Email is my preferred method of communication and I try to answer all emails within 24 hours. If you have any comments, questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me at mrowland@sanjuan.edu

 

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The content for all classes, including unit plans, will be posted in our Google Classroom. Sign into Google Classroom by clicking here and entering your username and password.

 

 

Planning and Grading for Student Success

In my evolving teaching practice I continually strive to structure my practices to support student success and clear communication of expectations and achievement of learning goals. As I have studied what works in education, I have found four main practices that strongly support student success:

1. Unit plans that clearly state the learning targets and make sure that all students know what the learning targets are prior to and during unit instruction.
2. Rubrics for all summative assessments that clearly identify the standards and learning goals assessed and describe the different levels of proficiency. Students have access to all rubrics at the beginning of the unit so that they know what learning is expected and how it will be measured.
3. All assessments will be graded on a 4 point scale, as described on the rubric: Mastery (4), Proficient (3), Approaching Proficiency (2), and Not Proficient (1). This system provides accurate feedback to students on their level of proficiency on specific standards without adding the points game that can result from the traditional 100 point scale. 
4. Students have the ability to retest on any assessment to show their new level of understanding. Students are also asked to demonstrate the effort that they have invested in learning the content prior to retesting.

Supporting documents:

http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/Grading-Smarter-Not-Harder.aspx

On Assessments:

On Reassessment:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar14/vol71/num06/The-Case-for-Confidence.aspx

On Rubrics:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb00/vol57/num05/Using-Rubrics-to-Promote-Thinking-and-Learning.aspx 

 

On the 1-4 grading scale vs. 100 point scale

 

 

 

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