I haven't heard one negative peep out of my precious pupils or their parents. As a matter of fact, I am almost afraid to write anything about it, out of fear I will jinx it and then I will be the lucky recipient of many e-mails written in capital letters, with every word in bold and every sentence ending in multiple exclamation marks.
I made some small changes in my implementation this year. My changes weren't earth-shattering or complicated. They were necessary, however, in order to align with what my community would tolerate (a line I stole from Rick Wormeli) without compromising my focus on learning as the ultimate goal. (While I would love to implement something like this system, I fear I don't have the SBG maturity yet to do something like that with my students. Baby steps, I keep reminding myself. Wobbly, shaky baby steps. )
Most of the changes I made had to do with how my scores in the classroom (based on levels of student understanding) translated into an overall grade/percent for the class (which I don't want to do but they make me and I like being employed). What I figured out was this: my parents just couldn't wrap their heads around my system because it was causing far, far too much cognitive dissonance when they viewed it in the terms of the points-riddled ranking and sorting educational system they experienced during their schooling. And I had to find a way to tone down the dissonance without losing the classroom focus on learning, or SBG would be tossed out of my district faster than a visitor without a name tag.
So, here's a quick run-down of the changes I made since last year, presented in table form. The bottom row represents visually how my systems last year were received.
The third column was the result of an SBG fantasy I had all last year about replacing the numbers with symbols, because everyone was so fixated on points I was about to quit and find a nice cave on an island somewhere in which to quietly spend the rest of my life. It was either fantasize about this type of scoring system or how to write a resignation letter that did not involve swearing.
After a peaceful summer teaching summer school and learning to enjoy teaching again, I came up with what's in the final column, which is what I am currently using. Notice there are no percents attached; this was done to refocus students on what the numbers mean and to get them to stop equating those numbers with a traditional letter grade. I needed to visually cleanse them of points, and this is what we focus on in class--the learning that each level represents, not the points.
For parents, however....I learned that our parents need points. This is why each level of understanding is represented by a point value (unfortunately) in the gradebook (5 = 10, 4.5 = 9.5, 4 = 9, and so on). It makes some of that cognitive dissonance go away to see points in the gradebook, to see each learning objective out of a comfortable and familiar 10 points. (In know this because that's the feedback I received at conferences this year.) It also informs parents much better about how well their child is progressing as far as learning, and allows for much better parent communication with me. I am overjoyed this year to have emails that aren't in all capital letters and that say things like, "I noticed my student is having difficulty understanding the types of population growth. Are there any resources you can suggest to help him at home?"
That email right there made my struggles last year worthwhile.
One other change I made is in the way I assess multiple choice questions. Our common assessments for each course involve them, and I have to use these assessments. Last year I had one heck of a time trying to figure out how to determine what level of understanding a student was at from just multiple choice questions because, unless they are carefully written, they really only show surface-level understanding--and they encourage the fallacy of thinking that learning is about finding right answers. That's why this year I am transforming how I write my questions. Instead of writing the questions to see if students can guess the right answer, I am writing the questions so they will actually show me which level (1-4) students are at. (I only go to 4 because a level 5 on my scale--knowing, owning the knowledge, and using the knowledge--can't be shown by using multiple choice alone; they are given separate level 5 opportunities in each unit.) I write each answer choice at a different level of understanding, and the answer they pick determines their score.
For example, here is an ecology question that I used recently on a formative assessment. (Bear in mind that the objective that was being assessed is a simple one that we use to start our unit on Ecology, but I am using a simple one for simplicity in explanation. You may feel that teaching this is beneath the level of your students....but it matches the needs and abilities of mine. So, I guess what I'm saying is consider that these are written for my students, not yours, when looking at the example.)
Objective#1a: I can describe what is studied in ecology.
Question: Check out the picture by clicking on the link below. (There was a picture of a pretty complex food web attached to the question.) What needs to be added to it to accurately represent all of what ecology is?
a. It needs to show the relationships between the biotic factors in this ecosystem.
b. There needs to be more specific details about the predator-prey relationships and what organisms are competing for resources, as well as how they reproduce.
c. There needs to be more food webs in the picture.
d. It needs to show the abiotic factors that the biotic factors are interacting with and to which they are reacting.
Below are the scores students would receive for each choice:
a = 2
b = 3
c = 1
d = 4
So, ladies, it's like one of those quizzes you take in Cosmo, only the values aren't written upside-down at the bottom of the page, the numbers in my room aren't points you add together to get an overall score, and my questions are a tad more meaningful. I hope. Anyway, I tell students when reviewing the questions what level of understanding each answer choice represented, and they can then keep track of their progress on each learning objective in their own Google spreadsheet. This tells them on what objectives they need to work, and helps guide them towards improvement of understanding. This has been working very well so far--students and parents understand it, and students are really starting to dissect (from the examples given to them in the answer choices) what it really means to understand at each level. Do I have students still trying to game the system? Absolutely; but they are quickly finding out that it is a game they always lose.
So, in sum, it's going pretty well so far. Everyone is learning (including myself), parents are being informed about their students' progress in a way they can understand, and my husband has talked me out of moving to a private island and writing profanity-filled letters of resignation.
But I haven't checked my e-mail yet.