Thoughts on next year, Sbar, and Self-pacing...

Ok, I'm going to do a brain dump to try and collect my thoughts for next year. Since nobody reads this blog, I can feel free to sound as stupid as I want and there will be no one to hide from in shame.

• I want to do standards based grading
• I want to do self pacing
• Iwant to use a flipped model of sorts

Now, how do I do all of that?

I've been gathering information and ideas on standards based grading, and have found the The SBGbeginners Wiki website very helpful.

So I'm thinking that I need to make short videos for each of the major concepts I plan to teach. Then, I need to gather other resources for my students to use: worksheets, textbook references, assignments or groups of problems from the textbook, other videos and explanations online. I'll consolidate these and organize them by standard/concept for the students to utilize to gain understanding and practice.

I'll need to pretest my students. Then I plan to use the results of those to determine what activities and assessments I use with each student, as well as which concepts of which students already have a basic understanding.

At that point, I'll have my students begin with the standard which I determine will be the first taught, and give them options as to how they wish to learn. Some might like to read examples from a textbook (not terribly likely, but possible), while others might want to jump right in with trying to solve problems and ask questions as they come up. Still others will want to watch my videos and/or other videos to get the basic concepts down.

I plan to require that students show me adequate preparation (notes taken, examples copied, and independent work done) in order to "qualify" to take the assessment on that standard/concept. I plan to assess each standard more than once, up to 4 times or possibly more. I've worked out a rubric for those assessments, which will include 3 levels of problems: basic, intermediate, and advanced. My rubric is downstairs. It will have to wait until tomorrow for me to post it, but it is a zero to four scale, four being perfect and zero being no attempt given.

On the occasion that a student does not "pass" a standard, I will require that they show me that they have adequately revisited the standard through practice and error analysis before they will "qualify" to reassess.

I plan to encourage students to work together and teach each other as well as engage in discussions with me about concepts with which they struggle.

I've got my Algebra standards largely mapped out, thanks in part to some of the links and uploaded documents I found on the aforementioned wiki site. I am struggling, however, with exactly which standards to use for my Pre Algebra classes. I have two Pre Algebra classes, one seventh grade and one eighth grade. There are no common core Pre Algebra standards. I'm thinking that I should use the eighth grade math standards, but I want to be sure I'm really preparing them for Algebra. I'm embarrassed to admit that in the past I've allowed the textbook company dictate what I cover. I want to be better at my job, so I want to change that.

I'm sure I've left some things out, but it feels Bette rot have it all down. I'll be working on this all month, so there's plenty of time (gotta be careful with that thought, I'm a natural procrastinator) to get my ideas and lesson structure fleshed out.