Retention and tests

Say It With Me Now: Retention!

So, for me, the role of the summative assessment is actually to give me a larger picture of a standard I don’t explicitly grade: Retention.  I give a summative midterm and final in all of my classes, and it’s because I want the kids to know how well they do or don’t retain information. The larger SBG structure is designed to help them prepare, reassess, and otherwise learn to be actual people who think about what they don’t know. These pin-prick summatives are the bit of me that knows I have to get them ready for the testing aspect of college in a meanignful way.
My approach has always been to add the summative scores in as a separately weighted category ancillary to my behemoth category called “Standards.” Most often final grades are composed of 85% Standards, 7.5 % midterm, and 7.5% final.
Why the fractional precentages? I just don’t think it should be possible to get an A without being able to retain more than half of the material in some way. However, knowing the inherently flawed nature of a single-shot assessment, I have left the A- wide open for that kid that wants to work their butt off to get their standard’s scores through the roof.

Am I rewarding responsibility with a grade? Hell Yeah. Am I doing it by grading homework and “participation.” Hell No.

retention entry

mastering a skill

continuing the thought from franrod68-- I tried to post a comment, but the blog on which I am an author kept rejecting my comment.   Such audacity and How ironic!

When I was first teaching middle school at Meadowlawn, I assumed the people who made the texts knew what students needed and were capable of. I let that erroneous assumption drive my teaching pace for too long.

Early in my career I started looking into students' eye to see if the kid got it, was about to get it, might get it, or was tuned out. As often as I feel right about it, I use kids' eyes to help me pace.

One of the things I love about our profession is the fresh start we get each year, preceded by several weeks of downtime and re-charging.

s w e e t !!!

the thought or the correct English?

I'm sitting here in FAIR testing grading 3 Rev 6 sentences (per student) from students' quizzes on "A Mason Dixon Memory."

Some sentences are good. Some are very good. Some are depressingly bad.
bad = no capitals, no periods, illiterate grammar and/or usage

The criteria were:
1) use the word with its correct meaning
2) connect the word to "A Mason Dixon Memory"

Here's why I'm writing this-- next year with some goals of having student's habitually write (and compose) literate sentences
  Start the three sentence thing early in the year (next year I'll be starting Rev in Aug, not in Jan as I did this year)   and track  * meaning     *mechanics     *usage     *elaboration


TBE