As I gear up for next year, I wanted to take a look back at changes I made last year.
As always, this is for my benefit - it helps me to reason through things as I type. And if it helps anyone else, that's just a bonus. :)
Things I started:
1. I taught a completely new course, General Math 3. I'm also teaching it next year, so it'll be nice to go back and tweak. There are definitely changes I want to make but overall I'm happy with what I did (and how I did it). Kids have been pretty successful and have gained math confidence.
2. In precalc, I started allowing for retakes.
3. I started creating "rubrics" for quizzes that showed the breakdown of the points. For the first half of the year I still just entered a total score for each quiz, but then switched and reported each score separately. I like that better because we (students, parents, and me) can really see what students did well or not so well on. And when they take a retake I make a note of the grade change for that section.
This is what I ended up with by the end of the year. I write one out for each student and staple it to their quiz.
4. I started weighting grades (Assessments and Preparation) and don't grade much in the way of the classwork/homework. It makes me feel better, like their overall score reflects more of what they know (assessments) vs what they've done (preparation). And we all know that sometimes their classwork/homework grade is more of what their friends have done.
5. I made screencasts over spring break for the notes for the rest of the year. It was a little of a pain to do but I think it was beneficial; I actually had a student come back after a suspension totally caught up. He told me he'd watched the screencasts.
It's rare that I look back at a year and am pleased with my procedures... but this is one of them! I don't feel like I need to spend any time this summer making big changes like I did last year. Just tweaks!
As always, this is for my benefit - it helps me to reason through things as I type. And if it helps anyone else, that's just a bonus. :)
Things I started:
1. I taught a completely new course, General Math 3. I'm also teaching it next year, so it'll be nice to go back and tweak. There are definitely changes I want to make but overall I'm happy with what I did (and how I did it). Kids have been pretty successful and have gained math confidence.
2. In precalc, I started allowing for retakes.
- They have to complete corrections (but I don't check them at all... wondering if there would be an easy way to do that? Or is it necessary for me to check? Should I publish the correct answers?)
- They have to complete additional practice problems that I got out of the habit of checking. I started setting up assignments on MathXL that students will have to complete before I let them retake. And I'm going to try my best to stick to it next year!
- They have to sign up at least two days beforehand. But I don't enforce that either. I am way too lenient on these things.
3. I started creating "rubrics" for quizzes that showed the breakdown of the points. For the first half of the year I still just entered a total score for each quiz, but then switched and reported each score separately. I like that better because we (students, parents, and me) can really see what students did well or not so well on. And when they take a retake I make a note of the grade change for that section.
This is what I ended up with by the end of the year. I write one out for each student and staple it to their quiz.
4. I started weighting grades (Assessments and Preparation) and don't grade much in the way of the classwork/homework. It makes me feel better, like their overall score reflects more of what they know (assessments) vs what they've done (preparation). And we all know that sometimes their classwork/homework grade is more of what their friends have done.
5. I made screencasts over spring break for the notes for the rest of the year. It was a little of a pain to do but I think it was beneficial; I actually had a student come back after a suspension totally caught up. He told me he'd watched the screencasts.
It's rare that I look back at a year and am pleased with my procedures... but this is one of them! I don't feel like I need to spend any time this summer making big changes like I did last year. Just tweaks!
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