Learning to Teach

Step #1: Creating the Standards  - I spent a couple days this past summer with the two other social studies teachers in my school to create our standards and begin work on the rubrics for these standards. My school has really tried to align our standards with the Common Core Standards, but those standards for social studies has not come out. We tried to think of the skills that we would like to see in our geography and U.S. history classes. Hardest Part: trying to think about skills instead of content that we wanted kids to know Advice: read Fair isn't Always Equal  and research what other schools use for their standards Step #2: Creating the Rubrics  - This was my first mistake... the school year started and the rubrics where not finalized. My department went through so many drafts and we were so hung up on trying to make the wording perfect. I swear we could have revised these rubrics for years, but as most of you teachers probably already know you just need to ...

Talking about grading can lead to heated debate. I have been in many of these conversations and I know that people have their own opinions. If you have been reading my blog, you would know that I am going toward Standards Based Grading. Here are my current thoughts on grading. 'Tis the season of grading! As the year wraps up, grades are what determines who gets to partake in end of the year activities. This made me reflect on grades and the whole practice of grading. Don't get me wrong, I think grades are okay when they really mean something - when they help a student really understand where they are and how they can grow. So here is my question: Who really fails when you give out an F? I have some students who are not failing, but they are doing worse then I think they are capable of. Some people might think that the student is just lazy, but not me. I read a book awhile back called The Myth of Laziness by Mel Levine, and it made me look at the idea of lazines...