We are finishing up my 1st semester using Standards Based Grading and boy was it a learning experience. Here are a few quick thoughts and reflections as I prep for next semester.

1. SBG worke well for skills based stuff. Having a basic rubric with the 4 levels gave enough flexibility to have meaningful feedback while allowing for some nuance.

2. Content assessment is more difficult. Testing is recall assessment in a specific situation in which students occupy a different mental space. Some Ss could recall in review games but not in test setting… Curious.

3. I was drowning in data; or at least in the need to collect data and then give feedback in a timely manner.

4. And yet I never felt like I had enough data points.

5. Students liked the growth concept. They appreciated not getting trapped by a low test score early in the semester or one bad test score.

6. But the students only really cared about SBG because they saw it in terms of getting a better grade.

7. Students didn’t understand the math concept of the Power Law Function. This needs to be changed.

8. Merging the SBG with all the grade requirements was… tricky. I managed but it obfuscated more than illuminated the grade number. I an working in a better structured.

9. I used the TeacherEase digital gradebook because it had the option to create a Power Law function. It was not student/parent user friendly. It was also a bit cumbersome. The students really disliked the site and I wasnt really a fan.