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Thursday, June 6, 2013

Keeping Track of SBG via your INB :)

This year was my first year using Interactive Notebooks (INBs) in my math classes. This year was a pretty rough year overall, but the INBs were one really bright spot in my year. I can't pinpoint why it was a rough year - I mean, I didn't have any major life occurances, but for whatever reason, I just never really meshed with a lot of my students this year. As a result, I was 95% sure that I was going to skip my yearly ritual of asking students for feedback and just close the book on this year and be done. However, at the last minute, I decided against this plan and the student responses actually shocked me. They were overwhelmingly positive, particulary about the notebook. The students loved that we were creating their own personalized textbook that they could keep as a resource forever!

There were some suggestions for how to improve the notebook, and one of them had to do with Standards Based Grading. I have read quite a bit of research on SBG and one piece even detailed how important it was for students to track/graph their grades. As a result, one of their pages in their INB is devoted to keeping track of their scores.

Here was the 2012-13 version:


The idea was that when I handed back a quiz, students would immediately flip to this page, fill in the info at the top with the quiz number and Learning Target (LT), then color in the boxes to indicate their score. When they reassessed, they could color on top of it to see their improvment. This idea did not work as planned, mainly because I wasn't consistent with reminding them to go to this page and also because students struggled to see their improvement.

After feedback from my students and rethinking this idea, here is the 2013-14 version:


This time, I wrote out all of the objectives for the year so that the students could see the year overall without a ton of flipping back and forth. This also has space for them to write an original score (which I'll have them colorcode), and space for the reassessment score. In my AP class, most students only reassess once, so I only put room for one reassessment.

I'm hoping this increased user-friendly-ness will help both my students and myself keep better organized when recording their scores.

How do you have students keep track of their grades?

8 comments:

  1. wow... I love it (and I haven't even enlarged it yet to look it over)

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  2. I was looking through some files and had a very similar thought...only difference was to split it up by unit of study and attach to INB at the beginning of the unit. Good stuff druinok!

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  3. I love it. Can you explain the color coding part of the grades?

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  4. @Scott - Thanks!

    @Pam - I originally was going to separate it by chapter, but it went over 2 pages. This is the inside of a booklet. The front page has info about SBG and my reassessment policy.

    @Kirsten - I grade on a 0-4 scale, so the kids will write in their grades for the quiz. For each grade, they will color it, so a 4 will be purple, 3 will be green, 2 will be yellow, and a 0-1 will be red. That way they know visually which objectives need work.

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  5. I really like the updated grade tracker with all the learning targets spelled out. That could be a great place to see at-a-glance how often an individual kid takes advantage of reassessing and just how much it's helping them.

    I totally want to pick your brain over this. I'll be in touch! :)

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  6. Your blog is so insightful! I am also a math teacher and will be using INB's for the first time. You have provided some great information!

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  7. Love the SBG and next year I'm starting it for my Statistics classes. I would love too "pick your brain" for ideas.
    Just wondering what requirements you have for reassessing (just completing all homework, corrections on previous assessment etc...)?
    Is it only 1 standard at a time?
    How are the students' grades changed (average of 2, the second assessment only, etc...)
    I want students to be prepared the first time around and not think they can always take a re-take. So it's a bit of a balancing act. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

    I give the students at the beginning of the year a grade tracker, but it's only for the total quiz/test grade. I have them draw a line where they would like the max grade (100) and the minimum grade (their min goal). Each assessment, students enter the grade on the tracker sheet and then reflect on why they did well or maybe not so well and what they need to do next assessment. This also allows them to know their overall grade.

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  8. My Algebra Standards chart that I have been using the past couple of years looks similar, except I have 5 boxes for each one, because I make them reassess a few times.

    I am terrible about reminding them to fill in the chart. If you hear about any suggestions, let me know!

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