At today's faculty meeting, SHS Math Teacher, Pawel Nazarewicz, used an inchworm analogy to explain how he looks at Standards Based Learning in his classroom.
Discuss his analogy with those at your table and leave a reply in the comment box below describing how you see this analogy applying to your classroom.
Replies
I love the notion of looping! I think for the most of us, as Pawel said, teaching new concepts comes very naturally. I agree that I am constantly working on pulling the rear in, so we don't overextend our students, and so we are continually tracking their ongoing mastery of new and old concepts.
JumpRope, for me, is extremely overwhelming. I really wish my standards were objective, like Math and History. However, they are in that "grey" area, which becomes a very tedious and mind-numbing task when thinking about HOW JumpRope would work effectively, much like Pawel was able to do. I would love to see how an English teacher has successfully implemented JumpRope, aligned with his/her SOLs, in a way that is effective and has a "3-D" approach.
As English teachers, we loop with almost every new assignment. We check to see if the students still have mastery of the literary vocabulary they learned during the last novel study, have they improved composing a thesis statement, are they getting better at identifying author's intent, etc. Pawel's mastery of the Jump Rope program is impressive. The SBG conversation among the English Department centers around streamlining standards in a complicated curriculum that generally calls for the inclusion of several standards in almost every assessment and tracking that for the large numbers of students we teach. We continue to look for examples of teachers who have successfully implemented and reported on SBG in the English classroom.
The inchworm is perfect. Most of us do need to work on the rear... if only to enhance the front end.
I have been doing standard based grading this year with my Spanish 1 class and recycling material in every assessment. I have found I can speak with parents and students easier about student's strengths and weaknesses. The only difference for me is that I am using Power School and it limits how I show progress. I have become very creative on how to show re-takes and assessment data.
Pawel, did a great job. The continuation of back end learning is essential for growth to occur. The way the inchworm brings his tail end to the front is an excellent way to express backend learning being brought to the fore front.Ways to communicate with the parents is an excellent idea, but the bottom line, parents want to know is he/she passing, and if so with what grade. Ways to do this in a simple meaningful way is always a plus.
I love the feedback on student strengths and weaknesses that Jump Rope can provide. As we are constantly looping and recycling information into our assessments and lessons in World Language, I am interested in learning how it might work in our classes.
Submitted for Thad, Amy, Matt, Robyn, Justin, Sarah, and Alaina
We generally like Paul's comparison to the inch-worm, with focusing on new knowledge (front end growth) along with old knowledge (back end growth). Nice job.
This does not answer the question, but we think that the hardest part of SBG is deciding what our standards would be. It is hard to find the balance between too general and too specific.
Robin, Jenn, & Hannah :)
We think this was a good presentation. It demystifies some aspects of Standard Based Learning. Some of us don't think this is different from what we've been doing for years. This made more sense of how a final grade was achieved. Particularly, IB has the rubrics that we apply. Jump Rope seemed like a good tool, but for those who decide to use that tool. We discussed that Moodle and Quia are tools that are similar. Patty,Gibby, Fred, Ashley, Grant
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