Tracking the Standards
Once you know what standards you want students to meet in your class and in your units, you will need to track student progress and achievement on these standards in order to help you determine how and what to teach. This can be done formally or informally, depending upon the purpose and the audience. Here are a few different ways teachers are keeping track of student progress (note: current tracking is taking place only with the transferable skill ESLs, not the content or Common Core standards):
Scoring Practice: many teachers have gone to a single scoring sheet for practice work, which covers most classwork and homework within a unit. This sheet provides quick, clear feedback to students about their work, and gives teachers necessary information about both content and skill progress. Teachers who use a scoring sheet have found that the amount of time they spend grading and commenting on homework and classwork has gone down drastically, and that the turn-around time has improved. Teachers score the work for all applicable content and skills, and then record the scores; the scoring sheet is then attached to the student work and returned to the student. Teachers have different versions of the scoring sheet, and here are a few:
Example 1: 10th Grade Humanities
Example 2: 9th Grade Science (includes ESLs and course specific content standards)
Tracking Practice: once they have scores, teachers track these in order to plan or shift instruction where necessary. For example, if you score an assignment and discover that most of your students struggled with finding specific evidence, then you can build in some more practice in upcoming classes (or in the next unit). Or, if your scores tell you that 80% of your class can meet the target for a particular skill, you know that you only need to focus on further direct instruction of that skill with the other 20%--You can then design more appropriate instruction for the 80% so that they continue to grow and not get bored.
Many teachers have their students track scores as well, as this has been shown to drastically improve student performance (Marzano). Included below are examples of a teacher tracking document (designed for a unit), and a student tracking document (designed for a full year).
Teacher Tracking: 10th grade (any subject)
Student Tracking: 9th grade (any subject)
Reporting the Standards
Reporting Achievement: At certain times of the year, it's important to report progress or achievement of standards to students and parents. We are currently still determining the best and most efficient ways to do this, but have had success and positive feedback on our reports that we have done. Currently, we have been reporting twice, once at the midterm, and once at the end of the year. The reports provide much more specific and skill based information to parents and students (in comparison to a single grade), and help us all set goals. There is no direct correlation at this time between the scores at midyear and end of the year and the students' grades in their classes--the reports are meant to provide additional information.
Sample Report
Scoring Practice: many teachers have gone to a single scoring sheet for practice work, which covers most classwork and homework within a unit. This sheet provides quick, clear feedback to students about their work, and gives teachers necessary information about both content and skill progress. Teachers who use a scoring sheet have found that the amount of time they spend grading and commenting on homework and classwork has gone down drastically, and that the turn-around time has improved. Teachers score the work for all applicable content and skills, and then record the scores; the scoring sheet is then attached to the student work and returned to the student. Teachers have different versions of the scoring sheet, and here are a few:
Example 1: 10th Grade Humanities
Example 2: 9th Grade Science (includes ESLs and course specific content standards)
Tracking Practice: once they have scores, teachers track these in order to plan or shift instruction where necessary. For example, if you score an assignment and discover that most of your students struggled with finding specific evidence, then you can build in some more practice in upcoming classes (or in the next unit). Or, if your scores tell you that 80% of your class can meet the target for a particular skill, you know that you only need to focus on further direct instruction of that skill with the other 20%--You can then design more appropriate instruction for the 80% so that they continue to grow and not get bored.
Many teachers have their students track scores as well, as this has been shown to drastically improve student performance (Marzano). Included below are examples of a teacher tracking document (designed for a unit), and a student tracking document (designed for a full year).
Teacher Tracking: 10th grade (any subject)
Student Tracking: 9th grade (any subject)
Reporting the Standards
Reporting Achievement: At certain times of the year, it's important to report progress or achievement of standards to students and parents. We are currently still determining the best and most efficient ways to do this, but have had success and positive feedback on our reports that we have done. Currently, we have been reporting twice, once at the midterm, and once at the end of the year. The reports provide much more specific and skill based information to parents and students (in comparison to a single grade), and help us all set goals. There is no direct correlation at this time between the scores at midyear and end of the year and the students' grades in their classes--the reports are meant to provide additional information.
Sample Report