Monday, July 29, 2013

data tracking

At my school, it is a requirement for transparent data for students and teachers.  I'm not a fan of data walls because I don't think it is helpful for special ed students to see themselves in red all the time.

Instead, I am a fan of data folders where students track their own growth and progress.  I found this on pinterest:

I think it needs to be placed on my students' data folders.  Academics is a journey and there are small, meaningful steps that students will take toward mastery of a concept.  It's a process :)

Here is a very rough copy of the poster I made for my classroom explaining what mastery of standards mean.



At our school, we don't have grades.  Instead, we assess mastery of the Common Core with standards-based assessments.  We are moving toward SBAC online testing, but that will be coming up in the next few years.  

For a student to exceed standards, which isn't possible for all standards, they must meet all components of the standard in addition to a working knowledge of the next grade level's knowledge targets.  

For example, knowing and using the 26 letters of the alphabet would be mastery of a standard.  There is not an option to exceed standards because there simply aren't additional letters to learn.  In contrast, multiplication in fifth grade includes whole numbers to the thousands as well as  fractions and decimals.  To exceed standards, students could attempt larger problems and explain their thinking in a variety of ways.

In our district, we have broken down the common core into four categories of learning targets:

1. Knowledge: This is the basic level of what students must know about the standard.  As the lowest form of Bloom's Taxonomy or DOK (Depth of Knowledge), students are recalling facts and regurgitating information.  This is frequently regarded as a DOK 1 question.

2. Reasoning: Students must apply the knowledge targets on a task or question.  This can be done in multiple choice or short answer format.  We tend to have students justify their thinking (ELA) or explain their work (math) to show their understanding of the material.  When they justify their thinking for reading passages, it is an expectation that they quote accurately from the passage to reveal the basis for their argument.  These are frequently regarded as DOK 2 questions.

3. Product: Students must solve more complex problems, create a product or write an extended constructed (written) response to explain their thinking.  These are more in depth and regarded as DOK 3 or 4 questions.

4: Performance: Performance tasks are rare in elementary school, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.  Students combine their information, usually from multiple standards, to complete a given task.  It usually is a synthesis and analysis, which is a DOK 3 or 4 level activity.

For students to master a standard, they must meet all of the knowledge, reasoning and performance or product tasks (if applicable). 

If students are missing part of the reasoning question or cannot fully complete the product, they do not master the standard.  Instead, they are approaching, which means they understand parts but need more guidance toward independent mastery.

For emerging students, that means they are still developing their working understanding of the material and need assistance to complete tasks to grade level expectations.

We have many chats in the classroom about how education is a journey and reassessment happens frequently.  I've said it before, but what I love about the Common Core State Standards is students are given until the end of the year to demonstrate mastery.  I'm no longer confined to trimesters or quarters to jam in content, but rather have the flexibility to reteach and blend concepts together.  I'm not teaching theme in isolation, I'm teaching theme while examining elements of poetry, figurative language and text structure.  A lesson or unit might take a few weeks, but we've hit RL 5.2, RL 5.5 and language standards for figurative language by blending concepts together for more authentic learning.

In addition to the class poster that "mistakes are proof that you are trying", I am a fan of this one as well:

It's okay not to know. It's not okay not to try.

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