Day 129: Skills Review & Practice

This time I picked Area of Quadrilaterals for the skills review, and each section raised the class average 0.5 on my 4 point scale. I made a point to emphasize how pleased I was with the results, even though the overall grades themselves were still very low. For example, my 5th hour went from 1.1 to 1.6. 1.6 is still a failing grade (passing line = 2), but it's progress, and that's what I'm looking for. If students can make another gain of similar size before June, they'll pass the class. 

The whole argument for SBG is to encourage student effort in the hopes that they'll begin to make the connection between effort and success. I've been so bogged down with creating this whole curriculum, as well as implementing SBG in my other classes (in addition to my regularly scheduled teaching), that I've lost sight of the real focus behind what I set out to do. I need to make more of an effort to highlight student growth and hard work. It's not even that I've instead been publicizing high achievement, it's that I don't do either. I make grades available, both in class and online, but I never talk about them and ensure that students understand where we're at as a class and how far we've come. 

After the skills review quiz, I gave the students the class period to work on the worksheet handed out yesterday. More thoughts on that tomorrow.