Saturday, May 29, 2010

SBG Implementation: Topic Scales

For those of you not active in the twitterverse, among the people I follow there's been an increasing interest in standards-based grading. Sam Shah called us an "inspiring ideological cult." I'm taking that as a compliment. 

With that in mind I'm going to explain my process for implementation.

Assumption: You already have a basic idea of what standards-based grading is. If not, go read every post by Shawn or Matt and come back.

Things to keep in mind:
  1. There is no canon for SBG. It's a still new decades-old idea if that makes sense.
  2. Context is everything. I've developed processes that fit my kids and style.
So here's my context: I teach 8th grade physical science in San Jose, California. That's intro physics, chemistry, and astronomy. Last year we had an API of 704 (800 is the goal in CA), with a similar schools rank of 4 and a statewide rank 3. 71% of my students are on free or reduced lunch and 44% are ELL.  We are 75% Hispanic. We border the East Hills which means we also have a group of kids that live in gated communities with swimming pools. I was originally the only SBGer at my school. This year there are two others (a 7th and 8th grade ELA teacher) and there are three more teachers (7th math, 6th math/sci, 7th ELA) that have adopted certain aspects of SBG.

What I've developed has been reasonably successful for my students, YMMV. Leave suggestions for improvement in the comments or send something through twitter or email.

Jargon alert: I'm going to use the word "standard" to refer to any unit of knowledge or skill you want to teach and assess. These are also variously referred to as learning goals or targets. A topic, also called a strand, is a collection of those standards that are grouped together in a meaningful way. Do not confuse standards-based grading with your state standards or standardization, although they probably will be related.

Step one in my adventure into standards-based grading: Building Topic Scales
Ok, maybe this isn't the first, first, first step, but it's the first meaningful one and most of us start here.

Even if you are not planning to implement standards-based grading, this is a valuable activity to do. You will become a better teacher just by going through this process.

For a quick review on why I chose to use topic scales, check out an older post.

What you're doing is setting levels of proficiency for each standard you hope to assess in your classroom. You are deciding on a target. My scoring system looks like this:
0 = No evidence of learning
1 = Can do most of the simple stuff with help
2 = Can do all of the simple stuff
3 = Can do all of the simple stuff and all of the complex stuff
4 = Can go beyond what was directly taught in class

I also have half points, like 2.5.

Group the standards into topics. This is a bit of vi vs. emacs. I'm not sure there's a right answer here.1 The math peeps generally opt for a straight skills list. I've noted my disagreement with that and am sticking to it. The downside of topics is that it is slightly more difficult for a student to tell what he/she needs to remediate. There's an extra step that some kids have trouble negotiating. On the plus side, topics facilitate connections between skills. Most of us have a good sense about what to group into a topic. In content classes like science or history, your existing units will fit pretty well. There are interesting ways to group science and history beyond Energy and Ancient Egypt but I won't get into that now.  If you're ELA you can have Persuasive Writing, Genre or the have a topic for each of the Writing Traits if you use those. Math might have Order of Operations, Percent and Decimals, Fractions, Probability. Each topic should have one or two really big ideas. I think somewhere between 10 and 20 topics per year is manageable. Too few and they start to lack coherence. Too many become unmanageable.

Start with the 3. What are the complex ideas/concepts/skills that I want my students to know or be able to do? Ideally, this is a process you're sharing with your department. Probably, you're flying solo here as I was so I drew from a variety of sources. I started with my CA standards, framework, and looked at released test questions. I've recently found performance level descriptors (pdf) that I used to adjust my standards a little. I also took a look at the standards for the high school science classes and used my own experiences with college and laboratory science to some degree. Be specific about what you want your kids to learn. "Learn fractions" isn't that helpful. "Add/subtract fractions with two-digit denominators" is much better.

Your primary concern here is twofold: What do my students need to learn? and At what depth do they need to learn it? If you're looking for help on depth, Bloom's and Marzano/Kendall's taxonomies were fairly helpful, as was Webb's Depth of Knowledge (pdf).

Backwards plan the 2. At this point you should have somewhere between ten and twenty topics. In my Forces in Fluids scale, my 3.0 included determining the density of an object, using Archimedes principle, and understanding how to manipulate the buoyancy of an object. You'll need to break these standards into a learning progression. Ask yourself, What do my students need to know to be able to do this stuff? Well they needed some basic vocab: density, buoyant force, pressure. They needed some measuring skills and a couple of SI units. They needed to understand that things sunk if they were more dense than the liquid they were immersed in.  That became my 2.0. You are trying to build a natural progression up your scale. Notice that the things in the 2.0 are needed to learn the more complex items. I'm not bombarding them with 50 different vocabulary words. For each topic I try to limit the vocabulary and memorization to the specific items that they'll need to understand the concept.


Set your 4. The 4.0 exists for one reason. If you directly taught it in class, it's memorization. It doesn't matter if it's a name, date, or the causes of the Civil War. Whether it's a simple idea or a complex idea, it's still our little birdies upchucking facts onto their papers. So your question for 4.0 is, Where do I want them to go with this? In my classroom, this usually takes a few different forms.  Sometimes I ask them to connect different information together in news ways, such as the relationship between metals having free valence electrons and also being conductive. I teach them the facts necessary to make that connection. I also try to teach them how to connect information.2 It's up to them to close the final gap. Other times I'll look at my high school standards and set the next natural step as the 4.0. In this case, I will spend a day or so directly teaching a few things. I violate my own don't-directly-teach-it rule here. Specifically, I wanted my kids to be exposed to balancing equations. You don't really need to know how to do it in 8th grade but our high school chem teachers spend forever on it. I didn't think it would be fair to require all students to learn how to balance equations so I compromised by setting it at the 4.0. I think of it as bonus knowledge. My other most common 4.0 style of question is just adding an extra half step onto an existing 3.0 level problem. The 8th grade standards for determining speed are very basic "You go 10 miles in two hours, what's your average speed?" problems. 4.0 might include finding an average of multiple trips or determining the speed you'll need to travel to obtain a certain average (I go 10 miles in two hours, if I want to maintain an average speed of 8 mph....). The higher levels on all of those taxonomies are helpful here as well.

Quick check: You have 10-20 topics. If you were to read the topic scales starting at the 2.0 and working your way up, it follows a natural and logical learning progression.  Your standards are grouped in a way that also makes sense. They're related and when students learn one standard in a topic, it helps them with the other standards at the same time.

Write out your assessments. I wrote out a pretty representative sample of all the questions I planned to put on my tests. It will be a back and forth process of writing problems based on your standards as well as revising your standards because you realize that's not quite what you wanted your students to do. I'm a huge-mungous believer that if you plan to assess it, you need to teach it. Look at your questions. If it states, "Analyze the effects of NAFTA on the economy and labor conditions in Mexico," then not only do you need to teach them about NAFTA, but you need to teach them how to analyze. Adjust your standards accordingly.

That's basically it. Look at your standards. Decide what proficient "looks like." Backwards plan how to get there. It took me a solid weekend to get a good rough draft. I used my first topic and immediately realized I had to revise things. Don't make 150 copies of all of your topic lists and laminate posters until you've got a few topics under your belt.

Science example: I have a topic called Atoms. The big idea is that all matter is made of atoms and that the existence of atoms can explain macroscopic phenomena. In the end, I want them to understand how temperature, pressure, and volume are related in a gas and the relationship between atomic motion, energy, and the state of matter. This is my 3. What do they need to know in order to get there? Well they've got to understand some basic vocabulary: matter, atom, solid, liquid, gas, pressure, temperature, volume. They've got to be able to differentiate between matter and non-matter. Since the 3.0 is centered around physical changes, they'll also need to know what properties of matter can and cannot be changed. They need to know the molecular motion of different states of matter. Those become my 2. For my 4, I ask them to explain certain phenomena that we haven't explicitly address in class. So we've talked about evaporation, but not condensation. We've learned previously why things float or sink, so I ask them to explain why a hot air balloon floats.

Non-science examples: Warning, my knowledge in these other areas kinda sucks so please don't flame me for getting some specific facts or terminology wrong.

Math example: For Kate Nowak's regression unit, Modeling or Regression would be a natural topic. The big idea might be that data can be modeled and then extrapolated using mathematical formulas. Kate might want her kids to be able to look at a graph and write a formula modeling the data. This is her 3.0. Going backwards from there, what do the kids need to be able to know in order to do that? Well it looks like they'll need to be able to identify different types of models. They need to be able to set up a graph. They need to be able to qualitatively explain what's going in the graph. They need to interpret different variables and constants. What would her 4.0 be? In our school we're asked to write across content areas so I naturally default to writing at this point. Perhaps she can give them a messier or incomplete data set and have them model it and justify why they chose that specific method. She may ask her students to create general rules for when to use each regression. She could ask them to identify specific examples of say, exponential growth, that weren't taught in class. Then gather some data and model it. 

Social Studies example: My big idea might be how the US government maintains a system of checks and balances using three branches of government.3 I want them to understand the historical roots for this system and how each system has served to enact change in their own way. What do my students need learn? They'd need to learn the basic functions of the three branches. They'd need to learn a few historical examples. 4.0? Students might be asked to contrast our system with a bicameral system. For higher level students you might use one of your historical examples and have them imagine how it might have played out differently with a different system of government.

Sticking points: The stuff that you'll struggle with.

You have a giant steaming pile of standards. You're going to end up with a lot of stuff. You MUST narrow the curriculum. If you are morally against omitting or skimming certain standards, leave a comment and I'll try to convince you. I'm going to assume we all understand the necessity. I usually don't omit standards entirely. However, I definitely underteach some. We have a fair amount of test score pressure on us. Instead of deleting, a few standards have been relegated to mere vocabulary and one or two just get mentioned and not assessed. There will always be a few one-offs because of testing but try to minimize them as much as possible.

Grain size. This is probably the big one for most of us. It's a struggle between being specific enough that you and the student can make a decision based on looking at assessment results and the simple management aspects of having to assess and track dozens of standards. This has been a constant tweaking process. So far, the most helpful thing has been analyzing student errors. Problem areas and hard to break misconceptions should be broken down a little bit more. When solving the mathematical problems, like rate, students would have trouble with using the correct units. I separated that out into its own standard. On the other hand, I lumped the characteristics of the planets into a single standard. Students came in with a lot of background knowledge so I didn't feel the need to have a separate standard for each planet.

The 4.0. Getting it "just right" ends up being tough. For some topics, it comes naturally to me. Others I struggle with.This is directly related to my content knowledge of that particular topic. My most common problem is getting overly excited with something cool and just blowing my students away. This isn't the time to have your students try to explain the double-slit experiment. History teachers really like counterfactual thinking questions. Those are super hard and you really have to be willing to devote a massive amount of time to teaching students how to do that. When you think 4.0, think half-a-step-up rather than a full level. This is definitely a context-dependent decision. You've got to know your kids and know what you teach and value.

Over reliance on verbs. The taxonomies are definitely a good guide, however simply adding in a "justify" or "predict" doesn't guarantee deeper conceptual understanding. Focus in on the big ideas and work backwards, don't try to build up the pyramid. I've made that mistake before.

Pro Tip 1: Don't go chronologically. Start with the topic you feel you've got down pat. It's really hard to create a progression when you only have a surface grasp of a certain topic. The physics and chemistry portions were pretty clear for me. The astronomy stuff I'm completely unhappy with even now.

Pro Tip 2: Be explicit with your performance standards. I've got students that can calculate the speed of an object on a test. I've got students that can figure out how fast they can skateboard. I want them to be able to do both. Write it out as two different standards and don't assume that just because they can do one, they can do the other. They can't and you won't know that unless you assess it directly.

Pro Tip 3: These scales aren't just for your tests/grades. They should guide everything you do in class. You should be able to directly link everything you do in class to something on your topic scales.

I hope this has been helpful. I'm working from memory here so I reserve the right to edit this page at anytime. If something is unclear, ask. If you've got a better method or something to add, I'd love to hear it.

Last second add: Scooped! Kate Nowak just blogged her checklist.



1: Unlike with vi vs. emacs. In that case, the correct answer is vi. I would like emacs if only it had a decent word processor. Ha!
2: I teach it pretty poorly, mainly with concept maps. If you've got a good strategy for helping students link disparate information together, let me know.
3: Wow. I'm really struggling with social studies. I guess I need to watch more History Channel.

24 comments:

  1. Awesome, inspiring and extremely helpful post, Jason. You're getting the highest compliment I give: I'm printing it out to re-read at the park!

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  2. Jason, I really like how your post not only lays out what you're doing, but also the order in which it makes sense for a person to start from scratch. I'll need to make a new tag or something to keep this post ready to share with others.

    I have a bone to pick with part of your post. :)
    The sentence that ended with.."there are three more teachers (7th math, 6th math/sci, 7th ELA) that have adopted certain aspects of SBG."
    In an upcoming With Students in Mind podcast (how's that for a teaser?!), Shawn suggests that you're either doing SBG or you aren't and I think I agree. We should still support those who are only putting one foot in the circle, I'm wondering if we should also give them some sort of new, fun and/or interesting name....SBGers in training or something. Testing out SBG for the sake of eventually going all out is laudable, but dabbling with no intention of moving forward is a step sideways in my opinion.

    I also REALLY like your 0-4 scale narratives. If I were teaching again next year, I think I would go away from using both edu- and student-jargon and move towards something like yours that is easy for adolescents to understand.

    Keep posting about your journey. I'm learning along with you.

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  3. You did a good job with the math example.

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  4. Thanks glsr, Matt, and Kate. I hope it was helpful in some ways, even though you're the advanced class.

    @Matt - Good teaser. I've already subscribed so I'm waiting for the update. As for your comment, I agree, but I waffle on how much I should be nudging my colleagues forward. I've pointed out a few times that I think Dan Meyer's system is more of a hybrid SBG and trad system. A lot of people start with his system because his blog is so highly trafficked (and rightly so). I don't want to discourage the people who think that they've made a huge step, but at the same time I don't want them to think they're done-or that I'm done for that matter. Summary: I agree but have a hard time finding that balance of encouragement and prodding.


    @Kate - Thanks. I've had this post percolating for awhile but was angsty about writing stuff for non-science subjects. BTW, by my count I've commented on your blog three times today, you one time on mine, plus twitter. We've got to stop meeting like this or people will talk.

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  5. I did a version of SBG for the first time this school year and I'm spending this summer trying to sharpen it. I have 12 big umbrella standards and 96 specific skills under those standards. Which should I put in the gradebook? I've listed the standards and skills here: http://www.chambleemiller.com/standards.html

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  6. @AtlTeacher = Thank you for commenting. Keep me updated on your progress with SBG.

    The gradebook post is a three posts from now but I would generally recommend the big umbrella standards vs. 96 skills in the gradebook. Again, context matters here but I can't imagine my kids looking at 96 different skills and feeling anything but overwhelmed. I've found it helpful to add a comment to a grade like "Still needs to work on calculating density."

    I'm going to bring up a separate issue though. Your umbrella standards clearly need to be regrouped to be useful.
    Example:
    ELA10W1 The student produces narrative, expository, persuasive, and technical writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a context, engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and signals closure.

    My ELA teachers spend a significant amount of time on each style. I think the different types of writing deserve their own topic.

    On the other hand, I might combine the "demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in literary works" standard into the separate writing styles since it looks like the first standard addresses form of a writing style while the second addresses content. Again, my ELA knowledge isn't great so feel free to ignore me. However, you should definitely regroup them in ways that make sense for your teaching.

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  7. You teach Astronomy? I am struggling laying out my standards with that class as well. I started out with our state standards and found the targets to be simply too vague. Then I swung too far the other way and ended way too specific. The ideas themselves don't build on each other quite as neatly as chemistry and physics.

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  8. @Mrs. Schroder. Welcome fellow SBGer! I've subscribed to your blog. Keep me updated on your progress. I didn't see if you had a twitter handle from your blog but if I don't follow you already I'd like to.

    You definitely want to use your state standards only as a starting point. A few are just right but mostly they're too broad or super specific. I do a lot of breaking down and lumping together.

    Astronomy is one of the strands in our 8th grade physical science curriculum. It's like...6 weeks of stuff. Most of the year is devoted to intro physics and intro chem.

    Now to your question:
    My astronomy topic is the bane of my life. I’m still going to put most of the blame on my less than stellar astronomy knowledge, but my state standards aren’t helping the matter. As they’re written and as the state tests them, they can basically be taught as a series of vocabulary flashcards (What's a planet? What's a meteor? What's an AU?). For my other topics I usually aim for half a step up from the state requirements. For astronomy I think I’ve got to move higher to make it meaningful at all. I'm having trouble with the wording so if you can help me out that'd be great:

    Big idea: Multiple lines of evidence are used to discover objects in the universe and determine their properties. 3.0 – Explain how the composition of stars is determined, how planets are discovered, how the orbit of celestial objects is determined, etc. 2.0 would be the various facts. So in order to understand how planets are discovered and why they’re so hard to find, you’d need to understand that planets only reflect light, they're smaller, etc. I don’t know though. It's basically a series of disconnected facts. I need Phil Plait or Neil Tyson to let me know what to do here.

    I'm hoping if I design the topic this way I can teach students to think like an astronomer rather than the facts of astronomy; which is probably closer to how I teach phys and chem as well.

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  9. It is really encouraging to see teachers moving away from grading heavily dependent upon percentages. Furthermore, you are differentiating your grading based on cognitive levels - Awesome!

    Have to admit ... your scoring system looks super fantastic - especially for the younger students.

    Love the Backward Design approach you have going down ... don't forget those Essential Questions to lead to the Bid Ideas :D

    Awesome conceptual examples! Thanks for including the Math example!

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  10. Thanks Mark. You're one of the trailblazers here. Your site if fantastic.

    Attention my six readers: Go to eightfalls.com right now.

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  11. Hi, Thanks so much for the blog post. IT is extermely helpful!! This is something I really want to try this year. I teach earth science and am really struggling with what the standards are - are they the standards - too many of them, are they objectives (students will be able to), are they the unit topics? science skills (observing, hypothesizing)? What would go into my gradebook??

    Thanks so much for any guidance. I am excited about this, but a little stuck...I would greatly appreciate any advice or discussion you have.

    I am including links to a couple documents...

    https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1cAtCar5rObsh817CFDeIehaKeavf8t-Itnse9vVolyY&hl=en&authkey=CJ_6w80B (probably more helpful AFTER the first page or 2, more into the content

    and

    https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1jiUqBHZznif8tZcuS182mpesZL-LEeXDfz5Im1b2apmLgm-uFYMmFBltX-m6&hl=en&authkey=CKXD77IC (a broader chart I tried to use last year)

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  12. Might be difficult in a comment, feel free to email me if you need more info.

    One big caveat: There's no SBG canon. I'll comment on what I've done in my class.

    First I should point out that I use a different model than most people. I don't use a straight skills checklist, I group them into topics. The topics are based around a few big ideas. Those big ideas are further broken down into separate content/skills they'll need to get the big ideas. If it helps to picture, I often start by writing out a main idea (my 3.0 score), and then creating a tree diagram with the stuff they'll need to know to get there below it (2.0).

    What really helps is to just look at your tests/labs/projects and see what you're trying to get at. The goal is the 3. Always start there and work backwards.

    1. In my actual electronic gradebook, I only report out by topic.
    I have students just traffic light the individual standards. Two reasons 1. I usually don't need fine grain detail for each standard to set my lessons. 2. Individually tracking each standard seems crazy and I'm not hyper organized as it is.

    2.It looks like you've actually done the work unpacking your standards already. You've separated out your big ideas and created a learning progression for your students. Usually I think of topics as equal to traditional units but that's not always the case. Some topics will be ongoing throughout the year and embedded in other things, like Scientific Thinking kinds of topics.

    So if I were you Deep Space might be the topic name. The essential questions might be what you use to link them all together.The stuff you have listed as Big Ideas I'd consider those my targets to learn the topic (3.0). From there you have to work backwards to create the 2.0.

    For example basic knowledge of the redshift might be considered 2.0, but using that to be able to explain how that is evidence for an expanding universe is 3.0. It really depends on your goals though so don't take that example as canon.

    As for cutting standards, it looks like you're an NY teacher. In talking with a few other teachers I know from NY, you've got tons of standards and your tests are arbitrary so it's up to you how much you want to cut. I can only speak for myself but I at least feel much more like a teacher having focused deeply on a few major concepts rather than racing for coverage.

    Come back and comment, find me on twitter, or email whenever you need to talk again.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Might be difficult in a comment, feel free to email me if you need more info.

    One big caveat: There's no SBG canon. I'll comment on what I've done in my class.

    First I should point out that I use a different model than most people. I don't use a straight skills checklist, I group them into topics. The topics are based around a few big ideas. Those big ideas are further broken down into separate content/skills they'll need to get the big ideas. If it helps to picture, I often start by writing out a main idea (my 3.0 score), and then creating a tree diagram with the stuff they'll need to know to get there below it (2.0).

    What really helps is to just look at your tests/labs/projects and see what you're trying to get at. The goal is the 3. Always start there and work backwards.

    1. In my actual electronic gradebook, I only report out by topic.
    I have students just traffic light the individual standards. Two reasons 1. I usually don't need fine grain detail for each standard to set my lessons. 2. Individually tracking each standard seems crazy and I'm not hyper organized as it is.

    2.It looks like you've actually done the work unpacking your standards already. You've separated out your big ideas and created a learning progression for your students. Usually I think of topics as equal to traditional units but that's not always the case. Some topics will be ongoing throughout the year and embedded in other things, like Scientific Thinking kinds of topics.

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  14. continued because blogger doesn't like big comments:


    So if I were you Deep Space might be the topic name. The essential questions might be what you use to link them all together.The stuff you have listed as Big Ideas I'd consider those my targets to learn the topic (3.0). From there you have to work backwards to create the 2.0.

    For example basic knowledge of the redshift might be considered 2.0, but using that to be able to explain how that is evidence for an expanding universe is 3.0. It really depends on your goals though so don't take that example as canon.

    As for cutting standards, it looks like you're an NY teacher. In talking with a few other teachers I know from NY, you've got tons of standards and your tests are arbitrary so it's up to you how much you want to cut. I can only speak for myself but I at least feel much more like a teacher having focused deeply on a few major concepts rather than racing for coverage.

    Come back and comment, find me on twitter, or email whenever you need to talk again.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hello, just a quick note to say thanks! I lifted nearly your whole system for my courses this semester. I get the logic behind the "topic-based" approach. Also, I was determined to make this transition over the winter holiday (because I am insane). The fact that you had collected and organized all this information into such a digestible format really made that possible. I look forward to stealing whatever you come up with next :)

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  16. Your welcome. Take take take. That's what it's here for. I've stolen everything else, gotta pay it forward. Funny you should comment. Your blog just popped up in my google reader yesterday. "Electronics teachers in Canada who blog" is a pretty lonely category. Good luck and keep me updated.

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  17. I had just written about how I was feeling frustrated trying to work with and develop standards, and I'm glad I came across this - it was exactly what I needed! I've been following your blog but hadn't yet taken the time to look back through the SBG archive. So thanks!

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  18. Working on implementing this in my SS classroom this year. My students look a LOT like yours except we're 98% F&R and 75% Hispanic, so I think it's going to work. Initial feedback from the kids is positive. I'm grouping 'topics' as "essential questions" - big ideas the kids need to know. Having just written the test for the first unit (Colonial), I'm finding it's still too "big" so I'm working on how to refine it. I'll keep you updated and share if I get anything I think is ground-breaking for those SS teachers out there who want to try this. Thanks for the site - it's helping me get it tailored to my content.

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  19. Do you find that your 2-level stuff overlaps between standards? I.e. that for two standards in the same topic, you find yourself repeating things in your 2 list? Does this foreshadow trouble down the road?

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    1. You mean like something in a 2.0 overlapping with a 3.0 or across topics? For the first, yeah. They should to a degree. If I was a graphic designer I probably could make it more like a bubble diagram with the main 3.0 topic as the main bubble and the 2.0 stuff coming off the main bubble. I don't know if that made any sense. But you know me so ask for more.

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  20. I'm a Spanish teacher, and out of deep disgust with participation grades and grades that don't tell students what they need to do to improve I've decided to jettison my current grading scale in favor of topics. I'm still a little torn between the skills list and topics. One of the main reasons for this is that we do teach copious amounts of vocabulary, and we do it every four weeks or so. An ameliorating factor is that we have pedagogy that works for that, in most cases--it's the focus of what we do. That said, I find that my students have more trouble understanding what's weak in their work from a standpoint of exact skills, and that grammatical accuracy is one of the most difficult things for them. A lot of people in my field think that it's not a skill that we should demand of the students, but I disagree. I think that there is a mathematical element to language, and we call it grammar. It's lazy to say that students can't devote some of their time and attention to that. Having a simple skills list would show them explicitly where to focus that attention. I have 38 skills on my list. If I do it by topic, I'll have 11 topics that contain 4-6 smaller skills each. It's almost like keeping the connections increases the number of things that students need to be able to do. The list probably contains redundancies as in foreign language much of what we do depends upon mountains of repetition. To leave out or to keep in?

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    1. Sorry, I'm not 100% sure what your'e asking here. Are you asking whether to keep in vocab or grammar?

      For foreign language I've seen it done a bunch of different ways. One I saw separated into listening/speaking/reading/writing with subdomains within each one. I've also seen it just separated by (I guess it was probably traditional units) but it was more like...Language for greetings, language for travel, language in daily life, etc. The low level stuff would be the vocab and basic conjugations. Mid-level would be the basic back and forth sentences and higher would be the natural conversational or academic fluency.

      Basically: It doesn't matter how you do it, what matters is that it's designed in a way that makes sense for you and your students and that you can take actions (as a teacher or student) based on your level of proficiency at each standard.

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    2. I'm basically doing it by unit. I had originally planned to organize it by the 11 California language standards, but they are not topical and I feel that they communicate an EXTREMELY vague message to parents and students, which is the same way I'd think of separating it into the four language domains. Right now I've set it up in two parallel grade-books. In one of them I have the units, named by essential question. In the other I have the skills. The first quarter has three units in the standards side and about 12 skills on the skills side. I'd like to keep track of assignments as well, not for credit but rather to see what kind of effort they're putting in. When you're saying "low-level" and "mid-level" are you equating that to your 2.0 and 3.0?

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    3. I like the low to mid level descriptions...I have to go think about that.

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