Standards Quiz & Data Tracking

This year we are going to implement Standards Quizzes in Algebra 1.  I got this idea from reading Dan Meyer's blog and just loved it!  It's a great way to do formative assessment and the kids get to keep trying to better their grade to attain mastery.  The hardest part for us has been determining how to post the grades in the grade book.  I wondered if we'd get any  push back from parents when we entered a 3/5 grade, which looks like a 60%, or D- grade, even though they are very low points scores.  I've come up with a modified grading system that I think might work a little better, at least for our population.

The Quiz:

We decided to have six standards covered on each quiz.  Each standard is only one concept, which makes it easy to identify where a student is struggling.  The quizzes are spiraling, so quiz #1 might cover concepts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  Then, quiz #2 might cover standards 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.  This gives the students from one to six times to see the concept on a quiz to attain mastery.  What's mastery?  In our class, getting "M" (for Dan Meyer's, this is a "4") twice - then they never have to take that concept again!  What if they don't attain mastery on the quizzes?  Well, they can come in at lunch or during a set meeting time and we can work on individual concepts and retest right then!  The student needs to set this up, taking ownership for their learning.

If you've figured it out, this means that each quiz is actually six different grades in the grade book, one for each standard.  Our three eighth grade math teachers have decided that we'll each come up with our own way to track this and will meet throughout the year to compare and see what's working best.

For our first quarter, we are going to test every other class period, taking the day between to discuss the previous class quiz and practice tracking their progress.  We are also going to repeat the standards on quiz #1/#2 as well as quiz #3/#4 just so they see the first two standards a couple of times before they spiral off.  It will look something like this:

Day #1 - Quiz #1 (Standards PR1, PR2, PR3, PR4, EE3.1A, EE3.1B)

• PR1 = Prerequisite #1 - something we wanted to see that the students retained from 7th grade
• EE3.1AB = Pertaining to Common Core Standard EE3.1, broken into two parts

Day #2 - Review and track Quiz #1

Day #3 - Quiz #2 (same standards as Quiz #1)

Day #4 - Review and track Quiz #2

Day #5 - Quiz #3 (Standards PR2, PR3, PR4, EE3.1A, EE3.1B, EE3.3)

Day #6 - Review and track Quiz #3

Day #7 - Quiz #4 (same standards as Quiz #1)

Day #8 - Review and track Quiz #4

Day #9 - Quiz #5 (Standards PR3, PR4, EE3.1A, EE3.1B, EE3.3, EE3.2)

This continues as above, except the standards will continue to spiral from here out and not repeat again.

Here is an example of our first quiz:

Data Tracking:

This has actually been the most difficult part to come up with.  We wanted to have a tracking system that was easy, but also meaningful.  After reading through a lot of the comments on the Dan Meyer's blog as well as the resources he'd posted, we decided that shading boxes and stamping for mastery would be the way we'd like to handle it.  Our problem, like I said above, was how to enter the data into the grade book so that it made sense to parents and students.  We didn't necessarily feel like a 3 out of 4 (which is a 75%), which would be a 3 out of 5 in the grade book (60%) was really a good reflection of knowledge.  And, getting a 4 out of 4 really isn't 100% until they've attained it twice.  This all sounds very confusing….

Anyway, this is an idea I came up with for student tracking along with grade book input that seemed to make sense (to me anyway…).  It uses something like standards-based grading for the students, so that they see their progression with out a "grade" getting in the way, but uses a percentage (based on 10 points) to reflect that within the grade book.  It will probably be easier if you just read through it yourself:

If you look at the second page (right above), kids will color in through the letter that is on their quiz and also record that letter on the blank line.  Each time they see that concept, they will add the letter that they get (this would be up to 6 times) and continue shading as the letters get higher.  Once they get two "M"s they can see me for a stamp and they have mastered that concept!  Here's an example of what I'll show my kiddos as an example of how it might look (they won't use colors necessarily - I just thought it was prettier :)).

So… your thoughts?