader that are SBG related that you may find interesting. Please understand they were not submitted, but I am hoping that you find them helpful.

Jason Buell (Always Formative) shares thoughts how SBG can be used to inform decisions in Flow Control.

Tracie Schroeder (Adventures with the Lower Level) reflects on her first year with SBG in SBG and the Nightmare that is Grading.

Bret Benesh (Solvable by Radicals) didn't submit this one, but I think it is equally as valuable as the other post he submitted. In SBG Reflections, he reflects on his year with SBG in a college classroom.

Nick Yates (Maryland Math Madness) shares how his year went with SBG, including the revisions he made, in SBG Update.

I stumbled on Standards-Based Grading: the parent dividend from Edward Zuber (exzuberant) from Twitter after the deadline. He talks about the benefits SBG has for parents from his experiences during parent-teacher night. Also on his blog, I found Would you like 2 yaks or 3 yaks with that test? to be an interesting approach to assessment with SBG. Some good stuff to be found on this blog, I think.

Thanks so much for reading! Look for SBG Gala #7 sometime toward the end of summer - it'll surface on Twitter eventually.