KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for
May 2 - May 6

Aaron Wasik: (Diamond)

Aaron is a responsible student that follows "The Karcher Way". He is a quiet leader inside and out of the classroom.

Dalton Damon: (Silver)

Dalton exceeds expectations, whether inside or outside of the classroom. We appreciated his leadership and positive energy on the NJHS service project this past weekend. It may have been his keen eye that first spotted that bike!

Jacob Witbrod: (Applied Academics)

Jacob always puts forth outstanding effort. He is respectful of others, acts responsibly, and exhibits many fine Karcher Character Traits.

Charley Bunker: (Onyx)

Charley is an extremely polite girl who has been working hard and showing a great deal of improved effort.

Arianna Wilburn: (Karcher Bucks)

Arianna always gives her best effort and participates in class everyday.

Gwen Kosirog: (Hive)

Gwen is extremely responsible with her school work and effort on safety patrol. Her continued kind and compassionate behavior towards all enhances Karcher.

______________________________________________________________________________

Kudos

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jayme Pruszka was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Jayme and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
Congrats again to Matt Behringer as they welcome in their new addition to their family, Ellaney Ann Behringer. Congrats Matt :)))
Thank you Marian Hancock for all of your continued effort with scheduling. Thank you Mike Jones, Kurt Rummler, Donna Sturdevant, and Andrea Hancock for your assistance this week with scheduling as well!
Matt's long-term sub in the building will be Jack Schmidt - thank you Jack for your willingness to step into the administrative role while Matt is on paternity leave. Mike Yopp, thank you for subbing for Jack in order to make this happen.

Jack will be filling in for Matt for the next 3 weeks, 50% of the time, therefore, if you are needing assistance Jack will also be available to help.

Jeri Nettesheim created these Growth Mindset graphic organizers for their math class. She is a great colleague as she is very willing to share her find with everyone else. See Jeri with any questions and Thank You!!!!!!!

______________________________________________________________________________

Reminders

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

- PLC this week: Literacy - we will be working through reflecting on our professional development this year and working on our plans for next year.
- 8th grade advisory teachers...
- MAP Testing will begin on May 10, Tuesday with Math. See Marian or the Google Calendar for more information.
- Karcher Character Assemblies:
- May 17 is a half day inservice with an early release. This inservice will be dedicated to Technology - more details will follow in the next two weeks.
- Upcoming field trips:
- Final Band Concert will be in the Karcher gym on May 31 @ 7:00pm - come support Nick Buendia and our band students!
- Final Choir Pops Concert will be in the Karcher gym on June 6 @ 7:00pm - come support Rod Stoughton and our choir students!
- Last day of school is June 9th - students are dismissed at 12:00.
District Wide information:
Just a reminder to take the time to complete the BASD staff survey that was shared with you on May 3 from "School Perceptions".

Subject: Burlington 2016 Staff Survey.
This survey will assist our district with evaluating areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. Please assist by taking a few minutes to complete the survey.
You have until May 13 to complete the survey.

Suzanne Dunbar shared a Google Document with everyone called Karcher Passwords. This link gives you all the passwords and programs available to you from the library. I would take a few minutes to look at what is available to you!
Ruth Schenning and Peter Smet will be coming around to all the buildings to talk to all employees about the changes to our health insurance for next year. If you cannot attend the one at Karcher on May 10 you are welcome to attend any of the other dates and times held at other buildings.

May 9 (Monday) – 3:30p – Cooper library
May 10 (Tuesday) – 2:40p – Karcher library
May 12 (Thursday) – 3:15p – Dyer library
May 16 (Monday) – 3:25p – Waller library
May 18 (Wednesday) – 3:30p – Winker
May 19 (Thursday) – 3:30p – Lyons
May 23 (Monday) – 2:45p – BHS library

Don’t forget to register for InterActiv 2016 June 15th and 16th.
BASD covers your registration fees.

This is the perfect opportunity to get ready for our upcoming Chromebook 1to1.
We will have many sessions on Google Apps, using them in the classroom, and even a pre-conference on Google Basics.
Check out the website for more on the sessions and pre-conference offerings.

Link to Registration for InterActiv

_________________________________________
Pictures from the week

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dairy Queen walking lunches... students are enjoying this KCB reward! Thank you to each staff member who has been willing to assist!!!

Track practice... students are showing some quality running form :)))

The Anthology Ceremony was this week and the 7th and 8th grade class represented BASD well! Samantha Naber read the poem she wrote that went along with the picture CeCe Donegean drew (on the projection screen) during the program on Thursday at Dyer. Congrats to all of our students!

8th grade students that were present to be recognized for the Anthology Ceremony at Dyer.

7th grade students that were present to be recognized for the Anthology Ceremony at Dyer.

Article of the week: Here is the second half to last week's article...

Grading What Matters

Tony Winger

Assessing Our Expectations

Once we have distinguished non-academic factors from learning, we must carefully define the learning we are targeting and ensure that the academic portion of the grade deliberately assesses student progress toward it.

The movement toward standards-based grading aims to make grades more meaningful by connecting them to curricular standards. As we began rethinking grading in our district, our teachers employed this approach. Kendy Blake, a 6th grade science teacher, set up her grades around the topics of earth science, life science, and physical science. She also assessed writing as a separate skill category and separated nonacademic factors into a category dealing with work habits. Mike Mahoney used district standards to set up grades in his algebra class around the topics of polynomials, quadratics, probability, exponents, and systems of equations. He also had a nonacademic component that he labeled personal responsibility.

We discovered, however, that although this approach communicated more specific information about student learning, it did not address our tendency to assess students' recall of information rather than higher-level thinking.

Mike Mahoney's experience illustrated how this standards-based approach fell short. His math assessments typically included 15–20 questions that involved using algorithms to arrive at correct answers. Then the assessment added one or two story problems that required students to apply the mathematical concept to a new situation. Mr. Mahoney expected only his A students (perhaps 10 percent of his students) to solve the story problems that demonstrated higher-level understanding. He realized that he was not expecting a majority of his students to understand mathematics in a way that makes learning relevant and enduring.

Reorganizing Our Approach

After a year of meeting regularly to rethink grading practices, our teachers developed an alternative approach. We adopted the language used by several education experts, identifying knowledge as that which students can simply recall and using the term understanding to denote higher-order thinking skills. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005) emphasize that understanding must be our goal for our students because understanding moves learning from short-term to long-term memory and makes the learning meaningful and useful.

Just as we must distinguish learning from compliance, we must distinguish understanding from memorizing. If higher-order thinking matters most, then that is what our grades must assess, record, report, and reward. To make our grades match our priorities, the teachers in our district began to separate skills, knowledge, understanding, and non-academic factors in their grade books. These categories match Wiggins and McTighe's thinking and are consistent with the work of Richard Stiggins (2005), who identifies four types of learning targets: skills, knowledge, reasoning, and the ability to create products.

Restructuring her grades around these principles, science teacher Kendy Blake identified the following categories and their relative weight:

Content Knowledge: The ability to grasp the basic concepts in physical science, earth science, and life science. Assessed through selected-response tests and quizzes and portions of homework and labs. (30%)
Enduring Understanding: The ability to apply concepts to authentic situations. Evaluated through lab activities and constructed-response portions of tests and quizzes. (25%)
Science Skills: The ability to employ inquiry, use the scientific method, and read charts and graphs. Assessed through lab activities. (25%)
Writing Skills: The ability to use proper conventions, organization, and style to communicate scientific understanding in projects, lab activities, and essays. (10%)
Learning Support Factors: The ability to follow directions, to be punctual, and to be prepared for class. (10%)

Mike Mahoney restructured his approach to grading his algebra students in a similar way:

Understanding: The ability to fluently and flexibly apply algebra concepts. Assessed through story problems, explanations of solutions to problems, and identification and explanation of errors. (50%)
Computation Skill: The ability to accurately use formulas, equations, and operations to compute the correct answer. (40%)
Personal Responsibility: Behavior, effort, and attentiveness in class. Students self-assess in this area but must be able to defend their assessment. (10%)

With this system, these two teachers will assess students' work habits, knowledge, and skills. But more important, Ms. Blake and Mr. Mahoney will send a clear message that all students are expected to develop the higher-level thinking that is necessary for enduring understanding.

Reconnecting School and Life

Last May, I ran across a high school graduation card that hit too close to home. The front boldly stated "Graduate, you'll be amazed at how much of what you have learned in school will be handy in the real world." Inside, the card said, "Almost none."

Far too often, there is a disconnect between school and life as students have busied themselves jumping through the hoops of compliance and recall. Of course, students must discover the rewards of self-discipline and responsibility. But in the service of what ends? Do we not have grander goals? Do we not want our students to become thoughtful citizens of the world, to discover and strengthen their voices, to think more clearly, to speak and write more powerfully?

If we are to have any chance of accomplishing these grander goals, we must reconnect school and life by asking students to apply what they learn to real-world situations. We must ask them not only to be responsible and to remember, but also to understand— because it is understanding that makes learning meaningful, relevant, and enduring. A standards-based approach does not go far enough. We must assess for understanding.

References

Marzano, R. J. (2000). Transforming classroom grading. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Stiggins, R. (2005). Student-involved assessment for learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice-Hall.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Winger, T. (2005). Grading to communicate. Educational Leadership, 63(3), 61–65.

Calendar for May & June:
(in case you didn't notice, in the last few months, this is a clickable link to the full calendar)

Karcher Middle School - Staff Blog

domingo, 8 de mayo de 2016

May 9th

Grading What Matters

Assessing Our Expectations

Reorganizing Our Approach

Reconnecting School and Life

References

May 16, 2021