Thursday, April 12, 2012
Action Research
Action research is a great way for the administration at a school to solve problems at their individual school. Action research is when there is a study done by school personnel and action is taken from the results of that study. It differs from educational research in a distinct way. In educational research much of the research and material is done by an outside source. It is not widely accepted at the individual schools because it might not deal with the type of students or it faculty might say well it might be good for that school but not here at ours. Action research is done on campus by the administrator and teachers on staff. School faculty take ownership in its findings and are more likely to accept the results. I am going to try an action research to find if giving less grades will increase learning. Right now our campus makes us give three grades per week. I am asking if they will let my world geography team only give one grade per week. We are going to compare the STAAR results from this year and next year to see if scores improved. We are also going to look to see if feedback to the student has been more productive. My hypothesis is that by giving less grades we will be focused less on how much has to be graded and more on the quality of the work being turned in. We will be able to realize when students need to go back over something more effectively.
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Aaron, this looks great to me! Thank you for paving the way for the rest of us. I wonder how your administrators/students/parents will handle the one grade per week? I know mine would freak out - mainly because of the weight each grade would have. I'm lucky because there is a computer assessment activity my students are able to use every other week. (It does the grading for me.) Do you have anything like that?
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that we have discussed is the weight of the grades. Students will be able to make up any work that they have for 70% all grading period long. This we think will offset the ability to only have one grade. I know that another school district is going to go to only test grades for the grades. My wife teaches there and they are doing it with a whole district not just one campus. I wish that I had a grading system like that I have to grade everything by hand which is also the reason for one grade a week. Teachers burn out on grading so hopefully it will keep us fresh and ready to grade not loathing it.
ReplyDeleteMy principal requires 4 grades a week, and we are not allowed to give participation grades. This stresses out a lot of the teachers but I believe it gives the students lots of opportunities for success. One bad week could blow a whole 6 weeks for a student. I'm curious to see how your research turns out. Our you taking student opinions into account?
ReplyDeleteAaron,
ReplyDeleteI'm particularly interested in how you plan to track weekly student progress rather than using multiple grades per week. What type of learning activities do you plan to implement? Will the students be conducting self-assessments and will the teachers be working in small groups or implementing the Flipped Classroom model? Just curious about your thoughts.
Thanks,
Dr. Mason
Aaron, we had a major change in the grading policies in our district this year. In the past, the only requirement was that we had to record "about" 2 grades per week. There was no specification of whether these had to be daily grades or test grades and there was not specification on weighing grades. This allowed subject-areas and grade-levels to determine what grading specifics best suited their needs. This year, however, we have very specific requirements. Every campus (every grade-level) now has minimum grade requirements and weights. District-wide, teachers are required to give a minimum of 8 formative (daily/minor) grades per six weeks and a minimum of 3 summative (test/major) grades per six weeks. Our elementary school weighs their grades 40% summative and 60% formative. My middle school weights are 50/50 for summative/formative. The high school weighs their grades at 60% summative and 40% formative. These stringent policies have not necessarily been well received by teachers or parents. Some teachers/departments may have had a more lenient policy before and some may have had a more rigorous policy. Nonetheless, we are all following the policy. I personally like our new "per grading period" stipulation more than the old "per week" one. However, I'm not quite as fond of the weights for 5th grade students. I look forward to following your research project and seeing how the grading changes work for students and teachers.
ReplyDelete