Ramblings on Homework and Grading

There are a lot of thoughts rumbling about in my head today and a lot of them have to do with my latest summer #EduRead - Grading Smarter, Not Harder.

A few weeks ago, prior to the AP Reading, @mathteacher24 posted something about this book on Twitter and it reminded me that I had it in my to-be read pile, so why not add it to my summer reading list? :)

Many years ago, I was unhappy with how my class was structured grading wise and started exploring Standards Based Grading (SBG).  For the past 8 years, I've used SBG and been fairly happy with it, but throughout the years, I've become more and more frustrated with some of its shortcomings, so I knew I wanted to do some thinking about assessment this summer.

Last night was our first chat session over Chapter 1 and I really don't have a ton of insights from that chapter because I agreed with almost everything the author said.  I completely agree that grades should be a reflection of the learning objectives and not student behavior.  One part that struck me though was the idea regarding a zero for missing work.  I've never been one to penalize late work but what do you do with students who haven't turned in missing assignments or taken a quiz when the time comes to turn in semester grades?  In the past, I've always changed those to zeros but according to the author, that's the same as a late work penalty because had the student turned in that assignment, the likelihood of earning a zero is probably small and therefore the grade is not an accurate measure of student learning.  One strategy the author suggests is a policy I remember from years ago called ZAP - Zeros Aren't Permitted.  I haven't thought of that strategy in years, so I need to go back and do some refresher research on it.

BUT - then, this morning, I decided to go ahead and read Chapter 2 on Homework.  Oh wow... I definitely need to do some thinking on this one!

I'm pretty sure that Homework is the bane of my existence.  I've tried something new pretty much every year and I'm never fully happy with it.  I haven't graded homework in years, because I believe that homework should be about practice.  Add in other equity issues such as the outside of class difficulties and the fact that not every student needs the same amount of practice and I am still firmly in the "no grade" category.

However - I do feel that there should be an accountability system in place and I've been battling how to handle this all summer.  Over the past few years with SBG, I've noticed fewer and fewer students are doing the assigned practice problems and I take a lot of responsibility for that.  I have done a poor job of connecting practice and assessment and helping students build the necessary study skills to help them find success.  I take it for granted that students know that doing their HW should help them to be more successful on the assessments.  Because I don't grade the HW, nor do I hold students accountable for doing the HW, I think many students have taken that to mean that I don't value the HW as a learning tool, which is far from the truth. 

So while reading Chapter 2, I run across Strategy #1 of In-Class Quizzing, which has several bullet points talking about students tracking their own progress and teachers using homework-completion data as formative assessment, which led me to throw down this tweet:

Here's my current thought...

• In my table folders, students already have a weekly exit ticket sheet that they are used to.  Sometimes this is a question to be worked for feedback, sometimes it is a written response, etc.  What if I modified this form to have 2 spots per day - a HW reflection and an exit ticket area?
• The HW reflection would be part of their warmup time and students would self-assess on a Likert scale how much of the HW they had attempted and a couple of short reflection questions, something to potentially open up a personal discussion about problems they attempted, where they struggled, etc. If they didn't do it, they could put in why as well - it's not punitive, just for documentation
• Off to the side of the paper, I would have an area to write comments or go around to spot-check / stamp their self-assessment, etc.  

Anything else that you can think of???

As I mentioned above, I've not done a great job of connecting practice and assessment and the next strategy in Ch 2 talks about a Homework Profile.  (You can read more about it over at ASCD)

Pretty much I envision a test / quiz reflection form that looks something like this:

Corresponding to each box would be the descriptors from the ASCD link.  I'm thinking this might be a great post-quiz reflection tool to help my students really see the value of WHY they should do the practice.  Also on this form might be an error analysis to help them make a study plan which leads into the reassessments. 

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading :)  I just had to get some thoughts down on "paper" and as always, I value your comments.  Please feel free to push back in the comments here or catch me on Twitter.  

Brain Dump - Thinking about Assessment...

Warning:  This post may ramble a bit.. I needed to do a brain dump to organize my thoughts :)

For the past five years, I've been concerned about assessment in my classroom.  In the summer of 2010, the MTBoS really helped me with transitioning to Standards Based Grading and in general, I haven't tweaked that process much over the years since because I've been pretty happy with my system.  However, I still have concerns about student retention, so in more recent years, I've been focused on formative assessment and making thinking visible, but I'm really excited to see how the changes that I'm mulling over for this year will impact student learning.

The Background
At the AP Reading a few weeks back, Daren Starnes (one of the authors of The Practice of Statistics), gave a Best Practices talk on student learning and referenced the book Make It Stick by Peter Brown, calling it one of the most influential books of his career.  Two other Best Practices talks referenced assessment - one was about Multiple Choice Mondays and the other, by Adam Yankay and Jared Derksen, referenced Standards Based Grading.  

When I Got Home:

After spending over a week with 800 of my closest statistics friends, I was really interested in doing more research on the assessment practices shared during the week.  During my research, I ran across a Global Math Department (GMD) talk by Adam Yankay that also referenced Make It Stick, so I knew that book had to join my library ASAP.  I quickly downloaded the Kindle version and set up a plan with my Twitter Book Club pals to keep me accountable.  (If you would like to join us, check out #EduRead on twitter)  

My Tentative Plan:

I think the major shift for me will be restructuring my first and last 5 minutes of class.  In Make It Stick, one of the key items is about retrieval and how that ties in to retention.  The use of quizzes to practice retrieval has been shown in several research studies, which is part of Adam's discussion above.  Also, in the book Accessible Mathematics, Steve Leinwand encourages daily skills check/quizzes in the first 5 minutes, with the argument that 5 minutes x 180 days of instruction = 900 minutes or 15 hours of gained instruction of basic skills.  With all of that said, here's my thought:

• Multiple Choice Mondays - I really like the idea of an organized structure that my students can expect.  With MC Mondays, they would have 5 questions that spiral through the curriculum, which would be part of the "interleaving" mentioned in Make It Stick.  I'm not sure yet if I want these to be individual, pairs, or groups.  I like group MC because of the good conversations that occur.  In the Best Practices talk, the speaker mentioned that she usually puts one of these questions on the weekly quiz as well.
• Weekly Skills Check - This idea is mainly from Adam's talk and would consist of right vs wrong, "Level 1" retention questions.  The goal would be to automate some of the basic skills so that students have a stronger knowledge base on which to build.  These would be questions like identifying the sampling method, which confidence interval to use, interpretation of r^2, writing a regression line from computer output, etc.  This would also spiral throughout the curriculum, which again promotes retention.
• Exit Tickets - I've used exit tickets (and other formative assessments) on a regular basis, but usually my exit tickets were more reflective in nature.  I'm thinking that these need to be more skills-check-type assessments over that day's lesson just to see how well students grasped the big ideas of the day. 

These aren't huge ideas nor are they major instructional shifts, but I'm really thinking that they could pack a big bang over the course of the year.  

What are strategies you use to promote retention in your classes?  What would you add to the above thoughts?

#Made4Math - Reassessment Request

Happy Labor Day!!!

This is a late post for me because I spent the day with my family, leaving the house this morning before 8am and just now getting home. I hope all of you had an amazing holiday weekend and ready for a great start to September!

My project this week deals with Reassessments. I haven't been really happy with how I did reassessments in AP Statistics, but I strongly believe in SBG, so I needed to find a way to make it work for me. On the way to work last week, I had a brainstorm... how about a menu-type system? I had the opportunity to bounce the idea with the other AP Stat teacher after school on Friday and together we were able to come up with a Reassessment Request that we are happy with.

Here's the finished product:

The students will fill out the form for each Learning Target they wish to reassess and show their work on this paper. Then, they bring this paper in to me and I will give them the reassessment for that objective. I'm really eager to see if this works better than what I've tried in the past :)

Your turn! What did YOU do for your classroom this week? Head on over to the Made4Math blog to see the other submissions!

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?

How I did SBG in AP Stat

During the summer of 2010, I started hearing about Standards Based Grading (SBG) via blogs and twitter. Throughout that summer, our twitter bookclub read two of Marzano's books on the subject. That fall, I was ready to run with Algebra 2, but the thought of doing SBG in AP really scared me. The main reason I was scared was that Algebra 2 is more skills based than AP Stat and I didn't know how to make that turn.

Where do I even start??
Well, obviously, as with any standards based idea, you start with the standards. :) However, most standards documents are pretty scary themselves. If you've ever read some of the research on the standards, you may have seen discussions about unpacking the standards and the idea that if we were to really teach every skill implied in the standards, we would need around 10 more years of primary/secondary schooling. Wowzers!!!

Thankfully, the College Board does a good job of providing us a Course Description with all of the topics we need to teach, but it's still pretty intimidating. As an AP teacher, you've also had to submit a syllabus to the College Board outlining how to you plan to teach said standards. As an aside, please let me say that I would have never felt comfortable doing SBG during my first year in a subject without some major guidance simply because you're learning the curriculum too. Please don't misunderstand me. My first year in Algebra 2, I knew the mathematical material, but I was still learning how to teach it, what was truly important, what my state expected, what my district expected, etc.

Okay, so it's time to start.... I have my course description and my textbook in front of me. I use BVD 3rd edition, but honestly since the course description is the same for all of us, everyone could use pretty close to the same standards list and just reorder them according to your textbook. Some textbooks do have some extra thoughts, like in BVD, Chapter 2 is about the "Ws of the data", so that might be on some people's standards list and not others. That's okay! So I started with the first chapter, which is Chapter 2 in BVD and read through it and asked myself, "Self, what are the big ideas in this chapter that I want the students to know how to do?" The answers to that question for each chapter became my standards list. As I wrote each standard, I cross checked it with the Course Description in order to make sure I had everything covered. When writing your standards, it is important to write them general enough that you can have a variety of questions, but not too broad that everything fits under that umbrella.

To give you an idea, here's my standards for the first two chapters:
2.1 - I can identify the W's of the data in a given scenario
3.1 - I can calculate percentages based on a contingency table
3.2 - I can find the marginal and conditional distributions
3.3 - I can create and use a segmented bar chart to describe the distribution and dependence of two categorical variables

I have the standards... now what?
Now that I know the main topics in each chapter and I've checked them off my course description, I'm ready to write my assessments. If you've taught the course before, then I suggest you take the quiz or test you had for that chapter/unit, cut it apart into individual questions, then sort the questions by objective. More than likely, you will find that some objectives were previously over-assessed, some were under-assessed, and some were just flat out missing. Or maybe that's just what I found when I looked at my tests! :) Anyway, the actual assessment part of SBG isn't that much different, it's the score reporting that is the major change.

So I need to write an assessment for Learning Target (LT) 2.1. I look at the quizzes/tests I used before and my resources (textbook, teachers guide, self-written, etc) and I pull together a mini-quiz just over that learning target. In my case, LT 2.1 had only 1 question that asked the students to identify the Ws and to classify the variables and quantitative and categorical. Note that I did not have a separate LT for quant vs categorical but that was a personal preference - some people may want that separate. Some Learning Targets have more than 1 question, it depends on the complexity of the objective.

Obviously a great source of assessment problems are the AP questions themselves. Now that you have your standards written, I would strongly suggest taking all of the released AP FR and classifying each part (a, b, c) by standard. For example, Question #1 on this year's Operational exam asked students to describe the association of a scatterplot and identify certain points. I will use Q#1a this year as part of my assessment of LT 7.1 - I can identify explanatory and response variables and create/describe a scatterplot. Obviously Q#1a, as written, only addresses the description part of my LT, so there would be other questions on that assessment addressing the other parts. Potentially I could even deconstruct the AP problem into its raw data set and then all of that LT will be covered by the same stem.

I wrote my assessments, how do I grade it??
In previous years, I assigned each problem or part of problem a certain number of points. I added up all of the earned points and that was written at the top of the quiz. Johnny made a 15/20.. Suzy made a 13/20... Billy made a 9/20, etc. The problem with that is that I don't know if Billy knew a little bit about every objective or did he know one objective pretty well and nothing on the others? It doesn't give me any real feedback to help guide my instruction and review. With SBG, you give separate grades for each standard so you can see that Suzy knew Objective A really well, kind of knew Objective B, and had no clue at all on Objective C. Now the teacher, student, and parent all know exactly what topics Johnny, Suzy, and Billy need to work on in order to be successful.

At the top of every quiz is a box with the Learning Targets being assessed on that particular assessment:

When I'm grading, I color code. So anything that pertains to LT 3.1 will be in a certain color and that's the color I will use to write the grade for LT 3.1. When assigning grades, I use a system very similar to the AP rubrics. Each problem or part of a problem for LT 3.1 gets an E/P/I, then I tally them up to assign a 4/3/2/1/0 for each Learning Target.

How do I convert a 4/3/2/1/0 to a grade in my class?
Ask this question of 10 teachers using SBG and you will get 10 different answers. Each of us have constraints placed upon us based on required gradebooks, etc. When I first started SBG, I also had some constraints due to the online gradebook we used. To work around it, I ended up thinking about what grade I thought each level meant. I also have to put in each learning target as an 'assignment' but with my gradebook, if I put a 2 out of 4, it looks like a 50% which flips out the parents. So I had to work around it as well. Here's what I did:

A 4, for me, means that you have this concept down solidly with no mistakes. You know exactly what you are doing and so in the gradebook I assign it a 10/10

A 3.5 means that you have a really solid foundation, but it's not perfect, you had a minor error. This is still A work though, so I assign it a 9/10

A 3 means that you are pretty proficient. You are a solid B, so I assign it an 8.5/10

A 2 means that you are working on it and are almost there. You have a basic knowledge, which to me is a low C, so I assign it a 7/10

A 1 means that you are on the right path but are below basic. AP readers will refer to this as a "glimmer". This is low D, so I assign it a 6/10

A 0.5 means that you attempted the problem but really had no clue really what to do, but you gave it an honest effort. This is F work, I assign it a 5/10

A 0 means that you totally left it blank and didn't even try it. This
is a 0/10 in the computer gradebook

Now recognize that everyone assigns grades differently. Some people really struggle with the idea of a 0.5 or a 0. Sorry :) It's what worked for me, but you'll need to find what works for you.

What's this reassessment junk I keep hearing about?
This is probably the one thing that I hear the most about in opposition to SBG. But honestly, it all comes down to your philosophy. For me, I want the kids to learn the material. I'm assessing their knowledge of the AP Statistics concepts and I recognize that different students learn at different rates. I want my students to keep working on the material until they understand it, not just work on it until some test date that I assign and then ignore it after that. If they don't know how to compare and contrast two distributions, then I want them to continue working on that objective until they can do it. Maybe Student A caught on quickly but Student B took a few days longer. Why should Student B be penalized for not being as quick as Student A on this topic? Anyway... moving off my soapbox...

Prior to a quiz, students do assignments, study, etc, just like they do in a traditional classroom. However, in my classroom, when students actually sit down to take a quiz, they have a pretty good idea most of the time of the Learning Targets they were clueless on. So they can immediately start working to remediate those LTs. In my class, remediation takes several forms. Students could work additional practice problems, watch a video and take notes on it, read their book and take notes, rework their quiz, etc. Ultimately, the kiddos have to show me they have put in some effort to work on their weaknesses. If they can prove to me that they have learned the material they didn't know before, then I allow them to reasses any Learning Target of the semester. Does this sometimes lead to "grade grubbing?" Yes. But since I believe that grades should reflect knowledge, then it really comes down to "If you want to improve your grade, you must improve your knowledge". Don't be fooled though - while my reassessments cover the same Learning Target, they are NOT the same questions nor are they necessarily at the same level of difficulty, so students can do worse on the reassessment than they did on the original. And yes, that reassessment grade does go into the gradebook, even if it's worse. But never fear, you can remediate some more and reassess again! :)

What do kids think of this? Parents? Admin?
Honestly, they love it. The kids love knowing exactly where they stand. They don't ask for Extra Credit because they know I won't give it - but I will give them the opportunity to show me what they know and adjust their grade accordingly. Parents love it for the same reason. They know exactly what their kids need to work on and it has simplified the parent communication process. No child has to fail my class unless they are simply unwilling to work. Conversely, if you earn an A in my class, that indicates you really know the material. My Admin loves it too because student grades really reflect student knowledge, not the ability of the student to turn in things on time or jump through hoops.

What about assignments and tests and that kind of stuff?
I still give assignments, I still give feedback on assignments, but I don't generally grade everything. In fact, one fallacy of teaching that I believe prior to SBG was "If I don't grade it, they won't do it". Sorry, but in my experience this is a lie. My students work hard every day and I rarely take it up. Sometimes I will ask for them to turn it in so I can give feedback, but in general, kids recognize that while they aren't getting a grade on this assignment, it is related to a Learning Target and they will get a grade for that LT eventually. As for tests, it depends. In Alg2, they don't have a formal test until the final exam. In AP, I give cumulative MC tests every 6 weeks. Sometimes in AP, they will have a project instead of a Learning Target quiz.

This sounds like a LOT of work!
It is. It is a change in philosophy, it is a change from the traditional, comfortable style to the unknown. Honestly, most of the "work" was mental. Figuring out how I wanted to tackle it, how I wanted to grade it, how I wanted to report it. The actual writing of the quizzes was no more time consuming than writing traditional quizzes/tests and the grading actually goes faster. Because you are grading on an E/P/I scale, you don't have to stress over the partial credit points in a traditional grading scheme.

It was and still is a learning process. While I tried to simplify it here for you, it's still something that I learn more every day. It has definitely helped my students become more independent learners and for that I'm very grateful. It is something I plan to keep around :)

Your Turn!
I tried to answer all of the questions I've been asked lately, but I'm sure I forgot something - please let me know in the comments any other questions you have.

Sorry for such a long post :)

Using SBG in AP Stat

Last year I implemented SBG in Algebra 2 and loved it. However, I just could not wrap my head around how to implement it in AP Stat, so I spent a lot of time this past year thinking on how I could make it work. This is more of a mind-dump of ideas than a complete plan - a way of getting my thoughts down on paper and put it out there so that I can analyze it further.

This Past Year
For SY 2010-11, grading in AP was pretty traditional for me. I had three categories in my gradebook - Tests/Quizzes (65%), Assignments (20%), and Final Exam (15%). The Assignments Category contained pretty everything that wasn't a test or quiz. This included weekly AP MC practice, POWs (Problem of the Week AP problems), worksheets, labs, etc.

Tests and Quizzes
I already set up my Learning Targets (LTs) and provided them on my assignment sheets for each unit over this past year. (See Unit 3 HERE). I think each LT Quiz will cover 2-3 LTs. Where I struggle here is how to set up the LT Quiz. In Alg2, each LT has 3 problems (basic, average, and advanced levels), and I don't know how well that will work out with AP. I'm thinking maybe a MC question and then two FR questions. Of course, the layout will be different than the current Alg2 layout, allowing a question stem to be used for multiple LTs. I would still use a 4 point scale for each LT, like I do in Alg2. I think Unit Tests would pretty much stay the same as they are currently are, with a MC and a FR section, with the grade being a traditional test grade. This would allow the quizzes to be more skills based and assessed, whereas the tests would be more summative.

Remediation and Reassessment
This past year, students could retake a different form of a quiz *if* they provided proof of remediation, which was the practice problems on the assignment sheet for that chapter. They could also make test corrections if they did at least one problem from each objective on the assignment sheet. For the most part, I liked this plan. This next year, it would roughly stay the same, but to reassess a Learning Target, they would have to work the problems specific to that LT, rather than the entire chapter. For test corrections, they would still have to do at least one problem from each LT, PLUS have completed the Unit's Summary Sheets (see Unit 3 HERE)

Issues I need to figure out

• What percentage breakdown do I want to use for Tests, LT Quizzes, Assignments, and Final Exam? The Final is district mandated to be at least 15%.
  
• Actual AP questions often cover multiple topics. While I could edit them for the LT quizzes to only include the current objectives, I would like to have that cumulative element. This could be a reassessment opportunity, but with only one data point, how would I grade it on a rubric? Maybe those "mixed-bag" style questions should be on the summative tests, not the quizzes?
  
• What to do about the Assignments category? I could leave a small percentage of the grade devoted to this category. In Alg2, their grade is purely assessments, and all of their assignments are non-graded, feedback only. I'm not sure I'm ready to go there in AP just yet. I do see value in the items placed in this category, but would not want them in either assessment category since a lot of it is lab investigations, partner work, etc. The other issue with this category is anything that isn't done in class has the potential to not be turned in on time, which leads us down that "late work" rabbit hole.
  
• Should the tests be unit based (like they currently are), or time based (like every 6 weeks)? I like unit based tests because things seem so neatly packaged, but I worry that that last chapter being quizzed won't be graded/returned/processed/remediated/reassessed prior to the unit test date. I like the idea of every 6 weeks (covering LTs up to Chapter X), but worry it might feel awkward and not flow well, but theoretically would give that cumulative element needed in preparation for the AP exam in May.
  
• One of my biggest issues is that I'm a pretty slow grader in AP. With Alg2, I almost always had their quizzes back to them the next day, sometimes it took two days, but rarely more than that. With AP, there is so much reading that you have to do that it really bogs down the process.
  

New idea for next year One thing I've done for several years is a weekly POW that is a previous AP problem. I take these up on Friday and provide feedback and an AP score. This has worked fairly well for years, with the exception of a few kids here or there not getting them turned in, etc. This year, however, I had one class that was the class from hell when it came to turning these in. Seriously, out of 20 kids, it was pretty common to have less than half of the class turn it in. This really pissed me off, especially since they were assigned on Tuesday, given 10 minutes to work with their partner to read, discuss, and sketch out a solution, then 3 days until it was due in final format. After some thought and an "a-ha" moment earlier this summer, I think I am going to do two things to hopefully fix this problem. First, I am going to do daily warmups that consist of parts of AP problems. I can give up a few minutes a day to have the kids write a solution to a part of an AP problem. Then, I will either provide the scoring guideline to the class for whole-class feedback or sometimes take them up for more individualized feedback. Second, on a regular basis (maybe once a month?), we will have an AP quiz with maybe 4 AP problems and they have to choose 3 to completely answer and I'll grade it using the rubrics. I'm not sure where these will fit in my grading scheme yet though :) Wrapping it up
I don't have the details all ironed out, but overall, I think this is a plan I can live with for a year while I refine it. I think this provides me the detail I want on the individual objectives while still maintaining the big picture/integrated structure needed in Statistics. Now that I've identified the big issues and concerns that I have, I think I will be able to work on strategies to fix those issues. As always, I appreciate any feedback and questions to help me guide my thinking.

SBG - Reflections on SY 2010/11

Last summer was a changing point for me as an educator. Fed up with my then method of grading, irritated at the "points-game" that my students played, and a lack of consistency in grading amongst teachers led me to reach out to the twitter/blog-o-sphere to build a better mouse trap. As a result, I became drunk on the Standards Based Grading (SBG) Kool-aid and I'm so glad I did.

If you go back and read the posts from last summer, you will see a lot of uncertainity in my posts as I tried to figure out how to best implement SBG in my classroom. Now that a full year has gone by, I want to provide some information on implementation, what worked for me and what didn't, and how I plan to modify it for next year.

Disclaimer #1: I only did SBG in my Algebra 2 classes and I'm still working out the details on how to implement in my AP classes for this upcoming year

Disclaimer #2: I am writing this post with the assumption you are already familiar with the basics of SBG. If not, I would definitely recommend Robert Marzano's Classroom Assessment and Grading that Works. A lot of my ideas are borrowed from his research.

How SBG works in my classroom...
At the beginning of a chapter, students are provided with an assignment sheet (Click HERE) which has a list of Learning Targets (LTs) and practice problems for each LT. In general, the LTs were from the lesson objectives of my textbook, but I did sometimes combine or even eliminate smaller objectives. For each LT, I broke down the traditional assignment from the textbook to 5 or so problems per LT, trying as hard as I could to provide a range of difficulty for each LT. I also tried to select odd problems so the students would have access to the answers in their textbook.

After 2-3 lessons (roughly 4-5 LTs), we would have a quiz over the material. Each LT had 3 problems, the first one was fairly straightforward and basic, the second problem was of average difficulty, and the third problem was of more advanced difficulty, often asking them to apply their knowledge in a new way or combining multiple skills. (Click HERE to see a sample quiz). Each LT was graded as a C (for Correct), P (for Partial), or I (for Incorrect). The C/P/I's were then combined for a rubric scale grade for each LT, with the more advanced problem's score weighing a bit heavier than the basic problem's score. I used a 4 point rubric, which I then converted to a 10 point "gradebook" grade due to limiations with my district gradebook.

In general:
CCC = 4 = 10/10 - You totally have this concept mastered!
CCP = 3.5 = 9/10 - You are almost there, just a minor error (usually a sign issue!)
CCI = 3 = 8.5/10 - You've got a pretty good grasp on the material
CPP = 2.5 = 8/10
CII = 2 = 7/10 - You have a basic understanding of the material
PPP = 1.5 = 6.5/10
PPI = 1 = 6/10 - There is a glimmer of knowledge of the concept
III = 0.5 = 5/10 - You have no clue, but you gave a valid effort
--- = 0 = 0/10 - You left it blank or no valid effort
**Note, not all combinations of C/P/I are listed... this is just a general guideline of what I did. Sometimes a CPP was a 3 depending on the strength of the Partial.

The night of a quiz, I went home and graded them, then recorded them in my gradebook on the 0-4 scale. I kept a paper gradebook (Blank copy HERE) because I wanted to keep track of student scores and reassessments, plus we don't have online access to our gradebooks at home :) Each square in the gradebook is large enough to write several scores, so it worked well for me. (See Sample GB HERE)Probably the most difficult thing for me was that I've always been a slow grader so I really didn't know how well I would do at getting quizzes back the next day. However, after a few quizzes, I was amazed at how speedy it was to grade, and so it wasn't the dreaded chore that it had been in the past.

The next day I handed the students back their quizzes. On the first few quizzes, I took the time to re-explain the system and what the rubric score meant. I really think that the time I took to model and explain the SBG system paid off in more ways than I could have expected. In the past, students had looked at their overall grade and then thrown their quiz away (or in their backpack, never to see the light of day again). However, with SBG, students really took the time to read the feedback, do an error analysis, check with a buddy to compare methods of solving, and rarely did I find a quiz in my trash can or recycle bin. In fact, most students kept their quizzes in their binders, in numerical order and even in May, they were able to produce quizzes from the fall semester when they were asked to. I had *never* had that happen in the past!

After the students received their quizzes, we discussed as a class what it meant to remediate and reassess. We talked about their score was a reflection of the mastery they had demonstrated, and if they felt their mastery had improved, then they needed to come in to demonstrate that improvement to me. On my podium was a weekly sign-up sheet (Click HERE for a blank copy) for students to schedule reassessments. I only allowed reassessments on three days of the week so I would have some off time for tutoring, meetings, etc. We also have a built in Advisory period on Thursdays that students could come in, but since I already had 20 Advisory students, I limited reassessments to the first 10 students that signed up.

When a student showed up for reassessment, they had to provide me proof of remediation. The idea behind this was that I didn't want them wasting my time or theirs on reassessment if they had not put any effort into mastering the material. Initially, I had planned that their remediation would be the practice problems from the assignment sheet, but as the year went on, that idea was modified to include an error analysis of their quiz, notes/problems worked with a tutor, etc. Overall, I was pleased with how students handled their remediation. As the year progressed, you could definitely see the students taking more control of their learning as they decided the amount and type of remediation they needed to do in order to master the material. We did have a few big rules regarding reassessment - the students could only do the LTs from a single quiz during a single session, and they could not received tutoring and reassess during the same session. These rules helped us keep our sanity and helped with the short-term memory issue :)

The Lessons We Learned
I was really shocked and amazed at how easy parent communication became with SBG. Since their grades were totally based on quizzes, there were no discussions on extra credit, turning things in late, etc. The gradebook was laid out in a very clear manner about their student's level of mastery per objective, so most parent questions were easily addressed.

At first, I was really dreading the actual grading, but I quickly adapted and overall I ended up with less to grade, yet able to provide my students with more specific and detailed feedback about what they knew or didn't know. I was also able to grade much faster, which let me have more time for planning interesting lessons.

In our original design, we had planned to continue with traditional chapter/unit tests, but this quickly went by the wayside. Part of this was a time issue, part of it was keeping all of the terminology straight, and part of it was just that traditional tests didn't seem to fit in well. We ended up going to just quizzes, which were every 5-8 class days and it worked out just fine in the end.

Definitely have a partner to try this with! If I had gone at it alone, I would have bombed out early just from being overwhelmed. However, I had spent most of last summer reading, researching, blogging, tweeting, discussing SBG before I ever stepped into my classroom. Having Neighbor Teacher there to try it with me, to help shoulder the responsibilities of writing quizzes, coming up with LTs and Practice Problems, asking advice while scoring a quiz was simply invaluable.

Changes for Next Year
One change I would definitely like to make for next year is an easier way for students to keep track of their scores. The assignment sheet has boxes for this, but I wasn't very good at insisting that students write their original score and their reassessment scores in those boxes. I need to look at some of the other blogs to see what they do for student recording.

I would also like to look into using tiered remediation. In other words, if you scored a 3.5, you only had a single minor error, so you don't need to do as much remediation as a person that scored a 0.5. I'm not sure that I could keep up with this paperwork, but I did have a few kids that did the minimum amount for remediation and then were shocked when their reassessment still wasn't very good!

Would I do it again?
Heck yeah! This was a long process but SO worthwhile. I've grown professionally through this process and I don't regret a minute of it. I just hope that this record of my journey helps someone out there as they start sipping the Kool-aid :)

SBG: The Actual Implementation

For those of you who have read back a few posts, you know that my summer was spent researching Standards Based Grading (SBG). After lots of thought-provoking discussions both here and via my Twitter PLN, I kept creeping closer and closer to the final plan that I would actually implement once students arrived.

On the first day of school, I avoided any serious talk of syllabi, grading, etc, and instead chose to do some math. In Algebra, this was a "Graphing Stories" activity, while in Statistics, we looked at the court case of Kristen Gilbert, an "Angel of Death" nurse. The next day, though, it was time to get to the district required stuff - syllabus, pre-test, handing out textbooks, etc. In Algebra 2, I discussed SBG, but they really didn't get it much then. I told the Alg2 kiddos that we would have a quiz on Monday and it was material they would be held accountable for, even though I did not teach it. I handed each student an Assignment Sheet that listed Chapter 1's objectives and practice problems for each objective. I told them the quiz on Monday would cover Lessons 1.1-1.3 (a total of 5 objectives), so I would suggest they look over those practice problems over the weekend for those objectives.

The, Monday came... I gave my Alg2 classes a quiz over 1.1-1.3 and also went into more detail on how SBG worked. Each objective had it's own section on the quiz and had 3 problems of varying degrees of difficulty. I explained that if there was a section they struggled on, they could remediate and reassess. That night was a shock to my system though! It took me 5 hours to grade 58 quizzes!!! I went through first and marked all of the perfectly correct problems with a C and then then back through the others with more detail. It was a time consuming process to say the least! One thing I discovered was that either their arithmetic skills are lacking or they are very careless, because there were a LOT of minor errors! On Tuesday, I handed back the quizzes and explained to the students what the scale (0-4) meant and how it would show up on the online gradebook. Pretty much, here's an idea of how the scale works:

4 = 100% correct on all three questions = 10/10 in GB
3.5 = all three correct, but with single minor error = 9/10 in GB
3 = two questions correct, or all three w/ multiple minor errors = 8.5/10 in GB
.
.
.
0.5 = no questions correct, but valid attempt made = 5/10 in GB
0 = no attempt at all = 0/10 in GB

When I handed them back, I had the students write their scores on their assignment sheet, and then went over this scale, I explained that they could reassess any skill they wanted to, BUT, they had to show proof of remediation first. They could bring in their completed practice problems, they could go to a tutor and bring back proof, they could do a variety of things, but they had to show me that they worked on that objective before I would allow them to reassess.

Thankfully, my "Partner in Crime" - the teacher next door that is just an amazing person to work with - is trying SBG with me, so we sat down and ironed out some more details after seeing how long this process had taken. We recognized right away that we would need to have some rules in place to keep ourselves sane if we were to do this all year. Here's some of the guidelines we came up with:

• Show remediation/HW when you appear for reassessment. If seeing a tutor, the tutor must sign off (with date) on your remediation work/notes.
  
• Students can’t get tutoring and reassessment during the same session. (We don't want students storing info into short term memory)
  
• Reassessment days are limited to Mondays and Wednesdays before and after school and during Homeroom period, all by appointment.
  
• Appointments must be made 24 hours in advance, and you must let us know which LT's you plan to reassess.
  
• In one session, only LTs from the same quiz may be reassessed.
  
• LTs should be reassessed in a timely manner, typically within one or two weeks of original quiz return.
  

After handing back their quizzes, I taught the first official lesson of Alg2 - solving absolute value equations. The next day, I gave a "Checkpoint" of 2 abs value equation questions. When students completed the Checkpoint, they raised their hand and I picked up their paper. As a class, we then worked the problems together so kids would immediately know how well they did. We also talked about if they struggled on the checkpoint, that was a key indicator to them that they needed to make sure and practice on that objective. Then, that night, I looked over the Checkpoints and wrote feedback on them (not a grade) so that students would have a permanent record to refer back to. This process continued for several days and then it was time for another quiz. The quiz over Lessons 1.4-1.6 had 4 objectives plus a Previous Knowledge section. Each of the 4 objectives had 3 questions each and graded by the above scale. The PK section also had 3 questions, one each from 3 separate objectives from the previous quiz. The PK section is not reported in the gradebook, it is only for information. After quizzing, we continued on to Chapter 2 and instead of giving traditional tests per chapter, we plan to test periodically over a chunk of learning targets. We want the studets to get away from the idea of "this chapter is over, we tested on it, now we can forget it".

That brings us to now - this week we will be testing for the first time and as part of that, will be teaching the students HOW to study for a math test. Overall, this process has been rewarding, but a lot more time-consuming than I had anticipated. I have really liked being able to see where students have struggled specifically, and it's been interesting that almost every student has had at least one objective that they did very well in. Before, that success would have been hidden in the overall score. I've also appreciated the feedback from the parents and students when they see their scores and knowing what exactly it is they need to work on. There are still a few kinks to work out (especially in terms of time needed to grade), but I'm getting there :)

Now, off for a pedi and relaxation time! Have a great day :)

Methods leading to Madness :)

**This was an email that I sent to one of the instructional coaches at my school for feedback and realized that it would be good here too - feel free to tell me what you really think in the comments :) **

Dear Instructional Coach,

I sent you a message a while back about how I would like to change my assessment practices. I am currently doing an online book study for Classroom Assessment and Grading that works by Marzano and next week we will start Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading, also by Marzano. I have a pretty good understanding on the big ideas, but some of the detail issues still are evading my grasp :)

Ultimately, I believe an overall grade should reflect what a student has learned over the year, NOT how successful they were at accumulating points. Current practices are broken in that a student that understands the concepts but refuses to jump through the paperwork hoops "fails" the course and a student that has no clue but turns things in on time "passes" the course - that is just wrong in so many ways :( Also, I want my grading practices to be able to tell me exactly what a student does or does not know, broken down *by topic*. So there's where I am right now :)

I am pretty much contemplating two methods as of now... both are 100% assessment models and I would appreciate your thoughts if you have the time :)

**Note** In neither of these models does "homework" or "assignments" count in the grade. Students would still be expected to do warmups, homework, classwork, etc, but these are all ungraded categories. Ungraded can still mean that I take it up, look at it, write feedback/suggestions/comments on it, it just won't be assigned a numerical value in my gradebook.

Method #1 (Hybrid model)
Quizzes = 35%, Chapter/Unit Tests = 50%, Semester Final = 15%

Method #2 (More of a pure model)
Quizzes/Tests = 80%, Semester Final = 20%

In both methods, students would be provided with a list of learning targets for a chapter. Lessons would be taught as usual, although many opportunities for formative assessment would be provided through partner work, exit tickets, checkpoints (aka HW quizzes), but these would be ungraded opportunities. After a few lessons, a quiz would be given over the previous learning targets, with the grade broken down per target. Each learning target would have 3 levels of questions on the quiz (similar to the 3 levels of questions by Costa). Instead of one lump sum score, as in traditional grading, the quiz would have multiple scores, one for each learning target. This provides detailed information about which targets the students fully grasps, which ones are a work in progress, and which ones the student is essentially clueless on. The scores would be reported similar to:

4 = student successfully completes all levels of questions independently
3.5 = student successfully completes both level 1 and 2 questions independently and some level 3 questions with help
3 = student successfully completes both level 1 and 2 questions independently
2.5 = student successfully completes level 1 questions independently and some level 2 questions with help
2 = student successfully completes level 1 questions independently
1 = student successfully completes level 1 questions with help
0 = student does not successfully complete any of the questions, even with help

Now I haven't quite figured out how to translate those into my gradebook yet because our gradebook reports a pure percentage, so a 3/4 would convert to a 75%, even though a student scoring a 3/4 would be considered "proficient" and in my opinion deserves a high B, potentially even a low A. (Of course the discussion of "What does an A really mean" is a whole 'nother ball of wax)

So let's say a quiz in Alg2 has 4 learning targets (the equivalent to 3 lessons or so) and you earn the following scores:
- Solve absolute value equations....................score: 3/4
- Solve and graph 1-variable inequalties............score: 3.5/4
- Solve and graph compound inequalities.............score: 2/4
- Solve and graph absolute value inequalities.......score: 1/4

It's clear to me as a teacher that you have a pretty decent grasp on the first two learning targets, but you need to work on the last two. You would have the opportunity to get some help on those learning targets (go to the peer tutoring lab, come in for tutoring, do the assigned practice problems, work out of your workbook, go to a tutor, do *something* to show that you have put forth effort in relearning the material), and then show me the evidence of your learning and earn the chance for a "re-test" of the deficient concepts. This new re-test would then replace the previous score in the gradebook as it is the most recent snapshot of your learning progression.

At the end of the chapter/unit, I had thought about having a traditional test, graded in a traditional manner, but that's the main part I'm really unsure of right now. I see the value in having a test that you can't re-assess, but then that assumes that everyone learns at the same rate, which I don't think is valid. However, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea they can continously reassess for 80% of the grade, nor am I sure of my ability to stay sane if allowing that much reassessment. This is really one of the last sticking points for me on deciding which model to pursue. In model #1, the test is treated traditionally (aka summative), but in model #2, the test is also reported based on learning targets, just a bigger "chunk" of learning targets at once and also allowed reassessment.

Anyway, if you've made it to here, thank you very much for reading! It helped me to get it "out on paper"

Sincerely,
Me :)

The Nitty-Gritty Details

Ugh - I don't even know where to start! I've hit delete several times already and it's just the intro sentences!!!

I'm at an SBG roadblock. I am in complete agreement that SBG is where I want to be. I want my students and parents to be able to look at my gradebook and say "Oh man, I really need to study Learning Target (LT) #, #, and #, but check this out, I totally rocked LT # and #!"

But, then I run up against roadblocks... issues that I just can't figure out in my head and I end up wanting to just throw in the towel, but I know I can't - I believe in this system, I have confidence in how it can change my classroom. But I also know that I can't go into my admin and my only answer to his questions is "I don't know yet".

My current questions and issues:

1) Everyone has a different rubric and I'm not sure on which one is best. If you use SBG, could I beg you to post your rubric in the comments? I'm currently thinking of a 0-5 scale, but I'm not positive. My current favorite is @jazlen's Advanced/Proficient/Basic/Below Basic/Far below Basic and then add in 0 = doesn't have a clue in the world.

2) Speaking of rubrics, how do those translate to a traditional gradebook program? I don't have a choice about the program we use and it will automatically change a grade to a percentage scale. So if I use a 4 point rubric with 3 as "meeting standards", the computer will auto change that to a 75%. That really bothers me. I read the post on Edu-Ma-Ca-Tion on this same topic and I'm still not sure how to resolve.

3) How do you organize their concept checklists? Many use something like Dan Meyer's list and I like that too. I am thinking of giving them the list for the chapter along w/ their suggested practice (homework) and important terms sheet. They would need to keep a section in their notebook for each of these chapter sheets.

4) How do you keep track of the paperwork? I keep a papergradebook because of several issues - only have access to online GB at school, having backup in case of hackers (yes, it happened), etc. However, I struggle to visualize what an SBG paper gradebook would even look like!!! Ugh

5) What does a concept quiz look like to you? Some people give multiple quizzes w/ progressively more difficult questions, some give one quiz with various difficulty on that quiz, some do "traditional" quizzes with only difference being the score reporting.

6) Speaking of, how many times do you assess each concept? My current thought is quiz w/ various difficulty problems (which they can reassess), then see again on chapter/unit test. There will also be some ungraded assessments, maybe a "HW quiz" every so often, plus the possibility of showing up under the "previous knowledge" section on future tests.

7) I am a huge proponent of "previous knowledge" and "spiraling" and "not giving kids permission to forget" - so in that vein, should their grades be able to backslide? I know some SBG people allow grades to go down, some don't, I'm leaning toward the "grade needs to reflect current knowlege, so grade can go down" camp, what is your thought on it?

Sigh - I think that's it for now... I know it seems like a ton of questions, and believe me, I have spent time discussing with some of the best minds I know and yet I continue to feel clueless on these details. I have 4 weeks and counting to get these things figured out...

Thanks for reading - and taking the time to respond :)

Every answer leads to more questions...

Last night, I had the chance to chat online with my teacher-next-door buddy. She and I often are partners-in-crime when it comes to trying new things, so I was so eager to share the idea of SBG with her and get her feedback. After chatting some and sending her off to view @k8nowak's Jing video and to view some blogs, she was totally on board with trying it. Today we met for a very long lunch to hammer out some of the details and figure out questions we are still fuzzy on.

Our Plan of Attack
After thinking through some of the articles we had read, we decided to start with our textbook and set up our learning targets for the first few chapters. Our state is adopting brand new textbooks this year and we are pretty limited in terms of the order of topics and sections we have to teach. We started with Chapter 1, and using the objectives for each section and the homework problems as a guide, we came up with the following list. LT = Learning Target, then the numbers represent the Chapter.Section.Objective

Chapter 1: Equations & Inequalities
LT 1.1.1: Use order of operations to evaluate expressions
LT 1.2.1: Simplify expressions using properties of real numbers
LT 1.3.1: Translate verbal expressions & equations to algebraic and vice versa
LT 1.3.2: Solve 1-variable equations
LT 1.3.3: Solve literal equations for a specified variable
**Note: All of the above LT's are going to be assessed using a quiz, but will not be taught - they were covered at the end of Geometry. Students can reassess these LT's if needed. Section 1.4 then, is the first taught lesson.
LT 1.4.1: Solve absolute value equations
LT 1.5.1: Solve and graph 1-variable inequalites (& interval notation)
LT 1.6.1: Solve and graph compound inequalities
LT 1.6.2: Solve and graph 1-variable absolute value inequalities

Then we repeated this for Chapter 2 - and that's as far as we got today :)

It's possible that doing it this way, we may end up wth way too many LT's and that's okay - we recognize this is a work in progress :)

So method wise, we have discussed both Kate's "2 quizzes per goal" method as well as small non-graded assessments, with a traditional quiz after every 2-4 sections with the only difference between this year and last year being the grading breakdown. I see pros and cons in both, especially considering we are doing a "hybrid" model, where we will still have traditional tests at the end of each chapter that are summative.

Ideas we are sold on

• We both definitely like the idea that students cannot get tutoring and re-assess on the same day. We both agree this feeds into the short term memory issue.
  
• We do want kids to have to schedule an appointment for reassessment so we can make sure and have one ready for them - this planning will be necessary so we don't feel so frazzled
  
• We both like the idea of some kind of notebook where the kids keep their checklist of skills as well as their scores (I think this is either from Kate or Jason)
  
• We do agree that we do not want to give our students permission to forget, so as LT's come up in our previous knowledge sections, student grades can go down (but they can still come in and reassess if that happens)
  

Issues and questions we still have

• We aren't sure which rubric we want to use - probably will be 5 pt, simply b/c I like multiples of 5 in my gradebook :)
  
• If we do 2 assessments and add them together like some people do, then the student comes in to reassess, which two scores then get added? Like say I got a 3 the first time, a 2 the second time, then reassessed and got a 4 - which ones go into the gradebook?
  
• What happens when a student is absent? Our quizzes right now are fairly traditional - and I forsee them staying that way with only big change being at the top where each LT is listed. If a kid is absent on quiz day, do they take it the next day? Take zeros on that quiz and have to do the reassessments for those LTs? Take a makeup quiz? Right now, we give 2 versions of the quiz and we show it to them, but they don't get to keep until everyone has taken it, but that won't work if we are trying to provide the quiz as a study guide.
  
• How much proof do we need to require in order to reassess? Obviously for the first reassessment, they have to show they have attempted the assigned practice problems for that LT, but what about after that? Tutoring with a teacher or our peer tutoring lab would work as well.
  
• For those that do a hybrid model, what is your percentage breakdown for grading categories?
  
• We are thinking of doing away with our warmups - they have ended up more punitive than we meant for them to - what do you guys do at the beginning of the hour instead?
  
• AN IMPORTANT ISSUE: How do you grade a problem that addresses multiple LTs?
  
• ANOTHER IMPORTANT ISSUE: What do you do with something that is important, but maybe not enough to get it's own LT? Like for example: Function evaluation in function notation - F(3) = ? - This is something the kids need to know but I'm not sure that it's a big enough topic for it's own LT, especially when often it fits under evaluating expressions.
  

I need to send a HUGE thank you to all of my twitter PLN that have patiently answered TONS of questions, listened to me brainstorm, provided feedback, asked questions to make me think things through, and just in general for being there :) I can never tell you guys how much I appreciate you!

Suggestions and comments welcomed, as always :)

My foray into SBG

Over the past week, there have been lots of discussions on twitter about implementing Standards Based Grading (SBG). Here is a braindump of my ideas on how to use SBG in my classroom. Feel free to rip it apart, that's the best way for me to learn :)

Main Motivation
I know the current model is broken. I had a situation this year with a student that worked his/her tail off when test day was coming, but that's it. He/She did pass my class, but throughout it all, I just felt slimy. I knew his/her test grade did not reflect his/her knowledge and that really bothered me. Some students "rent" the knowledge until test day, but never "own" the information. I want kids to "own" it. Every year, I struggle with this. I think overall I'm a pretty good teacher and I try to get better every year. I am always thinking of ways that I can be more effective in the classroom and how to better help my students.

Some minor issues:
I am convinced that SBG is the way to go. I want students, parents, and myself to know exactly where students are and what they need to improve on. However, I also have some limitations within my district. We have an online gradebook that we are required to use and we must enter at least one grade per week. Horizontally, we give common finals and benchmark exams. We have a district guide for order of topics and overall pacing and we are supposed to be within a couple of days of the other teachers of the course. To add to this, every year the district surprises us in August with new mandates, so I can't totally go SBG or otherwise, I would just end up extremely pissed in August when the rug is pulled out from under me :)

My plan:
With the above limitations, I have decided a hybrid model based on converstaions with my twitter PLN. Also, I only plan to try this in my Alg2 class for this year. Basically, for this first year, I will be pretty traditional, but more detailed. I will still give an assignment sheet for the chapter, although I will probably break it down a bit more, so that instead of just the lesson title and assignment, I will have the lesson title, then the learning targets (standards) for that lesson and the practice problems for that learning target (LT). As Kate Nowak says "Then, I teach". After a few lessons, I would give a quiz, similar to traditional quizzes, but instead of giving a total grade (13 points earned out of 15), it would be separated by LTs (order of operations, whatever) and a kid would get 3 or 4 different grades for the quiz (one for each LT). Rinse, repeat... Then it comes time for the chapter test. I will probably keep the chapter tests like normal (we will be more than likely moving to common tests there anyway).

Issues I'm still pondering

• I'm not sure yet how often I will reassess a LT in class - some people do 2 times in class on 2 different quizzes, but time may be an issue, dunno yet
  
• I'm not sure how to format my paper gradebook - I use the Whaley 3-line gradebook, but may have to go to a self-created gradebook since quiz grades will now take up 3-4 columns rather than 1
  
• I've not discussed this idea with my admin and so I'm not sure how this will go over. I have awesome admin, but we'll see how it goes :)
  
• Each LT will receive a grade on a 4 or 5 point scale (not sure yet, I've seen both and still mulling over the idea)
  
• I would really like to integrate more application and writing skills into these quizzes rather than just skills based
  
• I've seen others comment that kids have a limit on how many LTs they can reassess per day, not sure what I think about that, definitely agree on the "can't reassess on same day as you got help on the LT"
  
• I'm worried that with the reassessments, some kids will still "rent" for their low skills, trying to get their grades further up that A/B/C scale
  
• The time committment does stress me out a bit. I have 3 preps plus teach at a Div I university - I already spend way too many hours grading and planning. The idea of creating multiple assessments freaks me out.
  
• Currently I do "Quick Checks" which are similar to what others call "Homework Quizzes", except I give them the problem rather than saying "write #3 on your paper". I'm thinking these Quick Checks could be part of my quizzing system & can be put on the Promethean, thus helping the copy paper/budget situation
  

Final Thoughts As you can see, I still have way more questions than answers. I don't know how to fix some of the issues above yet - but I'm working on it. I have my PLN, books by Marzano, Reeves, and other assessment gurus. I will be ready when August arrives :)