teacher expectations
The expectation I have for myself as your teacher is to help you grow as a learner and as a person. Every year I look for ways to improve my teaching practice, to make my classes more engaging, and to push my students to exceed their own expectations with their creative problem solving. But, in all honesty, your best teacher isn't me... It's your last mistake. Therefore, when solving your most challenging problems this year, you can count on me to point you in the right direction of identifying your mistakes without giving you the answer of how to correct it. There is nothing to be learned from being told an answer, but we gain so much understanding from seeing a mistake and then figuring out why it isn't right and how we can fix it. Therefore, I promise to give you lots of opportunities to struggle with challenging problems so that you can make lots of mistakes and then learn from them.
Student expectations
If there is one thing I believe in, it is the power of the mind. The first step in growing as a math student and as a person is changing your mindset. Throughout the year, we will look at how you learn best as an individual, and what you use for an internal dialogue when you are struggling with your academics. Instead of saying, "I give up," I will teach you to say, "What am I missing?" Instead of saying, "This is too hard," I will teach you to say, "I should try one of the strategies we learned for starting to solve a word problem." The key to success in any difficult situation is perseverance. As Margaret Thatcher once said, "You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." Every day I will hold you to the expectation that you are fulfilling your role as a student by facing your challenges head on, with determination and pride. Make your mistakes, ask your questions, and share your conclusions!
Success In The Classroom
To be successful in this class does not necessarily mean "getting an A." It means showing significant cognitive growth. We all want our education to be "fair," but fair does not necessarily mean "equal." We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and at the high school level, you need to be an advocate for yourself and how you learn best. Do you need to write things down to remember them? Or is writing and trying to listen at the same time distracting for you? Should you actively watch and listen while the teacher is instructing and download the notes later? These are all decisions that I will trust you to make for yourself as a young adult to ensure your success in this class. And by success... I mean growth. Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try, and if you try to improve a little bit every day at being a student in a math classroom, the good grades you are seeking will follow.
GRADING POLICY FOR A GRADELESS CLASSROOM
During a recent professional development experience, I came across a few studies about grades, and how grades impacted student learning. The results of the studies showed that grading reduces the achievement of students. Three situations have been compared: (1) Giving students a grade on their work with no comments, (2) Giving students a grade on their work along with diagnostic comments, and (3) Giving students diagnostic comments on their work only, with no grade on their paper. The result was that students receiving only comments with no grade learned twice as fast as students who were receiving grades. The surprising result was that students who received grades only and students who received grades and comments performed equally badly. The idea behind this is that when a student is given a grade, it sends the fixed mindset message that their work and their ability is only a 76%. Even adding comments did not change this reality in the student's mind, even though you would think that grades and comments would be the richest sense of feedback. It is actually ineffective because they care and focus only on the grade that their work has been reduced to. These findings have inspired us to investigate the benefits of having a gradeless math classroom this year.
What will that look like? Here is the step-by-step process I am going to be following as teachers of a gradeless classroom:
Step 1 – Students and the Learning Standards
To make this work I needed to make sure that the students always knew which learning standard(s) we were learning and working on during class. Everything that the students do in the class is tied directly to the learning standards. I refer to them multiple times each day in class and I will often ask students when they are working on something, “Which learning standard does this refer to?”
Step 2 – Assessing Students
Jo Boaler gave me the idea of eliminating quizzes and tests, so now I make anything that I want to assess a “Check In.” Changing the terminology is only a small part of what needs to change. The students in my class know that these assessments are low stakes and that they can have multiple opportunities to show me what they can do on each learning standard. I give Check Ins approximately every week-and-a-half.
Step 3 – Feedback to Students
After the students complete a Check In, I make comments about things they did well and things that they did not understand. I don’t write a grade at the top of the paper and I don’t enter anything in my gradebook.
Step 4 – Student Self-Assessment
When students get their Check Ins back, they self-assess their understanding of the learning standards using the following categories:
Step 5 – Saving Student Work
To prevent students from losing their Check Ins and their self-assessments when it came time to conference about their grade, I am having the students use the free app SeeSaw. If you are not familiar with the service, Seesaw is an online portfolio that is not only web based but also an app for iOS. On the day that we will be returning the marked-up Check In, the students take pictures and upload those images to Seesaw.
Step 6 – Retakes
I allow students to retake the problems that gave them difficulty in order to show me that they now understand the material. The problems are similar but not the same. They do not need to redo all of the problems, only the ones that gave them difficulty. Prior to taking the retake, I will have the students verbally explain to us what they did incorrectly on the original Check In. If they are unable to do this, then I spend time working with them on the concept before they do the retake.
Step 7 – Students Reflect on Their Work to Determine Their Grade
Halfway through each term and then again about a week before the end of the term, I share a Google Presentation Template with the students. Next, the students use the screenshot feature to take a picture of the problems they would like to use to represent their understanding of a specific learning standard from their SeeSaw portfolio. They then need to self-assess and give a reason if their proficiency is less than a “4” on any particular standard. On the last page of the presentation students upload an image of their self-assessment summary and show the grade they believe they deserve. After students complete this work we look over each student’s presentation. If a student does not accurately self-assess, has not clearly verbalized their reason for their self-assessment, or the grade they believe they deserve is not reasonable, then I will conference with that student either during class, at break, or after school.
What About Giving a Grade for Homework Completion?
Thanks to suggestions made by Jo Boaler, I made the conscious decision not to grade homework completion. I do treat homework checking the same way, though. I still collect student homework assignments daily through Google Classroom. I still contact home if a student misses a few homework assignments in a row. When students ask me if their grade will go down if they don’t do their homework, I tell them that it could because if they don’t practice they may not be prepared for the Check In.
And, also thanks to Jo Boaler, I no longer call homework “homework.” I call it a “Learning Opportunity.” Students like to tell me that it is still homework, but I push back and tell them that it is not work, it is an opportunity for them to learn.
Conclusion
Going gradeless will hopefully make my students focus on the content as opposed to grades. I no longer will be fielding questions like “How can I improve my grade?” or “Do you offer extra credit?” Students will understand that their grade is based entirely on their understanding of the material.
What will that look like? Here is the step-by-step process I am going to be following as teachers of a gradeless classroom:
Step 1 – Students and the Learning Standards
To make this work I needed to make sure that the students always knew which learning standard(s) we were learning and working on during class. Everything that the students do in the class is tied directly to the learning standards. I refer to them multiple times each day in class and I will often ask students when they are working on something, “Which learning standard does this refer to?”
Step 2 – Assessing Students
Jo Boaler gave me the idea of eliminating quizzes and tests, so now I make anything that I want to assess a “Check In.” Changing the terminology is only a small part of what needs to change. The students in my class know that these assessments are low stakes and that they can have multiple opportunities to show me what they can do on each learning standard. I give Check Ins approximately every week-and-a-half.
Step 3 – Feedback to Students
After the students complete a Check In, I make comments about things they did well and things that they did not understand. I don’t write a grade at the top of the paper and I don’t enter anything in my gradebook.
Step 4 – Student Self-Assessment
When students get their Check Ins back, they self-assess their understanding of the learning standards using the following categories:
Step 5 – Saving Student Work
To prevent students from losing their Check Ins and their self-assessments when it came time to conference about their grade, I am having the students use the free app SeeSaw. If you are not familiar with the service, Seesaw is an online portfolio that is not only web based but also an app for iOS. On the day that we will be returning the marked-up Check In, the students take pictures and upload those images to Seesaw.
Step 6 – Retakes
I allow students to retake the problems that gave them difficulty in order to show me that they now understand the material. The problems are similar but not the same. They do not need to redo all of the problems, only the ones that gave them difficulty. Prior to taking the retake, I will have the students verbally explain to us what they did incorrectly on the original Check In. If they are unable to do this, then I spend time working with them on the concept before they do the retake.
Step 7 – Students Reflect on Their Work to Determine Their Grade
Halfway through each term and then again about a week before the end of the term, I share a Google Presentation Template with the students. Next, the students use the screenshot feature to take a picture of the problems they would like to use to represent their understanding of a specific learning standard from their SeeSaw portfolio. They then need to self-assess and give a reason if their proficiency is less than a “4” on any particular standard. On the last page of the presentation students upload an image of their self-assessment summary and show the grade they believe they deserve. After students complete this work we look over each student’s presentation. If a student does not accurately self-assess, has not clearly verbalized their reason for their self-assessment, or the grade they believe they deserve is not reasonable, then I will conference with that student either during class, at break, or after school.
What About Giving a Grade for Homework Completion?
Thanks to suggestions made by Jo Boaler, I made the conscious decision not to grade homework completion. I do treat homework checking the same way, though. I still collect student homework assignments daily through Google Classroom. I still contact home if a student misses a few homework assignments in a row. When students ask me if their grade will go down if they don’t do their homework, I tell them that it could because if they don’t practice they may not be prepared for the Check In.
And, also thanks to Jo Boaler, I no longer call homework “homework.” I call it a “Learning Opportunity.” Students like to tell me that it is still homework, but I push back and tell them that it is not work, it is an opportunity for them to learn.
Conclusion
Going gradeless will hopefully make my students focus on the content as opposed to grades. I no longer will be fielding questions like “How can I improve my grade?” or “Do you offer extra credit?” Students will understand that their grade is based entirely on their understanding of the material.
CLASSROOM NORMS FOR A GRADELESS CLASSROOM
1. Everyone Can Learn Math to the Highest Levels.
You need to believe in yourself! There is no such thing as a "math" person. Everyone can reach the highest levels they want to,
with hard work.
2. Mistakes Are Valuable.
Mistakes grow your brain! It is good to struggle and make mistakes.
3. Questions Are Really Important.
Always ask questions, always answer questions. Ask Yourself: Why does that make sense?
4. Math is about Creativity and Making Sense.
Math is a very creative subject that is, at its core, about visualizing patterns and creating solution paths that others can see,
discuss and critique.
5. Math is About Connections and Communicating.
Math is a connected subject, and a form of communication. Represent math in different forms (e.g.: words, a picture, a graph,
an equation and link them. Color code when at all possible!
6. Depth is Much More Important Than Speed.
Top mathematicians think slowly and deeply.
7. Math Class Is About Learning, Not Performing.
Math is a growth subject, it takes time to learn and it is all about effort.
You need to believe in yourself! There is no such thing as a "math" person. Everyone can reach the highest levels they want to,
with hard work.
2. Mistakes Are Valuable.
Mistakes grow your brain! It is good to struggle and make mistakes.
3. Questions Are Really Important.
Always ask questions, always answer questions. Ask Yourself: Why does that make sense?
4. Math is about Creativity and Making Sense.
Math is a very creative subject that is, at its core, about visualizing patterns and creating solution paths that others can see,
discuss and critique.
5. Math is About Connections and Communicating.
Math is a connected subject, and a form of communication. Represent math in different forms (e.g.: words, a picture, a graph,
an equation and link them. Color code when at all possible!
6. Depth is Much More Important Than Speed.
Top mathematicians think slowly and deeply.
7. Math Class Is About Learning, Not Performing.
Math is a growth subject, it takes time to learn and it is all about effort.
Access to TEXTBOOK via web browser
www.pearsonrealize.com
Student Login: fullstudentemail@student.mursd.org
Student Password: MursdXXXX (4-digit student ID number)
Student Login: fullstudentemail@student.mursd.org
Student Password: MursdXXXX (4-digit student ID number)
Access to Completed Class Notes
Sign into Google Classroom either via the app on your iPad or through the web browser using your student email at:
classroom.google.com
The completed class notes are available on my Google Classroom page.
classroom.google.com
The completed class notes are available on my Google Classroom page.
