From the Syllabus: My SBG Blurb

 It is getting on toward the end of the 6-week summer semester in college algebra, and I am once again thinking hard about my standards-based grading (SBG) implementation. As part of my reflection, I looked back at the relevant sections of the syllabus, where I spelled out in some detail what I thought my students needed to know about my SBG implementation this semester, including a bit about the philosophy, the implications, the expectations, and classroom procedures.

In event that some of it may be useful to other educators embarking on the SBG journey, and in the hope that others will share their ideas and insights, here are those relevant sections of the syllabus:

SBG Targets: Rubric or Checklist?

As I prepare learning targets for my next unit of instruction, I am contemplating whether it might be useful to split my targets into two categories: Checklist Targets and Rubric Targets.  

How might you improve?

How convincing is this? How might you do better?

These questions were bothering me. I had just completed a paper with colleagues Lenore Kinne and Dave Coffey on the effective use of rubrics for formative assessment (in press). In it, we wrote:

...a good rubric provides feedback on the progress that has been made toward the goal while simultaneously communicating ways the performance might be improved (emphasis added).

My rubric did the first part, but it bothered me that it didn't do the second part.

For that, I had to write comments on students' papers. I realized I was writing the same sort of comments over and over. I needed to do something about that.