How can we make frequent and spiraled assessments in a standards-based grading system work while retaining the joy of teaching and learning? It's not easy, but can be accomplished if we redefine what assessment looks like. Here are a few things I have learned that helped me make standards-based grading work with in a social studies classroom.
Standards Based Grading
Standards-Based Grading presents opportunities and challenges. With the right standards, history curriculum can fit into an SBG system smoothly and effectively.
C3 Standards: Writing Proficiency Scales
Our department has adopted and prioritized the C3 standards. One of the things I like the most about the C3 standards is their foundation in Inquiry processes that support each of the four disciplines. One issue I still go back and forth on is to what extent a foundation 9/10 course needs to have standards … Continue reading C3 Standards: Writing Proficiency Scales
Moving Towards Standards Based Grading in History
I no longer teach at a school that uses standards based grading. However, I believe in the spirit of it; how it honors growth over time, includes clearer and more visible learning objective, offers opportunities for better feedback, and generally supports learning over GPA outcomes. (That's a tall order to sell, I know). So, I have been reflecting on how to integrate the best parts of SBG into a traditional grading system.
Courageous Deletions: Surviving the Interminable Avalanche of Historical Content
The content of history curriculum is constantly growing and teachers have less and less time to teach it. Teachers need strategies to guide content selection, make courageous deletions, and unlock the potential of history education. This includes involving student choice and inquiry into the process.
Thematic Unit Design in US History
My unit design process for a thematic course involves overcoming several challenges: content and skill selection, assessment design, and leaving space for inquiry, scaffolding, and differentiation. A healthy dose of backwards design alongside the four non-negotiables of my own process end up making things work.
Skill-based Enduring Understandings
I use skills-based enduring understandings to design my lesson activities, create and tune assessments, and plan my units so that they are aligned and have strong progression of skills. History teachers who already teach skills will not find all of these new nor incredibly insightful. It's how you use the enduring understandings that can be transformative in the classroom.
Reassessment: Making it work for you and your students
We all have bad days, we all appreciate second chance. Although there were exceptions, I found in our small representation of international educators that people were philosophically supportive of reassessment but disagreed quite a bit about the logistics of how it should be done. Here is how I made it work.
It all begins with evidence
Whatever your content, whatever the skills or standards you are teaching, begin with evidence. It makes inquiry more possible and gives power to students, turning them into active historians instead of receptacles of information.
Teaching Multiple Causation
My wife and I just finished the process of our move to Shanghai. So, with that done, I can return to this blog to post about my favorite skill to teach: Multiple Causation. It's been a longer than expected hiatus, but I doubt it matters very much given the fact that readers are essentially still … Continue reading Teaching Multiple Causation
So many standards!
When I started teaching in Florida, I used the standards as I was given. "Used" is a generous word though as I did what many new teachers do, used the textbook as my curriculum and mixed in various activities, simulations, etc. into the lessons to spice things up. The standards were what I pulled out … Continue reading So many standards!