Here to There Differentiatedly

From Google Maps

It arrived in the post yesterday.

Reading it, I can hear his voice reading it to me. That is either cool or creepy, I can't decide yet. Inflections, emphasis, pacing, even hand gestures appear in my mind.

Again, cool or creepy, and I've only read the first chapter of Fair Isn't Always Equal by @rickwormeli.

It's been on my list for a couple of years now, but finally bought a copy. It is used, which I like to do.

Used books are whacky. This one has obvious water damaged and the previous owner (s?) stopped using orange highlighter after the first chapter. There are also mysterious stains that look like dead mosquitoes or fingernail polish in the first few pages. Like I said, whacky.

Enough...

This week, the baseball team I coach in the summer is heading to Hamburg, Minnesota, thus the map.

I know this is trite, but it just hit me again. How do my students learn? If the destination is Hamburg, what is the best way for us to travel there. The destination is the final goal, but the journey is so different for each of these routes. The topography and what we would see along the way varies even in this short jaunt across central Minnesota.

From the Intranets

Ooh! Aaahh! Here's the big tie in to what I'm thinking and reflecting about after reading chapter one. (I wouldn't have highlighted the same stuff as the previous owner of the book, no wonder they quit working through it.)

Chapter 1 challenges me to think about being fair in my classroom. Fair as being defined as differentiated instruction for my students.

This year, I'm expecting a full boat in all my biology classes. Don't think there will be a class smaller than 24, but whatever. The point of thought is that there will be a pile of learners: each one with their own style and need for getting to the final objective of learning the biology standards as identified.

Last year was my second year of using standards based grading. That has been an amazing transformation for me. If you're bored, scroll back through some previous posts. With the standards and the associated "I Can" statements placed in front of the students, how can differentiated instruction work best to help them achieve mastery. How can I make the biology classroom more fair in that way?

The mind-set of differentiated instruction asks me to consider more and more the need for competent, independent learners. Each of these minds engaged in biology is unique, and one of the challenges is to create competent biologists. The want for them to take their learning up and carry it to the standard and become proficient can make it fair.

How do I help them know themselves as learners? That question shakes me, but it is a goal attainable. My job is to give them the skills to know themselves: strengths, weaknesses, shortcomings, holes...

How do I get them to "Hamburg"?

1. get to know them as learners
2. build relationships
3. incite their curiosity 
4. encourage them to know themselves as competent, independent learners
5. make their biology experience fair

THAT is some stuff to do!

SBG to SBL

http://www.lnap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/change.jpg

If nothing, this journey has been about reflection.

...which is a good thing...

Flip the hour glass back over, rewind the clock or just take the crystal off of the face of your Timex and push the hands back. Any of those images work for me, to look back at where this past two plus years have taken me in my quest to find a more appropriate tool for communicating learning to students.

In the fall of 2013, the science department was on board standards based grading. In a community of five teachers, this was my doing. I don't say that with pride or arrogance, it just was. The previous year (2012), it was me. I was alone in the movement away from traditional grading practices.

Department members looked on and wondered. It was a passage. We have always been a strong department and worked well together, but I know they were pretty much like, "What the heck are you doing?" and "This is not my idea, but it will impact all of us!"

It did impact all. Resources were made available, conversations were long and eventually by the end of 2012-2013, as a department the move had begun to SBG.

Grades are communication, not compensation. That is the point, the "stay on message" idea that keeps coming back and must be stated, and stated and restated.

Initially, my grade book was filled with every assessment taken. I do mean every, you could scroll for days across the spreadsheet. It was TMI! Then conferences came and conversations came with parents about why 3 out of 4 was not a bad thing. The change for this year came to only putting summative assessments in the grade book. (This idea came from @garnet_hillman.)  Parents only want to see what impacts little Ignatius's grade. That was a good move and simplified communication via gradebook. We use iCampus and the way I torture it, is to have 2 scores: one a SBG score (1-4) and then a percentage score that can be converted into a grade.

Formative Assessments are still the bread and butter of the biology classroom. I've taken forms from Bob Kuhn (@APBIORoswell) and Carolyn Durley (@c_durley) for students to control. The form has the Minnesota Science Standards and then I've taken the standard apart into smaller "I Can" statements. Those are what we really are measuring. Students then record their own progress through the I Can's and reflect on what they need to work on.

Change. Those are two examples from the past year that will make communication more effective.

As a department, we've decided to start using standards based learning, rather than grading. Students in our school come to the island of SBL when walking to the science department. They have been indoctrinated to think points, rather than learning.

We are going to focus on the learning part of what we do. Students remain shocked when hearing me say, "I don't care about the grade, I care about the learning." Hopefully, this will reinforce this message.

Change will be a constant on this journey, no question about that!

OH "It is impossible to get a 4"

http://bicyclethailand.com/

Students say insightful things, if we listen.

The most recent summative assessment was given prior to winter break. The days leading up to it saw students seeking understanding with questions about the content. Several came for help during FLEX, which is a half hour period at the end of the day built for remediation, making up work, find answers to questions, free reading and other activities

At the beginning of the session, one of the students uttered the phrase, "It is impossible to get a 4."

We went about the business of answering questions related to transport of materials in and out of a cell. Chunk of whiteboard and markers in hand, my students and I discussed how and why and where and the importance of transporting things across and through the membrane.

I asked the student what he meant. His response was something to the effect, "You expect so much from us to get a four."

As the day ended and students left, I reflected on those student thoughts....and came to "cool." Currently, the gradebook in our district has to be converted to a letter grade. That is not what I want, since it reflects the old traditional notion that "grades are compensation."

What about the picture above.

Looking back at my gradebook from the past year and a half, I have in fact given fewer A's than previously. I don't doubt that my grades in my career have been inflated and not an accurate representation of what students know or can demonstrate. Now that grades communicate learning against the Minnesota Science Standards, the bloat-ation has been removed.

So, yeah, it is hard to get a four. Students get to four, but with effort and mastery of content.

They recognize that, which is even better.