Musings from Mrs. Galvan

My students recently received their progress reports for 3rd quarter and maybe they need a reminder of why I am trying standards based grading and how I turn their various degrees of mastery into a letter grade.  Before I get into the details,  let's remember why I am making this choice. I want the feedback they receive from me to be just that: feedback on what they should keep doing and what they need to improve upon. I feel that giving letter grades doesn't promote a growth mindset and can be interpreted as punishment rather than an indication of progress. As such, I need to give my students lots of chances to make mistakes, receive feedback and demonstrate mastery of our learning targets . My students take skill quizzes (short, ten minute maximum) 2 - 3 times per week. I check them, given written feedback, track performance with learning targets and return them the next days. Students make corrections as needed and then decide if they want to reassess .  Yes, t...