The Beginning to my SBG Journey

Another school year is upon us and this year I am determined to get back into the swing of blogging. I have a lot to talk about. This year is the first year that I am using Standards Based Grading in my social studies classes. I am very excited about this because I fully support the idea of Standards Based Grading and I think it will be beneficial to my students. When I give out a B or a C+ it is not always transparent as to what that grade actually means what the student understands. With SBG it will be more clear what the student is proficient in and what they still need help with to master. I am on board with the philosophy, but now I have to actually use it.

At the end of the last school year, my social studies department created standards for two courses (World Geography and US History). It was tough to come up with the "right" ones or the ones we thought were "right" at the time. Now I am working on creating a rubric for these standards. This is the tough part. I have done six drafts of the World Geography one alone. First I started way too general that I couldn't see myself actually using. Then I went in the opposite direction and became too specific that it started looking like a checklist instead of a rubric. I am still working on these because creating a rubric is hard and all of my research has proven that there are a ton of really vague rubrics in the world.

I will keep you posted on my SBG journey and I will try to attach any resources that I find helpful along the way. I wonder how many other educators are on this journey either on the path ahead of me or maybe some are still at the beginning. Either way it is great to feel connected.