Comments on: Teacher’s Skill Sheet Is a Win (aka The September Sales Job)

By: Introducing Reassessment « Shifting Phases

Introducing Reassessment « Shifting Phases — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 02:25:14 +0000

[...] using a grading sheet, and doing some Q&A. Last year I had them assess me using the “Teacher Skill Sheet,” and I will do that again. It helped students understand the reasoning behind the system. [...]

By: Mylène

Mylène — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:17:13 +0000

Hi Dan, I didn’t continue with it after the first week. We did regular course evaluations (every 3 weeks or so) but I based them on the “rights and responsibilities” that we negotiated together. So I haven’t revisited the “teacher skill sheet.”

Interestingly, although this way of introducing SBG generated a lot of excitement, there were very few reassessments in the early part of the semester. Many people left their reassessing until the very end of the semester; also, applications for reassessment were consistently submitted incomplete (for example, submitted without any practice problems, or other evidence of improvement). This makes me think that the introduction was good, but needed more followup: we should have done more practicing of the application procedure.

By: Dan Goldner

Dan Goldner — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:21:29 +0000

Mylène,
My first round was a little non-descript: nothing popped that needed attention or discussion. And, somehow, though I had planned to give 2 per quarter, I’m in the middle of quarter 2 and haven’t given my second one yet … I found after the first one I didn’t quite have the energy to put the data into a form to present to anyone. Maybe if any of the scores change a lot between term 1 and term 2 there will be a story to discuss….

How’s this going for you now that we’re a few months in?

By: Mylène

Mylène — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:26:47 +0000

Hi Tammy, my grading is pretty conventional. At the end of the semester, all the topic scores get averaged and converted to a percentage. It's completely compatible with a typical grading scheme -- not much of a challenge to the status quo, in some ways. More details of my particular system are on the page called How I Grade. Lots more resources for "standards-based assessment and reporting" are in the sidebar at left, under that heading. One great place to start is Dan Meyer's How Math Must Assess. It's applicable to a wide variety of subjects. Hope that helps!

By: Mylène

Mylène — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 23:59:58 +0000

Dan — I’m in your debt. I’m looking forward to reading how this plays out in your classroom.

By: Tammy

Tammy — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:37:42 +0000

One of the teachers at my school is trying to do this with students, but is getting pressure from admin to report it differently. How does this translate into a grade for the students when it is time to report a grade for progress report or report card time.

By: Dan Goldner

Dan Goldner — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:50:55 +0000

Fabulous! I can’t wait to roll out mine next week – this is so inspiring.

By: Mylène

Mylène — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:31:38 +0000

*laugh* I know, that last one cracked me up. Their gentle mocking (those last two quotes are, obviously, straight out of my mouth) was the most effective way I can think of for them to let me know that they had made sense of the ideas. After all, you have to understand something pretty well in order to make jokes about it that are actually funny. Maybe I’ll start encouraging comedy routines as reassessments.

By: Mylène

Mylène — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:28:42 +0000

Glad you liked it Joss — I’m darned proud of that piece of improv. Thank goodness for kicking these ideas around on the blogosphere until they are second nature, because I didn’t see this coming at all. In fact I wondered if students might find some satisfying payback in pulling a teacher up short. But no — they were kind of distraught. And it didn’t seem like “ugh, why am I wasting my money on a sub-par teacher.” They really seemed worried about me. Finding that incredibly charming is probably a bit patronizing on my part, and it’s not the only way I feel, but I can’t entirely shake it, either.

By: Mylène

Mylène — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:22:03 +0000

I agree with you about “failing” (i.e. not having reached my goal yet). How discouraging it must be if you see yourself as a failure every moment that you are not at your goal. What a disincentive to set goals at all.