More skills based grading at madison hs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe there weren't standards for grading before. AP classes and IB classes must have recommendations on number and type of assignments and quizzes and tests. Same for previous FCPS classes. How is the new grading compared to these existing systems?

As an AP teacher, no, there is no recommendation. I am a part of several online communities of AP teachers for my subject and the variation in assessment is wild. Some give one quiz/one test per unit. Some never quiz. Some to group quizzes or open note quizzes. Some give a midterm and final. Some do neither. Some assign graded homework, some treat it like a college course where only assessments count.

I am the only teacher at my school who teaches my AP course, so the freedom was both awesome and terrifying the first couple years. Even when I went to AP training and asked about grading, the instructor shrugged and said I could do what I want. Colleagues in class talked about curving methodologies, how to source questions, and we were all over the board. There is no standardization.

The list of topics to be covered is set, but even then a good chunk of teachers say they never made it to the last unit (schools that start in September are at a major disadvantage when the test is early May)

So no, this doesn’t go against AP. (Not saying it’s good/bad, just that it’s not a reason to argue against it)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I asked 1 of the top students at Madison for thoughts on SBG: student said “I think it allows kids to slack off.” I asked a student in the middle for thoughts: “I love it. It allows me to relax and slack off. Every time I see that P and realize it doesn’t count, I just relax because I’m not going to do it.”

From a teacher after some students refused to work: I can’t make them do anything

It seems very logical to me why Madison was chosen as a good candidate for this experiment. Sports is very important to a large portion of students in the school and SBG allows them to focus more of their time there without being penalized for not turning in academic work. One might argue that those students will do badly on tests if they don't put in the effort on the assignments. However, if the curriculum is sufficiently watered down, those students will not necessarily need to do much work to get good grades. Students are happier to have time for their sports, more students who were previously failing get a chance to boost their grades, and the school system can show higher grade achievement across the board.

A significant portion of kids will now be conditioned to not do assigned work and to further believe they have learned a lot because they have gotten a good grade. They will then find in college that not all classes are created equal, and that some classes require doing the homework to attain a sufficient mastery of skills needed to well on the exams. In those classes, cramming or getting a tutor at the last minute will not allow them to attain understanding.

The problem of teaching students the value of work towards achieving a higher level of understanding, is now being passed off to colleges.

You don’t have a clue. Jmhs is NOT watered down and SBG doesn’t make grading easier.

On the contrary, little to no homework in many classes is strong evidence of being watered down.

DP. I don't know about JMHS, but homework is functionally never graded for accuracy. It's supposed to be an opportunity to practice. Keys are available for students to check their work and it's graded on completion (which means that many students just copy the key and don't learn anything anyway until they have to take a quiz or test.
OTOH, I think SBG allows a huge number of retakes (unlimited?) so an enormous amount of extra work for teachers.

Not at my kid's traditional VA school. The teacher rolls a dice before every lesson that decides whether the homework is graded for completion or accuracy.
A flashcard is drawn with the name of a student and that student can set the odds for the dice from 1:5 to 5:1. Kids started the school year mostly going 5:1 for completion, but recently many go 5:1 for accuracy since homework graded for accuracy counts 50% more than homework graded for completion (homework overall still counts for no more than 10%, but even a few points can make the difference between 89 and 91). And BoB provides only about 60% of the answers. An experienced math teacher and an effective system. Your math teacher should try it sometime.

Strange. How is this more accurate than our previous grading system. Grading wasn't something we needed to fix. We need to help kids learn, not play games with grades.

What's strange? This is the previous grading system that's being abolished at Madison.
The previous grading system rewarded effort in all areas: quizzes + timed tests (which account for the majority of the grade), in-class work (a small amount) and a small amount of credit goes to homework. A balanced mix that ensures students get an incentive to participate in all activities in the class and have incentive to put in the homework practice they need to succeed on the quizzes and tests.
To get an A, you need to ace the quizzes, and do the classwork and homework that prepare you for those.

That's a good system. Proven. The new stuff is made up.

Agreed. I was commenting that it was weird to not have a system and just play games like rolling dice whether or not to grade assignments.

To clarify, the rolling dice is whether the homework is graded for completion or for accuracy. It's graded in both cases, but the teacher doesn't have the time to grade all daily homeworks for accuracy.

Where I went to school (different universe) our chemistry teacher would throw a dart at the gradebook to pick the student who was given an oral quiz in the first five minutes of each class (graded for the "victim," review for everyone else). But everyone would prepare for every lecture because the dart could hit them. (Exception near the end of the school year where he would balance out those who didn't get hit earlier.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I asked 1 of the top students at Madison for thoughts on SBG: student said “I think it allows kids to slack off.” I asked a student in the middle for thoughts: “I love it. It allows me to relax and slack off. Every time I see that P and realize it doesn’t count, I just relax because I’m not going to do it.”

From a teacher after some students refused to work: I can’t make them do anything

It seems very logical to me why Madison was chosen as a good candidate for this experiment. Sports is very important to a large portion of students in the school and SBG allows them to focus more of their time there without being penalized for not turning in academic work. One might argue that those students will do badly on tests if they don't put in the effort on the assignments. However, if the curriculum is sufficiently watered down, those students will not necessarily need to do much work to get good grades. Students are happier to have time for their sports, more students who were previously failing get a chance to boost their grades, and the school system can show higher grade achievement across the board.

A significant portion of kids will now be conditioned to not do assigned work and to further believe they have learned a lot because they have gotten a good grade. They will then find in college that not all classes are created equal, and that some classes require doing the homework to attain a sufficient mastery of skills needed to well on the exams. In those classes, cramming or getting a tutor at the last minute will not allow them to attain understanding.

The problem of teaching students the value of work towards achieving a higher level of understanding, is now being passed off to colleges.

You don’t have a clue. Jmhs is NOT watered down and SBG doesn’t make grading easier.

On the contrary, little to no homework in many classes is strong evidence of being watered down.

No, it’s not. Check the grades. Talk to the good students. Don’t just make crap up.

How would you expect students to master material without any significant or non-trivial assignments? By osmosis? They need to learn how to think and work out the details for themselves to master something to some degree. The only good way to do that is to have an opportunity to engage with a set of quality problems on their own time, aka homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe there weren't standards for grading before. AP classes and IB classes must have recommendations on number and type of assignments and quizzes and tests. Same for previous FCPS classes. How is the new grading compared to these existing systems?

As an AP teacher, no, there is no recommendation. I am a part of several online communities of AP teachers for my subject and the variation in assessment is wild. Some give one quiz/one test per unit. Some never quiz. Some to group quizzes or open note quizzes. Some give a midterm and final. Some do neither. Some assign graded homework, some treat it like a college course where only assessments count.

I am the only teacher at my school who teaches my AP course, so the freedom was both awesome and terrifying the first couple years. Even when I went to AP training and asked about grading, the instructor shrugged and said I could do what I want. Colleagues in class talked about curving methodologies, how to source questions, and we were all over the board. There is no standardization.

The list of topics to be covered is set, but even then a good chunk of teachers say they never made it to the last unit (schools that start in September are at a major disadvantage when the test is early May)

So no, this doesn’t go against AP. (Not saying it’s good/bad, just that it’s not a reason to argue against it)

I am an IB teacher, obviously not at Madison but following anyway, and this had been my exact experience for my IB course.

[Anonymous]

Where can I find the Facebook group against SBG?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where can I find the Facebook group against SBG?

It is not up and running yet but will be in a couple of weeks. I will post here when it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe there weren't standards for grading before. AP classes and IB classes must have recommendations on number and type of assignments and quizzes and tests. Same for previous FCPS classes. How is the new grading compared to these existing systems?

As an AP teacher, no, there is no recommendation. I am a part of several online communities of AP teachers for my subject and the variation in assessment is wild. Some give one quiz/one test per unit. Some never quiz. Some to group quizzes or open note quizzes. Some give a midterm and final. Some do neither. Some assign graded homework, some treat it like a college course where only assessments count.

I am the only teacher at my school who teaches my AP course, so the freedom was both awesome and terrifying the first couple years. Even when I went to AP training and asked about grading, the instructor shrugged and said I could do what I want. Colleagues in class talked about curving methodologies, how to source questions, and we were all over the board. There is no standardization.

The list of topics to be covered is set, but even then a good chunk of teachers say they never made it to the last unit (schools that start in September are at a major disadvantage when the test is early May)

So no, this doesn’t go against AP. (Not saying it’s good/bad, just that it’s not a reason to argue against it)

I am an IB teacher, obviously not at Madison but following anyway, and this had been my exact experience for my IB course.

Interesting I thought IB had more structure..sometimes too much of it/lack of flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I asked 1 of the top students at Madison for thoughts on SBG: student said “I think it allows kids to slack off.” I asked a student in the middle for thoughts: “I love it. It allows me to relax and slack off. Every time I see that P and realize it doesn’t count, I just relax because I’m not going to do it.”

From a teacher after some students refused to work: I can’t make them do anything

It seems very logical to me why Madison was chosen as a good candidate for this experiment. Sports is very important to a large portion of students in the school and SBG allows them to focus more of their time there without being penalized for not turning in academic work. One might argue that those students will do badly on tests if they don't put in the effort on the assignments. However, if the curriculum is sufficiently watered down, those students will not necessarily need to do much work to get good grades. Students are happier to have time for their sports, more students who were previously failing get a chance to boost their grades, and the school system can show higher grade achievement across the board.

A significant portion of kids will now be conditioned to not do assigned work and to further believe they have learned a lot because they have gotten a good grade. They will then find in college that not all classes are created equal, and that some classes require doing the homework to attain a sufficient mastery of skills needed to well on the exams. In those classes, cramming or getting a tutor at the last minute will not allow them to attain understanding.

The problem of teaching students the value of work towards achieving a higher level of understanding, is now being passed off to colleges.

You don’t have a clue. Jmhs is NOT watered down and SBG doesn’t make grading easier.

On the contrary, little to no homework in many classes is strong evidence of being watered down.

DP. I don't know about JMHS, but homework is functionally never graded for accuracy. It's supposed to be an opportunity to practice. Keys are available for students to check their work and it's graded on completion (which means that many students just copy the key and don't learn anything anyway until they have to take a quiz or test.
OTOH, I think SBG allows a huge number of retakes (unlimited?) so an enormous amount of extra work for teachers.

Not at my kid's traditional VA school. The teacher rolls a dice before every lesson that decides whether the homework is graded for completion or accuracy.
A flashcard is drawn with the name of a student and that student can set the odds for the dice from 1:5 to 5:1. Kids started the school year mostly going 5:1 for completion, but recently many go 5:1 for accuracy since homework graded for accuracy counts 50% more than homework graded for completion (homework overall still counts for no more than 10%, but even a few points can make the difference between 89 and 91). And BoB provides only about 60% of the answers. An experienced math teacher and an effective system. Your math teacher should try it sometime.

What is BoB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I asked 1 of the top students at Madison for thoughts on SBG: student said “I think it allows kids to slack off.” I asked a student in the middle for thoughts: “I love it. It allows me to relax and slack off. Every time I see that P and realize it doesn’t count, I just relax because I’m not going to do it.”

From a teacher after some students refused to work: I can’t make them do anything

It seems very logical to me why Madison was chosen as a good candidate for this experiment. Sports is very important to a large portion of students in the school and SBG allows them to focus more of their time there without being penalized for not turning in academic work. One might argue that those students will do badly on tests if they don't put in the effort on the assignments. However, if the curriculum is sufficiently watered down, those students will not necessarily need to do much work to get good grades. Students are happier to have time for their sports, more students who were previously failing get a chance to boost their grades, and the school system can show higher grade achievement across the board.

A significant portion of kids will now be conditioned to not do assigned work and to further believe they have learned a lot because they have gotten a good grade. They will then find in college that not all classes are created equal, and that some classes require doing the homework to attain a sufficient mastery of skills needed to well on the exams. In those classes, cramming or getting a tutor at the last minute will not allow them to attain understanding.

The problem of teaching students the value of work towards achieving a higher level of understanding, is now being passed off to colleges.

You don’t have a clue. Jmhs is NOT watered down and SBG doesn’t make grading easier.

On the contrary, little to no homework in many classes is strong evidence of being watered down.

DP. I don't know about JMHS, but homework is functionally never graded for accuracy. It's supposed to be an opportunity to practice. Keys are available for students to check their work and it's graded on completion (which means that many students just copy the key and don't learn anything anyway until they have to take a quiz or test.
OTOH, I think SBG allows a huge number of retakes (unlimited?) so an enormous amount of extra work for teachers.

Not at my kid's traditional VA school. The teacher rolls a dice before every lesson that decides whether the homework is graded for completion or accuracy.
A flashcard is drawn with the name of a student and that student can set the odds for the dice from 1:5 to 5:1. Kids started the school year mostly going 5:1 for completion, but recently many go 5:1 for accuracy since homework graded for accuracy counts 50% more than homework graded for completion (homework overall still counts for no more than 10%, but even a few points can make the difference between 89 and 91). And BoB provides only about 60% of the answers. An experienced math teacher and an effective system. Your math teacher should try it sometime.

What is BoB?

Back Of the Book

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe there weren't standards for grading before. AP classes and IB classes must have recommendations on number and type of assignments and quizzes and tests. Same for previous FCPS classes. How is the new grading compared to these existing systems?

As an AP teacher, no, there is no recommendation. I am a part of several online communities of AP teachers for my subject and the variation in assessment is wild. Some give one quiz/one test per unit. Some never quiz. Some to group quizzes or open note quizzes. Some give a midterm and final. Some do neither. Some assign graded homework, some treat it like a college course where only assessments count.

I am the only teacher at my school who teaches my AP course, so the freedom was both awesome and terrifying the first couple years. Even when I went to AP training and asked about grading, the instructor shrugged and said I could do what I want. Colleagues in class talked about curving methodologies, how to source questions, and we were all over the board. There is no standardization.

The list of topics to be covered is set, but even then a good chunk of teachers say they never made it to the last unit (schools that start in September are at a major disadvantage when the test is early May)

So no, this doesn’t go against AP. (Not saying it’s good/bad, just that it’s not a reason to argue against it)

IB is more structured--there are some required internal and external assessments in addition to the IB exam. My understanding is that external assessments are done in class, graded by the teacher, but sent to an external committee for validation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where can I find the Facebook group against SBG?

It is not up and running yet but will be in a couple of weeks. I will post here when it is.

Is this page still happening?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:no more exceptions and accommodations for kids that have a 504/IEP plan incompatible with test taking.

What?!?!? I'm confused what this means

Yeah, I’m thinking OP has completely misinterpreted it. They can’t deny IEP/504s legally. Lol.

They can't. Call the Office of Special Ed Instruction to double for your school. Don't bother asking your department chair. She's a know-nothing lowlife.

[Anonymous]

It's been 1.5 years from this and I'm still not liking it better. Not a positive.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I know. My kid just got a B on a test - the content wasn’t even being tested. The B grade was because of one question marked wrong even though DC’s answer is right. The teacher has told the students if they question the grade, she will regrade the whole thing and they may end up with lower grade.

We have 2 teachers strictly following SBG and those are the 2 classes where the students are expected to know less (than before SBG - I base this on other DC going through same classes before SBG) and grading is usually 1 thing marked wrong, vague rubric, grade = B. Kids know it’s a joke.

The other teacher we have that loves SBG says a “B or a C is where you should be.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I know. My kid just got a B on a test - the content wasn’t even being tested. The B grade was because of one question marked wrong even though DC’s answer is right. The teacher has told the students if they question the grade, she will regrade the whole thing and they may end up with lower grade.

We have 2 teachers strictly following SBG and those are the 2 classes where the students are expected to know less (than before SBG - I base this on other DC going through same classes before SBG) and grading is usually 1 thing marked wrong, vague rubric, grade = B. Kids know it’s a joke.

The other teacher we have that loves SBG says a “B or a C is where you should be.”

I’d take that B over how DCs math teacher grades. Even if your answer is correct, if you do anything she seems “incorrect” (not writing down a step, a small error in the accompanying graph, etc.) you get a zero for the entire question. The same grade as a kid who left it blank because they didn’t know the math. Grading is basically 100% mastery or nothing.

English is bad, too. No Bs or Ds as options on most rubrics. You get an A, C or F. Anything less than mastery level puts you at a C. In this case, my older kid had the same teacher pre-SBG so I can absolutely see the grade depression and lack of learning system this is causing.