Confusion on Homework

With the changes we are making to our curriculum and pedagogy, many get confused about homework. Homework is the most fundamental aspect about school, probably because it hasn't changed in over 100 years. Student's file into class, the teacher disseminates information, and students head home to do homework. New systems like flipping and SBG (among others) upend this decades-old pattern. This leads to a lot of confusion about homework. Students ask, "What if I don't do my homework?" or "How much credit is homework worth?" or "Are you going to check homework?" Students and parents become very confused because they are not used to seeing systems where the homework may not count for anything (or at least not as much as it used to).

My Confusion

However, I don't want to use this post to discuss my students' confusion over homework, but rather mine, though student (and parent) confusion is certainly worthy of a blog post! Homework, and what to do with it, is confusing for me, too. After all, I too went through the decades-old pattern as a student. 

A few days ago, I was going around my classroom checking students' notes. They had been assigned to watch a video the previous night, and I wanted to check to see how many students had their notes done. This is standard practice - assign homework; check it the next day. Teachers don't have enough time to really check it well, we're mostly just seeing if students completed it (i.e. have something, anything, written down). I carried around a sheet, marking down whether or not students had their homework done. 

SBG Grading Scale

Our goal is to use this rating system as much as possible this year, giving students ratings on different learning targets on worksheets, quizzes, labs, and anything else to which it applies. As a PLC, we agreed to use the following grading scale when putting these ratings into our gradebooks (our system doesn't allow grades that aren't converted to percentages).

What Am I Grading?

So I was about to enter grades into my gradebook for completion of notes, when I thought, "What am I grading?" The rating system is supposed to be a rating of student understanding, not compliance. Does the fact that a student had notes scribbled on a page indicate that she understood anything? Not at all! I didn't really want to record compliance as if it was understanding and therefore muddy the waters of the students' grades. However, on the other hand, do I really want there to be no accountability of students doing their notes? As I discussed here, it's essential that students "Buy-In" to watching and taking notes on the videos. This is the rub that many teachers feel with SBG. "If I don't grade homework, they won't do it!" they say. And they have a good point. There is a place for holding students accountable to do the work they need to do. 

Talk It Out

As I sat at my computer wondering what to do with homework grades, I decided I needed to talk it out. I presented this dilemma to some colleagues and we had some good discussions about how to hold students accountable without compromising our students' grades. I also included the students on this discussion, telling them my dilemma - that I want their grades to be accurate, but that I also want to hold them accountable. I want to push my students to take responsibility for learning the material, for thinking about how well they understand it, and identifying areas in which they excel and need improvement. Maybe this could be one piece to that puzzle. 

This post is already too long. Click here for a later post about how I ended up responding to this dilemma and what came out of the conversations I had with colleagues and students.

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Thank you for finding and reading my blog. One of my goals is to participate in the worldwide discussion of implementing Standards-Based Grading. If you have questions, thoughts, or insights, please leave a comment (click "Comments" below). If you want to receive new posts by email, enter your email address in the right sidebar near the top of this page.

Flipped Classroom: Day 1

I wrote in an earlier post about the "Flipped" classroom. Flipping classrooms is all the rage, and for good reason. It seems to be quite effective and can lead to increased time with students for the teacher, allowing for more activities, more practice, and deeper understanding of the content - all good things. I may be crazy, but I'm implementing flipping at the same time I'm implementing standards-based grading (maybe this blog should have a revised name). However, as flipping pioneers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann point out, flipped learning, and especially flipped-mastery classrooms, are highly compatible with SBG, so at least my two steps are in the same direction.

The Sell

One of the keys to the flipped classroom is the sales' pitch at the front end. Many students have never experienced this type of learning and may resist it. Since when is change comfortable, right? We wouldn't flip if we didn't think it was what is best for students, but they don't know that. Flipping allows students to go at their own pace, rewind their teacher, here a lecture more than once, access content if they are absent, have their teacher help them with homework, and bounce ideas off their peers in collaborating towards a common goal. I bring all this up in pitching this to my students, which I did today for some of my classes (I'm indebted to Mr. Helberg for showing me the light on all these points!). No longer will students become stuck and be unable to do their homework. And isn't that the point, that students don't get stuck?

It's All About the Learning

My cooperating teacher when I was student teaching always said, "It's about the learning, not the points." Students (and adults) gravitate toward the points (for us, salary). They do this in taking notes on videos as well. We must hold them accountable for taking high-quality notes, and even before that, teach them how to watch a video. Otherwise, they will go through the motions to get the points. Just as you read a fiction book differently from a non-fiction book, you should watch a flipped class lecture video differently from an entertaining YouTube clip. We watched a video in class today, using the pause button liberally and even rewinding to make sure we got it all. I also give students this guide, which includes a checklist of what it should look like if you're getting the most out of your video. 

Buy In

If my students don't buy in to both the methodology of a flipped classroom and the pursuit of learning over "credit," they won't succeed this year. Because the curriculum is flipped, they obviously have to buy in to watching and taking notes on videos. Otherwise, they'll get very limited exposure to key pieces of the content. However, I would argue that the bigger and more profound buy in is to learning over credit. This extends beyond my classroom and into their life-long flourishing. "Buy In" is critical, and the beginning of the year is the critical time to get it. 

Actually Using Learning Targets

Learning Targets (often called Objectives) are posted in many classrooms. There is a ton of research that has shown that posting learning targets and making the goal of the classroom clear makes it easier for students to identify what they are supposed to get out of the classroom experience and therefore walk away with more clear understanding. This research has led to teachers posting learning targets all over the country, either by choice or mandate. However, for most of us, it has become a mindless routine. We post the learning targets, maybe reference them once or twice in class, and go about our business. I want to actually use the learning targets.

Use Learning Targets for Feedback

As I described in the 2 Year Implement Plan, I'm using SBG primarily for feedback purposes. What does this mean for learning targets? They have to become part of the feedback. I added the learning targets to each lab and worksheet that students do, usually at the bottom of the page. Here's an example:

The 5-point rating system has criteria that I use and is posted in my room and online for kids to reference. I don't know exactly how I'll use the learning targets on the worksheets - I'll probably try a couple different things. Having the students rate themselves, giving them a rating as a grade when I check homework, and both the student and I giving ratings and then comparing are all good ideas. The important point is that the learning targets don't just sit there like they are on your board or screen.

Self-Paced Learning

In talking with a colleague and discussing Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams' book Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, we began toying with the idea of "self-paced learning." At this point, this is an ethereal vision of how a chemistry classroom could work. Different groups of students could work their way through the curriculum at their own pace, taking tests and doing labs when they are ready for them.

Prerequisites

There are a couple of key structural things that we thought had to be in place for this to happen. 

1. Standards: In order to manage multiple students in multiple places at once, you have to have a consistent way to measure how well they're doing. How is a kid to know if he is ready for a test? How are you going to grade the first and last groups' tests consistently if they are taken 2 weeks apart? Standards and learning objectives must be written and inextricably linked to the curriculum for students to know how they are doing on a given concept, where they need to improve, and for them to be graded fairly.
2. Videos: Videos are the backbone to a flipped classroom. There's no way you can manage giving 5 different 10-minute lectures to 5 different groups of students in a single class period. You can, however, if there are videos of those 5 different lessons. Although we are not quite there, the Chemistry Team at Wheaton North has most of our key concept lectures and notes on video.

Complications

Of course, there's a downside. I'm sure there are creative ways to involve the entire class all at once when they are working on 5 different units, but I haven't thought of any. I like doing a warm-up activity at the beginning of class, allowing it to lead into a full class discussion or error analysis. This opportunity would be lost if some students are doing different warm-up activities. I suppose I would just have to do that error analysis with different groups. One that I have thought of is having student groups teach the topic they are on to other student groups, whether or not they have already covered it. All teachers know that you learn more when you teach.

This is just an initial idea at this point, but I could easily see where it would be a natural byproduct of implementing SBG. Can you imagine students coming into the science classroom, looking up the next lab in the curriculum, gathering their materials from cabinets (peacefully!), and getting to work in the lab on their own initiative, before the initial bell rings? Now that would be #instaworthy.