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Blair Peterson

Should I Stop Assigning Homework? - Jessica Lahey - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • tudents who don’t complete homework receive zeroes, but they learn a valuable lesson about responsibility, many teachers argue, even though there’s no legitimate research connecting responsibility to homework. 
  • One, students, teachers, parents, and administrators expect me to, and when I don’t I am labeled an “easy” teacher, viewed as less serious or rigorous than my colleagues. Parents may rage about the veritable avalanche of homework that threatens to suffocate their children, but in my experience, parents also view that avalanche as a badge of honor, evidence of academic rigor.
  • I tried to picture a school year in which I shoehorn all of this work in to class time. I hardly complete a year’s worth of material as it is; a year without any homework at all seemed like a disaster in the making.
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  • Barnes spent that summer immersed in research on learning and homework, and returned in the 14th year of his teaching career determined to do away with homework and create what he calls a “results-only learning environment.”
  • Contrary to my first concern, Barnes found that most parents were in favor of his doing away with homework, particularly once he outlined the research for them.
  • Barnes points out that a no-homework policy does not mean that his students never work outside of class; indeed, they often do, because they enjoy the learning and want it to continue outside of class.
  • His class was a project-based classroom, so many students did choose to prepare for their projects outside of class. Barnes eliminated all work that required rote memory, and leaned more on context clues and word roots instead. “The result of eliminating traditional, mostly rote memory, homework was one of the most rewarding experiences of my teaching career,” Barnes wrote.
  • Above all else, my students enjoyed class and become intrinsically motivated independent learners.
  • I would add for the no-homework skeptics, and they are legion, you have to keep in mind that any research that supports homework is based almost universally on test results.
Blair Peterson

Tech's Favorite School Faces Its Biggest Test: the Real World | WIRED - 1 views

  • Last year, according to Summit administrators, 74 percent of Summit students met or exceeded Common Core standards for English Language Arts on California’s state tests, compared to 49 percent of students statewide, and 51 percent of Summit students met or exceeded the standards for math, compared to 37 percent statewide. The college acceptance rate for Summit graduates perennially pushes 100 percent.
    • Blair Peterson
       
      Amazing that the overall results are so low. How can this be? Another piece of data around lower performance in math.
  • Even some of personalized learning’s biggest backers admit that it’s easy to get it wrong.
  • “Personalized learning is easy to bastardize. It’s easy to do it superficially.”
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  • Last August, for instance, the Center on Reinventing Public Education published a brief field report from their ongoing study of personalized-learning initiatives warning that some schools focus on the “iconography” of personalized learning — the technology or the project-based learning — but sacrifice rigor.
    • Blair Peterson
       
      This is something that we always strive for. Rigor has to be the standard.
  • “When I walk into a classroom and see all the kids on a computer, mostly on the same screen, and the teacher is moving around the room like a test proctor, that is where we’ve gone way wrong and need to right the ship,”
  • The only prerequisites for would-be Basecamp schools are a commitment to Summit’s grading policy, a one-to-one ratio of computers to students and a team of at least four teachers covering the core academic subjects for about 100 students.
  • “Historically, there are virtually no game-changers in the history of school innovations,” said Justin Reich, executive director of MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab and the author of Education Week’s EdTechResearcher blog.
  • “I’m not spoon-feeding them anything,” she explained. “That’s a relief, because there’s a lot less of me trying to run around and help everybody with little details, and more of us having conversations about math.”
  • According to Riley, the personalized learning advocates wrongly assume that all students are able to effectively guide their own learning.
  • Christina Nguyen, a ninth-grader at Summit Denali. Nguyen was working on quadratic equations with her friend, Chloe Starbird
  • Summit requires Basecamp schools to follow its practice of basing 30 percent of grades on mastery of content and 70 percent on students’ use of various cognitive skills, such as making inferences and clearly communicating their ideas.
  • While Summit’s PLP does include tests of content knowledge for each subject, students take them only when they feel ready and, if they fail, can re-take them until they pass. Some Walsh parents, such as Paula Swift, whose sixth-grade son, Trevor, is in the Summit program, are fully supportive of this “mastery-based” grading.
  • Other parents are puzzled by the approach. “I’ve definitely heard from at least 10 parents who are like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ ” O’Connor said. ” ‘Is this good for my child?’
  • “I used to fail a lot of math tests. But now, I love school math, because I’m learning better.”
  • Benjamin Riley, who visited many personalized-learning classrooms from 2010 to 2014 as the policy and advocacy director for the NewSchools Venture Fund. Shortly after leaving that post, Riley planted his skeptic’s flag with an oft-cited blog post titled, “Don’t Personalize Learning.”
  • At the start of the year, her students were often frustrated, and she had to resist the urge to step in and rescue them. For nearly two months of school, she said, “It was tough. There were tears.”
  • Logically, this concern about the need for guidance heightens with novice learners.
  • “When you have little ones, it’s harder to do the full, self-directed learning. There needs to be a lot more scaffolding and support,” said Loughlin, singling out her school’s structured and deliberate literacy instruction. “We need to set a strong foundation. We don’t want to create gaps in our learning for our little ones.”
Blair Peterson

Letter Grades Deserve an 'F' - Jessica Lahey - The Atlantic - 2 views

  • Letter Grades Deserve an 'F' The adoption of the Common Core could usher in a new era of standards-based grading. Jessica Lahey
  • When a child earns a ‘B’ in Algebra I, what does that ‘B’ represent? That ‘B’ may represent hundreds of points-based assignments, arranged and calculated in categories of varying weights and relative significance depending on the a teacher’s training or habit. But that ‘B’ says nothing about the specific skills John has (or has not) learned in a given class, or if he can apply that learning to other contexts. Even when paired with a narrative comment such as, “John is a pleasure to have in class,” parents, students, and even colleges are left to guess at precisely which Algebra I skills John has learned and will be able to apply to Algebra II. 
  • As Alfie Kohn has written, “what grades offer is spurious precision—a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.”
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  • For all the effort, time, and best intentions teachers invest in those reams of grade reports, we are lying to ourselves and to our students’ parents, cheating our students out of clear and accurate feedback on their academic process, and contributing to the greater illusion that grades are an accurate reflection of skill mastery.
  • What should the mark really represent? Should the mark be based upon ability or performance, or even upon zeal and enthusiasm? What is the best set of symbols to represent ability or achievement?
  • This approach is known as standards-based grading. It is a system of evaluation that is formative, meaning it shapes instruction in order to fill in knowledge gaps, and measures mastery based on a set of course objectives, standards or skills.
  • Many notions I had at the beginning of my career about grading didn't stand up to real scrutiny. The thorny issue of homework is one example of how the status quo needed to change. I once thought it was essential to award points to students simply for completing homework. I didn't believe students would do homework unless it was graded. And yet, in my classroom, students who were clearly learning sometimes earned low grades because of missing work. Conversely, some students actually learned very little but were good at “playing school.” Despite dismal test scores, these students earned decent grades by turning in homework and doing extra credit. They would often go on to struggle in later courses, while their parents watched and worried.
  • Teaching and learning with an eye toward mastery of a defined list of competencies circumvents many of the pitfalls that points-based grading causes.
  • While a shift to standards-based grading from the traditional, points-based system sounds daunting, now is the perfect time to make the transition.
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    "Letter Grades Deserve an 'F' The adoption of the Common Core could usher in a new era of standards-based grading. JESSICA LAHEY"
Blair Peterson

Three Fayette schools abandon traditional report cards | Education | Kentucky.com - 2 views

  • "The goal is to give students more feedback," and to give parents a more complete picture of what their child knows, said Kelly Sirginnis, administrative dean at Tates Creek Middle.
  • The new report cards address how students are faring against the standards they have to meet and provides description about what a student knows and can do.
  • Traditional report cards aren't that helpful to parents because they provide a single grade for achievement, homework, punctuality and other factors, without explaining what the student knows, Guskey said. In a traditional grading system, students might not be able show mastery of the standards in the course but might get a good grade because a teacher might factor in a student turning in homework, school officials say.
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  • Guskey said teachers are moving away from the traditional single grade and are giving multiple grades. Instead of giving a single grade for achievement in an English or language arts class, they are giving separate grades for reading, writing and speaking. That way, parents know more clearly what kinds of problems their children might be having.
  • Young said high schools switching to standards-based grading have more details to work out. That's in part because high school students are critiqued by colleges on the basis of a grade point average.
Blair Peterson

The Most Important Question Every Assessment Should Answer - 0 views

  • raditionally, tests have told teachers and parents how a student “does,” then offers a very accessible point of data (usually percentage correct and subsequent letter grade) that is reported to parents as a performance indicator.
  • During assessment of learning, a test (of some kind) is given to communicate student understanding. Years of research has let us know that consistently hoping for “understanding data” from your average classroom assessment is hopelessly problematic, not to mention reductionist, sterile, and institutionally-centered.
Blair Peterson

The Homework Option Plan « My Island View - 1 views

  • « Twitter, Simply Complicated. The Homework Option Plan May 22, 2011 by tomwhitby I was recently asked, along with several other educators, to comment on a post dealing with grading homework. The premise on which we were asked to comment involved a teacher grading homework and giving a zero as a grade to those students who did not do the assignment. This is not an uncommon practice amongst educators. I employed this strategy myself for many years. It was and probably still is an accepted strategy, but after decades of teaching, I have grown to a point where i am not a big believer in giving homework. I stated my homework philosophy in this post, Hmwk: Less Value or Valueless? If homework is to be given by a teacher, students need to believe that the teacher will value their efforts in completing it. Homework requires a sacrifice of personal time on the part of the student. If students observe that the teacher is not at least checking homework, they will not spend time, which is important to them, doing the assignments that are not valued. A mistake often made however, is that rather than assess the work, the teacher records a zero, or a failing homework grade for the student. This would also apply to a project prepared outside of the class that was to be presented at a specific time, a deadline. I see assessment having two functions. The formative assessment is to tell me how much the s
  • he zero seems more like retribution for not finding value in what the teacher values, or has been told to value. It’s more of a control thing, and not an assessment thing. If a student consistently performs well in class, how is it that when assessed on the same skills performed outside the class in the form of homework, the work gets a zero? It is a power issue.
  • If the grade is an assessment of the work, and the student’s understanding, but it was not done, how can it be assessed?
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  • We could give control to the students, by giving them a homework opt-out option.
  • Students, with parents’ permission, could opt out of a homework grade for the year.
  • There is a very good possibility that homework may make no difference at all in the students’ learning. In that case, those who have opted out, have not been harmed at all.
ockifern

Rick Wormeli's Responses to a Parent of a High-Achieving Student with Concerns About G... - 2 views

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    Great response that could be used at parent meetings
Blair Peterson

http://elschools.org/sites/default/files/Progress%20Report%20Explanation_Ody_1113.pdf - 0 views

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    Note to parents on Odyssey grading and reporting practices.
Blair Peterson

Educational Leadership:Effective Grading Practices:Five Obstacles to Grading Reform - 1 views

  • Teachers sometimes think that reporting multiple grades will increase their grading workload. But those who use the procedure claim that it actually makes grading easier and less work (Guskey, Swan, & Jung, 2011a). Teachers gather the same evidence on student learning that they did before, but they no longer worry about how to weigh or combine that evidence in calculating an overall grade. As a result, they avoid irresolvable arguments about the appropriateness or fairness of various weighting strategies.
  • Teachers also indicate that students take homework more seriously when it's reported separately. Parents favor the practice because it provides a more comprehensive profile of their child's performance in school (Guskey, Swan, & Jung, 2011b).
  • At the same time, no research supports the idea that low grades prompt students to try harder. More often, low grades prompt students to withdraw from learning. To protect their self-images, many students regard t
angemolony

Response to a Parent (from Rick Wormeli) - Assessment FOR Learning - 0 views

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    I admit to worshiping at the altar of Wormeli. Check out his response to parent's (could apply to teachers too) that aren't on board with SBG.
Blair Peterson

Grading Systems - SCHOOL, HIGHER EDUCATION - Students, Grades, Teachers, and Learning -... - 1 views

  • In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the part of teachers. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on students' achievement or performance over a specified period of time, such as nine weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year. Through this process, various types of descriptive information and measures of students' performance are converted into grades or marks that summarize students' accomplishments. Although some educators distinguish between
  • In fact, prior to 1850, grading and reporting were virtually unknown in schools in the United States. Throughout much of the nineteenth century most schools grouped students of all ages and backgrounds together with one teacher in one-room schoolhouses, and few students went beyond elementary studies. The teacher reported students' learning progress orally to parents, usually during visits to students' homes.
  • Between 1870 and 1910 the number of public high schools in the United States increased from 500 to 10,000. As a result, subject area instruction in high schools became increasingly specific and student populations became more diverse. While elementary teachers continued to use written descriptions and narrative reports to document student learning, high school teachers began using percentages and other similar markings to certify students' accomplishments in different subject areas. This was the beginning of the grading and reporting systems that exist today.
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  • But in 1912 a study by two Wisconsin researchers seriously challenged the reliability of percentage grades as accurate indicators of students' achievement.
  • These demonstrations of wide variation in grading practices led to a gradual move away from percentage scores to scales that had fewer and larger categories. One was a three-point scale that employed the categories of Excellent, Average, and Poor. Another was the familiar five-point scale of Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, and Failing, (or A, B, C, D, and F). This reduction in the number of score categories served to reduce the variation in grades, but it did not solve the problem of teacher subjectivity.
  • At the same time, significant evidence shows that regularly checking on students' learning progress is an essential aspect of successful teaching–but checking is different from grading. Checking implies finding out how students are doing, what they have learned well, what problems or difficulties they might be experiencing, and what corrective measures may be necessary. The process is primarily a diagnostic and prescriptive interaction between teachers and students. Grading and reporting, however, typically involve judgment of the adequacy of students' performance at a particular point in time. As such, it is primarily evaluative and descriptive.
  • To ensure a fairer distribution of grades among teachers and to bring into check the subjective nature of scoring, the idea of grading based on the normal probability, bell-shaped curve became increasingly popular. By this method, students were simply rank-ordered according to some measure of their performance or proficiency. A top percentage was then assigned a grade of A, the next percentage a grade of B, and so on. Some advocates of this method even specified the precise percentages of students that should be assigned each grade, such as the 6-22-44-22-6 system.
  • Grading on the curve was considered appropriate at that time because it was well known that the distribution of students' intelligence test scores approximated a normal probability curve. Since innate intelligence and school achievement were thought to be directly related, such a procedure seemed both fair and equitable. Grading on the curve also relieved teachers of the difficult task of having to identify specific learning criteria. Fortunately, most educators of the early twenty-first century have a better understanding of the flawed premises behind this practice and of its many negative consequences.
Blair Peterson

Who's Cheating Whom? - 1 views

  • To put this point positively, cheating is relatively rare in classrooms where the learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students and where a commitment to exploring significant ideas hasn’t been eclipsed by a single-minded emphasis on “rigor.”  The same is true in “democratic classes where [students’] opinions are respected and welcomed.”[7]  
  • Cheating is particularly likely to flourish if schools use honor rolls and other incentives to heighten the salience of grades, or if parents offer financial inducements for good report cards[10] -- in other words, if students are not merely rewarded for academic success, but are also rewarded for being rewarded.
Blair Peterson

How We Teach Students to Cheat - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • Are we meant to assume that students who are smart enough to get into Harvard don’t know that? Will the school later offer a course in why it is a bad idea to pour gasoline on a flaming toaster oven?
  • that looking successful is more important than being honest. They cheat because they have been taught, however unwittingly, that it is worth it.
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    "How We Teach Students to Cheat By MICHELLE BLAKE"
Blair Peterson

Educational Leadership:Effective Grading Practices:EL Study Guide - 2 views

  • What do you think the purpose of grading is? Is it to communicate students' academic achievement to students and parents? Is it to motivate students to put forth their best effort? Some combination of both? How might that belief affect your grading practices?
  • If educators' goal is for students to learn, does it matter if it takes some students a little longer than others?
  • What's your current policy on offering redos and retakes? How did you arrive at this policy? Reflecting on the ideas Wormeli and Dueck present, how might you change your policy? If you don't offer retakes, what steps might you take to introduce them in your classes? If you do, what new ideas do you have for making the practice more effective?
Blair Peterson

Quality Homework - A Smart Idea - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • How effectively do children’s after-school assignments advance learning?
  • one-third of parents polled rated the quality of their children’s homework assignments as fair or poor, and 4 in 10 said they believed that some or a great deal of homework was busywork.
  • Here’s how it works: instead of concentrating the study of information in single blocks, as many homework assignments currently do — reading about, say, the Civil War one evening and Reconstruction the next — learners encounter the same material in briefer sessions spread over a longer period of time. With this approach, students are re-exposed to information about the Civil War and Reconstruction throughout the semester.
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  • in a new way: not to assess what students know, but to reinforce it.
  • When we work hard to understand information, we recall it better; the extra effort signals the brain that this knowledge is worth keeping.
  • An interleaved assignment mixes up different kinds of situations or problems to be practiced, instead of grouping them by type. When students can’t tell in advance what kind of knowledge or problem-solving strategy will be required to answer a question, their brains have to work harder to come up with the solution, and the result is that students learn the material more thoroughly.
Blair Peterson

Education Week - 0 views

  • For example, in high school, each subject teacher gets one line to present a letter grade or a number grade (sometimes without any kind of precision or explanation as to what the criteria is) and up to three pre-written comment codes to help explain the grade. Often, these pre-written comments don't have anything to do with quality of work or skill level, but focus on behavior and compliance.
  • happens three times a year in many schools.
  • parent/teacher conferences
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  • In an ideal world, teachers would be empowering students regularly with feedback that isn't aligned with grades but rather with mastery standards, offering multiple opportunities for growth.
  • Here are things we can do differently today:
  • When we think about preparing students for the world we live in, accountability is important, but teaching students to be accountable in a way that works for them that also helps us know where we need to adjust practice to better suit their needs.
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