I submitted my post from a few days ago that has my draft of a standards-based grading policy. For those of you who might be interested in where I next took my thinking, have a look at my brand spankin' new gradebook. There are four worksheets in the file:
- One is for tracking formative assessments. I plan to record a score of 1 - 4 for these, but interestingly enough, I do not plan to show the score to students. I will provide two kinds of feedback on these assignments for students consisting of (1) specific example(s) of what was done well and (2) a question to prompt thinking. Why keep a score for myself? Because I still need to keep my eye on the big picture. For example, how many kids look like Level Two students? To paraphrase The Shrub, "Is my children learning?" I do not plan on using the scores to assign a final grade for kids---this is just for my own reference in planning.
- The second worksheet is for tracking summative assessment scores. These will be used to calculate report card grades. Although there are 3 cells available for both the formative and summative worksheets, this is just a starting point. I can adjust as necessary. I like using Excel for this because it will easily show me the median within a set of scores and/or quickly graph scores so that I can look for trends.
- I have another worksheet where I can keep track of which assessment is which. I will then transpose the corresponding item number into either the formative or summative sheets.
- Finally, there is a worksheet for anecdotal evidence. I was thinking about using a system similar to this one for classroom walkthroughs in order to keep track of things I informally see or hear when kids are working in class. But I need an way to organize and store that. So, I'm going to try an Excel worksheet in the gradebook.
I like that this makes my gradebook more "portable." I can use it on nearly every computer and don't need any special program to access it. As always, any ideas and/or feedback you have are much appreciated.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing your new gradebook, SG, and for posting it on the wiki.
When you begin using it, I imagine that you might think of some modifications, but none come to mind at the moment. Nice work!
I haven't forgotten about your other questions. ;-)
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