Originally posted HERE Part 2
Previously, we looked at how a traditional grading model fails to reflect a student’s actual learning. Standards Based Grading (SBG) is a system of grading based on academic content standards. Students’ learning is measured based on their growth through the academic standards. Because students’ grades connect to the content standards, they do not align to a test or assignment. The tests and assignments are used to determine a student’s degree of mastery of a standard. SBG focuses on growth rather than a fixed interpretation of proficiency. “Dr. Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence,” (“The Growth Mindset,” n.d.). A fixed mindset sees learning as static. It is focused on an individual’s performance. When faced with challenges, a fixed mindset either avoids or gives up easily. The opposite is true of a growth mindset. Learning is seen as something that can be developed or grown. It is also viewed as a process, not an event. When faced with challenges, a growth mindset allows a person to persevere or push through. SBG is focused on the academic growth of a student. Because the grade is not determined by an average of test scores, it is determined by the growth a student has made toward mastery of a given standard. Grading using SBG is actually much simpler than it may appear. Instead of a student earning an A, B, C, D, or F, the student earns a 4, 3, 2, or 1. These numbers tell the student where they are achieving in reference to mastery. Take a look at this chart: 4 = The student has exceeded the standard 3 = The student has met the standard 2 = The student is approaching the standard 1 = The student is not approaching the standard Work Habits = This category covers behaviors: Completion of homework, behavior in class, timeliness, working with peers, etc. Using this method of grading allows teachers to actually grade what the state departments ask schools to assess: State Standards. Students are no longer given a zero due to a behavior. Behaviors are a completely separate category. SBG puts the focus on academic achievement and not on activities, homework, or organization. Flipped learning creates an environment centered around a growth mindset. The group space is an active space that promotes the application learned content. The group space is used to grow students towards mastery. Flipped Learning is the meta-strategy that enhances the implementation of SBG. In my next post, I will look at a few manageable steps to move from a traditional grading model to SBG. Until then, what are your thoughts on SBG? Do you see flipped learning as a way to enhance the way in which we grade? *The Growth Mindset, What is Growth Mindset. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from https://www.mindsetworks.com/science
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Originally posted Here This is Part 1 of a three-part series about Flipped Learning’s impact on grading. Part 1 My first years flipping my classroom were focused on making videos and finding great videos that my students could watch in the individual space. My attention then shifted to the group space, moving it from passive to active. Now that my class is functioning smoothly, I feel like I have moved into the next phase of flipped learning…assessment. When addressing assessment, I am not thinking about how to assess, rather I am thinking about the results of the assessments. That’s right; I am talking about grading. If flipped learning is the meta-strategy that allows our current instructional methods to be more effective, and our class time to be more supportive, then shouldn’t our grading be taken to the next level as well? Grades are meant to reflect how well a student understands the content standards, not how successful a student was on assignments. The problem arises when a student doesn’t do the assignment at all. Should that student get a zero for not doing the assignment if the grade is meant to reflect how well the student knows the content? There is also the pitfall of the completion grade. Because a student completed the assignment, he/she receives a complete mastery grade of 100%. In both cases, we are grading a behavior and not the learning. A grade is a measurement of the learning that has occurred. When we grade an assignment, what are we looking for? Are we looking for how many answers the student got right, or are we looking to measure the learning that has occurred? A student who gets 50% of an assignment correct fails the assignment. If we look at the learning that has occurred, has that students demonstrated mastery of some of the content? With traditional grading, there is a finality to the grade, especially on summative assessments. How often have teachers graded an essay by going over it with a fine-toothed comb, making corrections to grammar, adding comments about the wording of sentences or paragraphs, only to have a student look at the grade and ignore the edits? The grade is a finalizing statement about how well the student did on the assignment. My question is this: Does the grade reflect the learning that has occurred?
Kids are by far more complicated than what an A, B, C, D or F can communicate. The student that maintains a B or C average may be one of the hardest working kids in the class and has developed a sense of ownership in the learning process. Flipped learning gives us the time to get to know the complexities of our students because we are working with them in an active learning environment. If a traditional grading system isn’t the best measurement of student learning, where do we go from here? I recommend a look into Standards Based Grading (SBG). In my next post, I will discuss why I think SBG is a perfect fit with Flipped Learning. What are your thoughts on the impact Flipped Learning has on grading? Find my original posting on flglobal.org by clicking HERE
For years, my students did projects in my classroom, and I thought that was what made my classroom project based. I was particular in the design of the project, and my students turned out some impressive tri-fold boards. My students became the kings and queens of PowerPoint (and when they were feeling adventurous, they made a Prezi) and tri-fold boards/posters. As long as the students followed my specific instructions with the design of their, I could guarantee a beautiful project. I was always proud of how my students learned the content, and then created my vision of how to represent their mastery of the content. The students had an opportunity to add their own personal flair to their projects by choosing different colors for backgrounds, and I made sure to let them pick different topics from the unit for their projects to represent. And then I learned that I had no idea what project based learning was. I always thought that as long as my students were doing projects, I was engaging them in project based learning. This could not be further from the truth. Project based learning looks at the purpose of the project and who generates the design of the project. 1. Projects are the MAIN COURSE, not the dessert of a unit. The project is what students use to cement their understanding of content during a unit of study. It is not an at the end of the unit create a diorama of what we covered. The students use content AS THE LEARN IT to develop their project. This helps students to understand the purpose of the learning and how all of the information connects. 2. Projects are student designed. Teachers do not tell the students what sort of project to create; the individual student determines that. This allows the students to develop more significant meaning and connections within their project. Students will also have greater buy-in to mastery of the content when it is THEIR project. Project Based Learning, to do it well, requires something that I lacked: TIME! There just wasn’t time to have the students do a project with every unit of study. Flipped learning solves that problem. Because direct instruction is not consuming the group space, students have time to dive into the application of knowledge. The higher end of Bloom’s taxonomy (Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create) becomes the focus of your class time. Your students have the TIME to apply their knowledge by creating a project that enables them to evaluate the depth of their understanding of the information. How have you used projects in your classroom? Were you like me, using projects as dessert instead of the main course? How can you take project based learning to the next level? Find my original posting on flglobal.org by clicking HERE
How on Earth can I continue to stand in front of my students and lecture at them about things that they truly…don’t care anything about? How can I drone on and on day after day staring into vacant expressions and disrespectful behaviors? These were the questions that plagued me in 2012 as I sat at my desk thinking about getting out of education. I could not see a light at the end of the depression I was dealing with every single day I walked through my classroom door. I have had tough students, and I have had tough years, but I was at a different point in my career; I was experiencing hopelessness. It was at this point that two amazing people had a heart to heart conversation with me, and it would change my life. I walked into my administrator’s office and sat down at the conference table. Before me sat my Principal, Sandra Sutherland, and the Dean of Students, Michele Gorman. I looked at both of them and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” I was shocked by their response. They looked at me and said, “We will not let you quit.” I told them, “I cannot continue to do what I am doing.” Sandra said, “You’re right, you can’t continue to do what you have been doing.” “BUT YOU ARE A TEACHER,” Michele said emphatically! I looked at both of them very perplexed, “I don’t know how to teach any differently than what I am already doing. I do projects, integrate technology, play educational games, and it doesn’t seem to matter.” Sandra looked at me and said, “I don’t have the answers, but I do know that you are a teacher, and you just have to find a different way of engaging your students.” I left that meeting feeling depressed, but I at least had a mission or focus…Find a New Way to Teach. I took to the internet a typed in the words: New and Innovative Teaching Methods. Immediately, the search turned up the words Flipped Learning. The more I explored the methodology, the more my depression seemed to fall like scales from my eyes. It was as though my passion for teaching was reignited. I could not read enough about it, and I told everyone about it. I went to Sandra and Michele and explained what I had been reading, and even though they didn’t know much about it, they said…GO FOR IT! Flipping my class has been the biggest change I have ever made in my career, and I could never go back to traditional instruction. I LOVE my job. I won’t say that there aren’t challenges each day, but I now feel like I am doing education the way it was always meant to be done, working side by side with my students helping them master content in a personal way. Find my original posting on flglobal.org by clicking HERE
One of my favorite movies growing up was Gene Wilder’s, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In that movie, the character Veruca Salt wanted everything: an Umpa Lumpa, the magical boat, a golden goose, and when I heard her belt out the line, “don’t care how, I want it NOW,” I can remember thinking, ‘What a brat!’ The same thought rings through my head whenever I think about the idea of instant gratification. Today’s society is built on the ideology of instant gratification. We no longer send letters through the mail (and sometimes an e-mail takes too much time), so we text directly. We have “On Demand” television programming, and “On Demand” music programming. “Alexa, what’s the weather. Alexa, play the Moana soundtrack. Alexa, set a timer.” Unfortunately, we “don’t care how, we want it NOW!” It is time, though, to end the need for instant gratification in the classroom. Many teachers feel the pressure of making sure students have been exposed to all of the instructional standards due to the weight of standardized testing. Teaching can be a rather daunting task, especially when we think through everything that has to be done. Toss in a few calamity days and all of a sudden we, as teachers, feel like we are drowning under the pressure of getting through everything. Even though there is a lot of pressure to get through it all, we have to slow down and realize that it isn’t about quantity or even how quickly we get to the finish line, but quality and the journey of getting there. Trying to ensure that all students master all content RIGHT NOW can be one of the most frustrating aspects of teaching. We need students to demonstrate a mastery of the standards in such an immediate manner that we tend not to “care how,” we just “want it NOW!” The truth is, we need to slow down and focus on the how, and be patient with the TIME it takes students to master the standards. Instant gratification is not an ideology that applies to only one particular group in education. Students, teachers, administrators all want results RIGHT NOW! Students want instant gratification: I finished the assignment, so what is my grade. Students focus on what grade they received on an assignment rather than the learning that took place. Due to the technology age that they have grown up in, gone is the journey to their experiences. Everything is immediate; from access to information on the internet to publishing things on the internet. Teachers want instant gratification: I taught it so they should have understood it. If we don’t get that instant gratification, we are frustrated due to a lack of patience in the learning. We want to see immediate progress out of our students. Administrators want instant gratification: Often there is little time to explore instructional practices because administrators want to know that what you are doing in the classroom is effective. There isn’t time in the year to “explore”. We need to do education right and do it right now. After all, these kids have a test to pass. The pressure to produce data that demonstrates how are students are doing can be very overwhelming. ‘Don’t care how, I want it NOW!’ The elusive educational element that everyone wants, but very few seem to have is TIME, and that is what Flipped Learning gives us all. As a flipped educator, I am able to focus on the quality of the education I am providing rather than the quantity of standards that are covered. The depth of the learning produces great traction for future lessons. One way to think about it is in regards to a tire. Does slamming down the accelerator make the car move, no. The tires just spin in place and start to smoke. Sounds kind of familiar to the classroom. We slam down the accelerator on the standards and then we tend to get frustrated because our students are not making the progress we expected. We wanted immediate progress. Because Flipped Learning moves instruction to the individual space, teachers use the group space for ACTIVE learning. Due to the additional time this gives us when we are face to face with our students, we are forced to go slowly. We can be patient and long tempered with the mastery of standards. We have time for students to be active with their learning. The more active they are with the content, the more connections they are able to make with the content. Slow and Steady Wins the Race When we look at our curriculum, we need to be able to identify those standards that are foundational or non-negotiable. In other words, these are the standards that must be mastered first. If we go slowly with these foundational standards, it makes the others flow more smoothly. If we do not take the time to ensure mastery at the lower levels, we are going to continue to spin our tires and be frustrated because we do not see the progress we want or need. Having the right materials to build with make this process simpler, but knowing what holds it all together is even more important: patience. Flipped Learning provides educators with the ideal formula for slowing down, creating active learning spaces, and checking for mastery. Here are some simple things that we can do to slow down, gain traction, and make progress. First, present content in the individual space. This allows your students to come to class and practice what you just taught them. This does not mean that they should or will be at a level of mastery from being exposed to a concept once. You can work with the students to see where they may need more support as you progress through the concept. This enables you to help your students gain traction. Second, create an active learning space for students to demonstrate their knowledge. Students need to DO something with the information they have been presented with. It is one thing to memorize and spit back that memorized piece of information, but it is something altogether different to ask students to apply that information to a new scenario. Truly, this is going to challenge EVERYONE in the classroom. Third, ask your students to create something based on the pieces of information you taught them. This could range from developing their own story problems to the integration of project based learning. This solidifies the content for the student when they have to engage with the content in more of a personal or individual manner. Fourth, teachers need to revisit the information that they taught to the students based on the previous three steps. Revisiting this information enables you to clarify misconceptions and further check for mastery of content. The fifth and final step is actually assessing students, and that is only if you feel that they are ready. As I stated previously, going slowly, especially through foundational standards, enables you to have greater traction on future lessons. Originally posted on my flglobal.org blog. Check it out HERE
The topic of rigor is a focus of many administrators throughout the world. Administrators want to ensure that classrooms are being conducted in such a manner that students are getting the most from the curriculum while being challenged to engage higher order thinking skills. When we approach the idea of flipping our classes, administrators want to ensure that rigor is not going to flounder. I believe that Flipped Learning creates an environment in which rigor thrives. A fellow Master Flipped Educator, Peter Paccone, asked the students and teachers in his high school to define rigor. The results of that poll were revealing. He said the students viewed rigor as the number of hours spent outside of class on graded, challenging homework. When the teachers were polled, they said that rigor was a class with a foreboding name (Chemistry, Calculus BC), only a few A’s, slightly more B’s, and lots of C’s. These results made it clear that there is confusion about what rigor actually means. Google defined it as the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate, but it lacked the qualities I felt administrators were looking for in classrooms. After much discussion with other flipped classroom teachers, a definition of rigor emerged. One that I believe is challenging, yet foundational for a quality education. Rigor is the act of engaging higher order thinking skills within an active learning environment to generate a thorough, exhaustive, and accurate engagement with classroom content. My search for a connection between Flipped Learning and rigor began with a question: Does Flipped Learning produce rigor in the classroom? The answer seemed to be a resounding NO, which did not make sense. Martha Ramirez, a fellow Master Flipped Educator, told me that Flipped Learning could lead to rigor, but it does not guarantee it. As I pondered that statement, it became apparent that rigor is not guaranteed because the quality of Flipped Learning that is being delivered has great variance. Reza Najjar, a Master Flipped Educator from Iran, shared his list of the characteristics of an effective flipped classroom:
If flip is being implemented well, it harnesses the potential for an extremely rigorous learning environment. Merely flipping a class does NOT guarantee a rigorous classroom, just as having the right ingredients to make a cake (eggs, flour, oil, milk, etc) do not guarantee the cake will taste good. The teacher or cook must use the ingredients appropriately to ensure a quality product. When educators are well trained in Flipped Learning and are given the support necessary to create a positive flipped classroom, rigor has a much greater potential for developing. Though flip may not “guarantee” rigor, it can be argued that flip sets the stage for rigor to occur more efficiently than in a traditional instructional model. Nothing in education can guarantee results, because everything in education has the potential to be done poorly. There isn’t a 100% guarantee, but there can be a high probability. So as I revisit my initial question: Does Flipped Learning produce rigor in the classroom? The answer depends on the quality of the flipped education that is being delivered. Great flipped teaching leads to a rigorous education through:
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Mr. Dan JonesMaster Flip Educator with 13 years experience in the classroom. FLGI Faculty Trainer who trains based on the Gold Standard of Flipped Learning 3.0. Expertise in project based learning. Archives
October 2018
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