Not even out of the workshop but I am having a moment… Laura Terrill has been challenging us for four days to change our paradigms in the classroom but today, a real eye opener for me….
Laura’s rubric? 10/9 for an A… 10 obviously is that student that is amazing and 9 still allows for an A that has room for growth. Her rubric is designed around questions rather than teacher terms like “language control”… ex. How well am I understood? She has an 8 for a B and a 7 for a C but NO D or F columns.
What? No Ds and Fs. This was a challenge to everyone. We’ve never thought of it this way! On top of the idea that people differ in opinion about the 0% or 50% as lowest failing grade, now considering not letting students fail? It is a fascinating idea.
Laura allows retakes. Students need to master each set of structures in order to be successful in upper level language. If we allow Ds and Fs, we are encouraging another generation of “I took two years of X language and I can’t say anything.” It makes SO much sense… A C is the lowest grade… what parent will argue when you say that their child needs to get some work retaken, needs to come in before or after school, needs to hand in missing work because you want them to be successful??? Holy cow! Revolutionary!
It requires a lot of changes:
1. accepting late work… it is hard, but we need to consider that we often extend deadlines..
2. retaking assessments… students will be less likely to abuse this if they have to make up on their own time!
3. communication with parents… we’ll have to make sure that the parents know what we expect because this is radically different.
4. everyone can be successful in language… gone are the days of “language learners are college bound students!”
This is on the top of my list of changes for the new school year! Would you consider a no-fail policy? I sure wish everyone would consider the idea of retakes… having students feel like they can continually strive for mastery of concepts would be a great movement in education! No more students giving up and becoming part of the classroom furniture!