Not sure where to put this. Perhaps 1 B knowledge of student interests. Even if I can't fit it into the rubric. It has made a huge impact on classroom success and the enjoyment my students have.
Additionally, they have a color coded folder for each person on their team at their table. One student picks up the green folders and takes them to his table for his team. the portfolio is also helpful for having students keep track of their work and grades. Great place for team members to put handouts for their absent team members when there is one in class. I no longer chase kids down who were absent to give them a handout.
Each group is a team and I have rewards for good team effort and behavior. I teach MS so I give students badges (stickers or mailing labels I have printed.) Which they put on their color coded team folders. Who would have thought that students would want something like a sticker, but even 8th graders are thrilled to earn one. I may give a piece of candy for earning several stickers to sweeten the deal. Anyway, when someone on a team acts inappropriately during class, the team gets a zero for the day and needs to have 4 good days to earn their good behavior status. So far, I let them out 30 seconds early. Yes, I trade 30 seconds of class time for 42.5 minutes of attentive cooperation. They feel it is special, particularly when they have lunch next or need locker time. Students don't want their behavior to hold back the other kids special privileges so they behave and monitor each other.
I have the students names printed out in blocks of teams and I color code the names blue, red, yellow, green, manila so I can quickly pick out the team I want to mark off or on. You could use class dojo for this to. I find, picking up a paper and adding a check faster than dojo for this, but I do use CLASS DOJO for discipline in one of my classes.
I use this document for my students to maintain ownership of their own grades. I noticed that students jump to work harder when I gave them a printout and they didn't know what there grade was. This puts the student in charge of their own grades, not the teacher.
Standards of conduct are clear to all students and appear to have been developed with student participation. I felt this was a difficult and unnecessary step, but it was enlightening to read comments from all of my 100 plus students on what classroom behavior prevented them from learning. It was overwhelmingly student talking during instruction and learning time.
"Why Formative Assessments Matter
FEBRUARY 15, 2011
Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum.
But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these?
What Are They?
Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. And if we use them correctly, and often, yes, there is a chance instruction will slow when we discover we need to re-teach or review material the students wholly "did not get" -- and that's okay. Because sometimes we have to slow down in order to go quickly."
Using remind 101 is a great way to communicate with parents and students. It pushes the data to a group and neither one can see each others phone#s. It doesn't allow replies except to get off the list, and you can only send bulk messages. Great for sports teams too!
"One potential unintended effect of punishment techniques is that the target child may feel powerless--a situation that could erode the child's investment in learning. Whenever possible, the teacher should give the student a voice in the design of the behavior management plan. For example, a teacher designing a response-cost program might ask the student to come up with a 'secret' sign that the instructor might use to signal a warning to the student that he is on the verge of having a point deducted from his 'Great Study Behaviors' chart."
LEARNING-FOCUSED provides schools and districts with the best solutions for consistently and pervasively implementing every domain and element of the Danielson evaluation.
Page 19 has some information about involving students in creating a school wide discipline policy. Perhaps these guiding principles could be developed and then implemented in all classrooms and that would cover the requirement in the rubric? It seems like a better method than individual teachers taking a day to develop the system in each class. This may work in an elementary contained classroom level, but when a student has 7 classes?
I exchanged emails with Michael Linsen, the author of "Dream Class"
www.smartclassroommanagement.com and he disagreed with the idea of letting students create the discipline plan, but said that there are ways of involving them which will bring you to the same result if necessary. I highly recommend the book, it changed the way I manage my classroom.
Found this idea online, have students use http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ and make their own group participation rubric and grade each other. Seems to meet: "There is evidence that students contributed to the development of
the criteria and standards." It will be a great way to get them to think about their responsibilities when working in a group.
Analyzing the Effectiveness of an Activity or Assignment
One of the iObservation resources on their site. A series of question s that helps you determine if your activity or assignment was effective
Contrast the way the same skill might be presented in two different disciplines, carefully considering how the learning is scaffolded to cognitively engage students. Grade-level or interdisciplinary teams may find it helpful to complete this tool together.
This rubric (2011) lists each of the domains (1-4) and sub domains (a-f) for each. It also gives Critical Attributes of each one and of Possible examples of distinguished models of implementation. This does not give each individual row of the rubric, but it is a good start.
