My kids had their first day of school yesterday. This meant part of my evening was spent reading and signing safety forms (sciences) and syllabi going over how the classes would be graded. I have worked in a lot of school systems in my 20+ years in education. I would love to say that grading practices have changed wholesale from when I began my career, but this is not the case.
I know that class sizes and too many things on teachers plates are often a barrier to standards-based grading, BTC type grading (though Tim and Melissa’s rubric is really helpful and in my opinion makes this more doable). But there are often mindset changes that need to be made. My thinking around grading is influenced by equity and brain science work (see Grading for Equity and Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain) and my belief that we shouldn’t be expected to master something within a short period of time. This type of grading often promotes more teacher driven instruction, because teachers want to be sure material is “covered” before it is assessed.
I have also heard Peter Liljedahl mention multiple times some variation of “assess what you value”. So the last couple of months I have been playing around with some ideas. I don’t only support schools implementing BTC and I work in math and literacy. So I wanted to look at how we highlight habits of mind, the math practices and at times even specific math strategies. Math has a bad reputation in much of North American (and beyond), so for years I have worked with buildings to create public or shared spaces where students have access to open-ended math tasks, activators and math biographies. Sometimes this looks like an interactive bulletin board near a cafeteria or the specials classrooms. Other times it is a corner of a shared learning space where there are giant Which One Doesn’t Belong? (which regularly change) with sticky notes to leave your justification. Or a rotating puzzle table. These spaces show that we value math outside of the math block, but I wanted to take this a little further.
The recent release of Holly Burwell and Sue Chapman’s book Power Up Your Math Community laid out a doable approach for a building wide monthly focus. I was not buying any more books this summer, because I have so many in my reading pile. But I was heavily influenced by members of the K-2 BTC Facebook group. Obviously, I gave in and ordered it and once I started reading I immediately reached out to Holly and Sue to see if they would come on Math 4 All this season (yes, and more to come)! I also got copies for two new interventionists-coaches that I am working with as a guide to resetting the math culture in their building. The mascot for their school is a Bee and I have created posters for our community math space in that theme. In addition to looking at Habits of Mind (based on Standards for Math Practice) and ideas I have been gathering, I have also created “badges” that teachers can hand out to groups/students when they see the skill they value in practice. Brian Durocher shared the math badges he is using in a BTC group and I loved the idea. But I wanted to adjust them a bit to make them slightly more open (versus tool specific). I am considering adjusting them further so they can be used across contents. My thinking is that they could be printed, laminated and either put on boards with magnets, clothesline clips, etc.
Along with my Bee version, I made a Hedgehog version for another teacher in a different district where I work. I figured I should also consider something a little different for middle and high school classes. Thus the polaroid (vintage is in according to my kids) and cartoon themed badges were born. At this point I only have bulletin board posters (mather version as headline—thank you to Deborah Peart Crayton for the Mather language) for the Bee and Hedgehog themed badges, but let me know if you are interested in the other styles for posters. I would also love to hear how you use these in your classrooms. I love learning with you!
Bee a Mather Bulletin Board Title
Bee Themed Habits of Mind Posters
Hedgehog be a Mather Bulletin Board Title