Standards Based Education: Learning, Grading, and Reporting Bismarck Public Schools November 13, 2014

In this Presentation ● The what and why of standards based education ● High school: letter grades, ACT, remediation ● Grading, homework, and parent communication ● Teacher voices from the classroom ● Continued work

Why Standards Based Education Public education as a social good…....our social, moral, and economic imperative to prepare all students to be “choice ready” for the career, college, and community they select.

Why Standards Based Education ● creates consistent grade level expectations, regardless of school house or teacher ● encourages/drives growth toward learning targets ● allows students to understand they can improve their achievement/ mastery - (important for high school & college work) ● provides feedback focused on the student’s current level of understanding compared with the grade level expectation ● shares accountability for the teaching-learning process ● creates more success in the student-parent-teacher partnership: a.the end goal is shared (proficiency for students) b.identifies student strengths and areas of growth Summarized from March 25, 2014, Standards Based Education Steering Committee, BPS Middle Schools

When Grades are Used to Communicate Learning Paradigm shift: grades as reward and punishment to grades (scores) as communication about what is learned and left to be learned. Done well, standards based grades indicate where a student is performing in relation to a learning target at a specific moment as well as what the student does not understand.

Miscommunication in Traditional Grades

BPS High School Cumulative GPA

Prepared for Post-Secondary? BPS Graduating Class ACT

Academic Return on Investment for BPS

What We Have Heard You Need from Us ● Powerschool concerns ● Continue to determine and refine levels of proficiency (including level 4 where applicable). ● Share resources so that parents can help in the learning of specific standards. ● Build and expand better “in-building” and online communication of SBE and SBG.

Understanding My Child’s Learning ● Communicate with teacher ● Teacher/team to home newsletters/ s ● Attend school based meetings ● Ask and engage your child in the conversation ● PowerSchool We are working to improve this daily.

Communicating with Parents - PowerSchool: Communication with Grades and Attendance tab

Communicating with Parents - PowerSchool: Communication with Standards Grades tab

Communicating with Parents - PowerSchool: Communication with Grades and Attendance tab

Student self- assessment

Assignment Calendar

Homework has a Different Purpose If purposeful, homework... ● provides practice of skills for growth ● prepares for learning activities ● identifies strengths and improves weaknesses ● is directly tied to standards ● is not held against a student when reporting proficiency ● prepares students for assessments

6.EE.2a: Write expressions that record operations with numbers and with letters standing for numbers. An Example: Math Power Standard

An Example: Daily Work

An Example: Formative Assessment

An Example: Summative Assessment

Two Short Stories from the Field ● Linda Hoag, special education ● Vickie Pomonis, 30 year teacher, now instructional coach

Access ● Strengthening the connections between special education and the child’s opportunity to experience and benefit from general education curriculum. ● Ensuring that special education services are in addition to the general education curriculum, not separate from it. ● Providing more opportunities to participate in general education curriculum. This is more efficient because of the clear learning targets and expectations.

Collaboration General Education Concepts Planned Mon. Review fractions, whole, halves, thirds, fourths Tues. Use models to identify the whole and find the missing pieces of a whole Wed. Use fraction bars or fraction circles to add so that the answer is less than or more than one Thurs. Write rational numbers as fractions i.e. 1.5 = 3/2 Fri. Add rational numbers Standard: Math- 7.NS.1 Apply and extend previous understandings of addition and subtraction to add and subtract rational numbers. Goal: Add fractions with like denominators with sums less than or equal to one. Special Education Concepts Planned Mon. Review with the class Tues. Work with the class Wed. Show papers cut into fractions; match the paper to the written fraction Thurs. Demonstrate cutting a “whole” into fractions Fri. Demonstrate adding fractions to create a whole

Grading/Reporting Informs us of progress in the general education curriculum. Without standards based grading No pretest Quiz 1: 0/5 minimal effort Quiz 2: 1/5 worked hard Final grade = A With standards based grading Pretest: 0/5 =.5 Quiz 1: 1/5 =.5 Quiz 2: 3/5 = 1.0 Final grade = 1.0

Teaching students, teaching teachers

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” -- H. E. Luccock

Bibliography ActiveGrade (2012). “Standards-Based Grading Overview.” Guskey, T. R., & Bailey, J. M. (2001). Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press. Heflebower, Tammy, Hoegh, & Warrick, Phil. (2014). A School Leader’s Guide to Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory. Marzano, R. J. (2000). Transforming Classroom Grading. Alexandria: ASCD. O'Connor, K. (2007). A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. Portland: Educational Testing Service. Wingenbach, Kenyon & Metzger, Jeanne. Personal interview. November 6, 2014.