Assessment and Grading Policies

Student assessment is very important to me. In particular, I am interested in giving the student and his/her parents accurate information about the student's progress. In eighth grade, I strive to develop a system of grades that are strong predictors of scores on the New York State Intermediate Social Studies exam. In ninth grade, my grading system is intended to reflect likely score on the Global History and Geography Regents exam given in grade ten.

I categorize tasks as being "high order" or "low order". High order tasks are intended to measure progress toward the NYS Learning standards. These are examinations, essays without notes, debates, and similar tasks. High order tasks account for 60% of the student's mark. Practice exercises and tasks whose purpose is generally to build students up to achieving the high order tasks are low order and account for 40% of the grade in this class. Note: Starting in September 2008, High Order Tasks will be weighted as 65% of the grade and low order tasks will be 35% of the grade.
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Skill Levels 7-9

The small school gives me the unique opportunity to work with the same students for 3 years at a time. Over the course of this period, I have set stages of development or "skill levels" in the areas of reading, exam format, public speaking, research, and writing. In pursuit of my philosophy of helping students become independent learners, the skill levels demand more independence as the student gets older while the course structures provides the training and scaffolding to help students attain what they can.
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Behavior Management Plan

The well-designed lesson plan is the first best proactive measure to minimize behavior problems. Some students need more support to develop productive social behavior. Toward this end and in order to maintain a positive, productive learning environment, I have developed a behavior management plan. This plan is reserved for students with more severe behavior problems or to deal with highly frequent misbehaviors. Its essential elements include a point system for scoring behavior as "merit" or "demerit" and a system of reward and consequence. I customarily keep a digital audio recorder with me in class. I record reprimands on this for later recordkeeping. I also record most behavior-related interactions with students for later analysis or to share with parents. In conjuction with my work toward national Board Certification in 2007, I completed an analysis of the effectiveness of my classroom management plan. I have also compiled a FAQ of behavior mangement issues for teachers.
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U.S. History 7 and 8

This is a two-year course for grades 7 and 8 covering the history of the United States and New York State chronologically from pre-1500 to the present era.

Students in grade eight need to prepare for the NYS Intermediate Social Studies Exam given the first week in June each year. The following strategies are applied to maximize their performance on this exam:

• Each week for 19 weeks, students have a set of Constructed Response questions to do from old exams. Students do not all get the same one each week, for the most part. This reviews and previews important points in U.S. History for all of the 7th and 8th grade years.
• In January, we will take a 5-day pause from regular lessons for a systematic review.
• After the 5 January review lessons, students take the previous year's multiple-choice portion of the exam. Questions addressing material we have covered up to that point in the course count toward a mid-term exam.
• The curriculum is finished at the end of April or first week in May. All of May is dedicated to a systematic review.
• Students showing need will be scheduled for additional time with me in adademic support environment (In 2007-2008, I was able to schedule some students for over 300 hours of additional class time).

Global Studies 9

This is the first of a two-year course for grades 9 and 10 covering the history of the World chronologically from just before the Neolithic to the present era. This course generally gets as far as the 17th century.

At this stage, students are expected to develop more independent skills than they were called upon to use in 7th and 8th grade. This is a Regents course and is at the Regents level of difficulty. To continuously check that the course meets this level, a quartlerly examination will be administered consisting of multiple-choice questions from old Regents exams on topic covered during the quarter being tested.
Students may be assigned one chapter section per chapter to study independently. Generally, sections will be selected for independent study which consist of basic information students can learn themselves. Students should help one another and bring questions to class and AIS classes if they need to.
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AIS

"AIS" means Academic Intervention Services. This can take many forms, but in this context it refers to periods when students are assigned to special classes with me to assist them in meeting the Social Studies standards.

AIS sessions are classes for me. Students earn grades on what they do and I prepare lesson plans for these times. AIS time may be highly individualized or group lessons. It is be used for pre-teaching material we are about to learn in class or re-teaching material already taught or addressing specific skills students need.

It is important to clarify what AIS is not. It is not a study hall. It is not a place to do homework. It is not a place to do low-level tasks that students are expected to do on their own. It is not a place where students can do easy, extra credit just to inflate their grades.

All students are welcome to an AIS class, but high performing students will be turned away if the class size is too large. Students are added to AIS when they fall below the state standards and/or by teacher recommendation. Students may be relieved of this class when they demonstrate achieving the standards. An IST meeting is required to address this issue.

Aligning with the Standards

Maintaining a course that is aligned with the NYS Standards is a responsibility I take seriously. You can tell when a student has reached the standards when s/he has scored above the passing level on a state test. The grading system I use must reflect the standards as much as possible and the measures I use must reflect actual knowledge and performance toward that end as much as possible. Although not an exact science, with regular monitoring it is possible to make some progress toward this end. Here are steps I take to ensure my courses meet the state standards:

• The student's grade is based largely on performance, not effort. Most grades need to be based on what a student actually knows, not how much paperwork s/he has filled out. Right effort should result in passing, but effort alone is not measured very much.
• Tests questions are often taken from old state tests. Test formats mimic the testing system format. Rubrics for grading writing tasks are the same as for the state tests.
• The 8th grade midterm exam and the 9th grade quarterly exams are composed entirely of state test questions.
• I need to regularly compare students' grades in my class to their performance on these measures to try to keep the difference between the two at a minimum. Studies done to this end are regularly posted on this web site.
• The portion of the grade based on homework, particularly homework that someone can "help" students with, is reduced or eliminated.

Teachers are often under pressure from the public, who naturally want their children to do well, get good marks, like school, and participate in extracurricular activities. Getting low marks can impede realizing this desire, thus there is a real pressure to inflate grades. I am committed to providing the best service I can and I take pride in that, but it is not in anyone's best interest to inflate grades. Such a policy always has negative effects in the long term.