“I’ll forget the classwork and the homework he’s missed.”

Then how important was any of that to begin with? If it can all be replaced with a single assessment, then why assign it in the first place? Why don’t you just let all of your students wait until the end to pass a single assessment instead of allowing them to bust their butt all semester long, yet earn the exact same grade as the slacker who knows how to do it, but chose to wait until the last minute?

Remember that teacher who does a terrible job and earns the same amount as you do? Remember how pissed off we both are that we work in a system that allows for that? I’d imagine a crop of your students feeling the same way about that kid who got to take a single assessment on each standard and pass the course.

I’m not a fan of finals. I think high school doesn’t need them and they are a relic clung to by the typically sedentary educational community. But I am a fan of sustained effort through the course of a school year. Grades should reflect that.

Dan,

Thanks for a) being transparent with your philosophy of assessment and b) giving us the details of how you implement it. I have a couple of questions that might tend to fit into the “detailed” end of things but hopefully you’ll indulge me.

First, you have frequently mentioned a four-point scale, for each skill category on each assessment. I’m curious whether that’s 4 points for one question, 1 point each for 4 questions, or more likely something in between depending on the specific topic. For example, the triangle congruency problem you included with today’s posting has four parts — enough to give you, the teacher, a decent indication whether the student understands SSS, SAS, etc. sufficiently. Would “problem 9” (your example) be worth those 4 points, toward that concept in the student’s concept checklist?

Second, how do you handle the student who struggles for a fairly long time with a particular concept – while your rolling selection of concepts (in the weekly quiz/test) has moved on? That is, if a student is still stuck on concept “C” but your weekly test is now covering concepts F, G, H, I, and J? You mentioned coming up with a one-question test on the spot – would you handle this situation this way? A variation of my question would be for a student who has missed one or two (or more) weeks’ worth of tests – would you pull out the old ones for her to use one she returns, or come up with new/unique problems?

Hopefully both of my questions make sense – I am extremely interested in converting my own (middle school math) assessment and grading approach next school year. Right now I’m “stuck” in a fairly traditional model with a homework weighing pretty heavily, but I can spend the rest of the current school year and this summer aiming toward a change for ’07-’08.

Again, many thanks for your clarity and transparency, and for a darned well written blog at that – Rich.

He’d fail the course because our report cards are not standards based. Our school has a homework policy; there’s more to a course than standards. I suspect that’s the core of our ongoing philosophical disagreement.

No, not because standards cropped up. Like I said, there’s more to a course than standards. It’s because I believe in teaching a course designed to move a student forward, to increase the amount of knowledge he or she had when entering. Because of the nature of the course, that’s entirely possible and responsible in an English class. It may not be in a math class. “He knows the content of a class.” That doesn’t really apply to English.

Math and English are different in this respect. English has a set of standards for every 2 years, which of course means there are only 2 sets of standards for use at the high school level. There are no clearly defined exit criteria for each year and the standards are nowhere near as specific and demonstrable as math. I can’t apply the standards the same way you do; English standards don’t lend themselves well to finite testing periods or anything remotely resembling a checklist (not a dig, I mean that sincerely). This is the reason I love, and hate, teaching English.

Shelli, I find displaying the kid’s work on the walls of the classroom helps kids remember more of what they have learned. When the kids tune me out and are busy looking around they “accidentally” review the old concepts on the posters, charts graphic organizers, mobiles etc (I’m a great believer in projects) that they have created. Sometimes when I have to share a room, I only have one wall to do this but if it’s my own room then I have all the walls covered. Even high school kids love to see their work up. Sometimes I let them put their own work up and sometimes I put it up. When I do take the work down, the kids really notice. I put up all work, not just the work that got the A. Kids look around and see how to improve their work. How do I know this.? Kids have told me this. I also post giant mind maps that review the unit as we do them. Can’t ya tell I’m a visual, kinesthetic learner. I haven’t figures out what to do for the auditory learner. Maybe we need to write songs and play them as the class comes in and gets settled- I’m only half kidding.