Archive for April 2015

Sunday, April 26, 2015
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Creating Concept Quizzes

In my journey on the road to having a standards based classroom, one aspect I am really trying to improve is assessment.

Obviously, assessment is a HUGE part of SBG. My challenge comes with trying to determine the best way to assess my students in a way that accurately reflects their understanding.

When I made my mid-year switch to an SBG system, my first assessments looked an awful lot like my old assessments. I knew I wanted to start sorting the quizzes into concepts, but hadn't thought much past that point. I still had a jumble of questions and when it came time for grading, I wasn't really clear on what would earn somebody a 2 versus a 4. I was giving 4's to students who answered everything correctly, 3's for students who answered mostly everything correctly, 2's for students who answered some things correctly, and 1's for almost all wrong answers. Students got a level 0 for leaving a question blank. The problem here is that it's really still just a traditional grading system with a nice SBG mask on.

I went back to look at some of Dan Meyer's sample quizzes to see how he organized them. Dan's post was what originally sparked my interest in SBG. He seemed to have very clear cut problems that would demonstrate the students' understanding of the topic. My initial thoughts about his problems were that they were very procedural, and that I wanted my students to be able to do more complex problems. I decided to give it a go, and continued sectioning quizzes by concept and giving these straight-forward problems. My grading remained pretty much the same: 4's for correct solving, 3's for minor mistakes, 2's for major, etc. I still didn't feel like I was doing justice to a true SBG system.



So, I turned back to the levels themselves. Marzano talks about these 4 levels of understanding as the basis for labeling understanding of a concept so why wasn't I using these?

After talking about this a lot with some colleagues, I thought why not make the levels as obvious as possible within the assessment? I decided to try having questions separated by level. Based on Marzano's 4 levels, I wanted the Level 3 question to demonstrate the concept itself. I started there, and then simplified this for Level 2, and made it more complex for Level 4. Here's an example of a quiz on the number of solutions to an equation.


This was actually a reassessment that I gave for this topic. Here enters my next challenge. The previous Level 3 question for this quiz was the following: 

"Adele opens an account with $100 and deposits $35 a month. Kent opens an account with $50 and also deposits $35 a month. Will they have the same amount in their accounts at any point? IF so, in how many months and how much will be in each account? Explain. "

While I prefer this problem over the purely procedural problems in the example, I found that many students did not solve this question correctly simply because they did not understand how to change the word problem into an equation (side note: this is something I plan to work on for the first couple weeks of school in the future). This system also streamlined my grading process. If a student can do Level 2 and 3, but not 4, then they get a 3. If they can do 2 and 3 and a bit of 4 correctly, they might earn a 3.5. Occasionally a student will not correctly do Level 2, but will get Level 3. This is usually a misunderstanding of the L2 question, in which case I will ask them in person and clear it up. It could also be that the questions themselves are not leveled properly, in which case I make a note to change in the future. Here is a concept quiz I gave a few weeks ago to 7th grade. It has 2 concepts: Cross Sections and Angle Relationships (I would also like to be more on top of giving 1 concept quizzes more frequently). 



So, as of right now, here are my steps for developing questions for level 2,3, and 4. It's kind of a blend of Marzano's levels of understanding and Webb's Depth of Knowledge.  For the past couple assessments, I have created the leveled questions based on the ideas below. Moving forward, I would like to look more into Webb's DOK and maybe try to make them more aligned.

LEVEL 2
Simple content. Demonstrates some understanding of the concept. I usually put forced answer questions here (multiple choice, true or false, matching, etc.).

LEVEL 3
What do I want them to be able to do? The problem then becomes the answer to this question. 

LEVEL 4
Level 4 needs to have the students understand the concept and extend it. I usually go for a error analysis, create a problem, or conceptual thinking question here. 

I definitely intend to continue tweaking these quizzes to find out what works best, but I would love to hear from you! 

How do you make assessments? Any ideas on how to better make assessment more clearly SBG-linked? 
Monday, April 20, 2015
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Class Passes: My Take on a Behavioral Incentive System in Middle School

Behavioral incentive systems are nothing new. It's well known fact that Socrates invented little shiny gold star stickers.


Alright, alright, that is most likely not true. However, as much as I would love to encourage my students' positive behavior spurred only by their own intrinsic desires to "do good," I find (and actually like) to use some tangible behavior incentive. It adds an element of fun to my classroom!

This year, after my SBG Epiphany, I realized that my whole behavior incentive system was rendered useless by my new outlook on grades. Students could not simply play the points game anymore... and that's exactly what my old system was set up to support! It was yet another light bulb moment for me of how I was perpetuating my students' obsession with points.

So! Half way through this year I scrapped my old system, and introduced some new incentives.

But first, a quick word on my system. 

 I feel like this is yet another instance of us Middle School teachers being left in educational limbo. MS kiddos are too old for elementary tactics, and too young for high school tactics. While researching ideas for a reward system, I couldn't help but laugh at some of the suggestions from elementary teachers.

You come across rewards like, "Lunch with the Teacher!" or "Board Eraser!"


These would without a doubt fall more into the category of punishment to a middle schooler. You know, now that I think about it, it's ironic how things we considered rewards as wee ones suddenly become forms of torture to teenagers. Oh, sweet puberty.

As you may or may not know, I am a complete Disney fanatic. My boyfriend and I frequent the parks, watch and rewatch Aladdin and Hercules, and I have a "Lion King Soundtrack" station on my Pandora. It's bad, I am the first to admit it. (P.S. Boyfriend is the best free Disney travel agent around! Email him! bret.miller@keytotheworldtravel.com).


Anywho, if you have ever been to a Disney park, you are no doubt familiar with the Fast Pass. It's a magical little piece of paper that lets you skip ahead of the megalines. They are happiness and fun all in one. So I wanted to play off of this idea for my behavior system. 

Pay no attention to the horribly chipped nail polish. 

So I had to think, "What do Middle Schoolers actually like?!" As I mentioned earlier, my original system revolved mostly around points. For the sake of example, I am going to show you the old system. DISCLAIMER: You are more than welcome to take these ideas if you would like, but I encourage you to fight the points game!


The passes were great! I would give students one on their birthday, anytime they did something extraordinarily wonderful, won a review game in class, etc. Once I realized that most of the passes were point-related, I needed to rethink how I rewarded students. I wanted to remove grades and points from the equation entirely. I was able to keep a few of the old passes like "Invisibility Cloak" and the all-time favorite, "Globe Trotter," but I needed to rework the rest!

Here is the newest version of my "Class Passes."


What behavior incentive systems have you successfully used with your students? What has failed miserably for you? How have you approached this classroom aspect without focusing on points?