'Sounds good, Liz. I'm always up for conversation or ideas on how to improve things, however, so please send new insights along, if you get the chance. The books I write are hopefully launching pads for individuals who take the ideas farther than any of us could ever dream. :-) -- Rick
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Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I will definitely ask that one or two other staff attend the conference. As it is, I've been facilitating differentiated instruction workshops at my middle school the last 2 years. This year, we purchased copies of your new book for everyone to use as a reference and book discussion. I think it's great! I'm more interested now in helping others at my school move into more differentiation and better understanding of assessment in a differentiated classroom (lots of contention, there!)

Hey Liz -- Great question, and thanks for advocating for yourself. To be honest, not much! I wouldn't come. The only thing you might get is if you tried some of the ideas and you want to explore them further. For example, you might have tried one thing and it didn't work and you want to throw that across to me and we discuss it together -- how to improve upon things, insight you've gained that you can share, etc. You can also revisit some of the concepts to reinforce them, and you can clarify ones that didn't make sense last year. These are all nice advantages if you had plenty of time and money, but in this day and age, I'm not sure that's worth it. It would be a better use of time and money to encourage someone else to go.
I'll be here no matter what you do, however, if you want to explore any of the ideas further. Thanks again for writing. -- Rick

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Rick,
I'm not sure how to word this, but basically my question is, what will I get out of going to the NELMS Differentiation conference this coming February if I already went last year? Or, would it be better to encourage another teacher from my school to attend and I'll just stay home and be jealous :)

Hi Liz -- 'Sorry I haven't responded before now. I was out of the country and on spring break with my wife and children. I purposefully left the laptop and e-mail behind. :-)

You did the right thing. Ask yourself if it does any good to give students a test they are not ready to take. My answer: It doesn't. The grades don't mean anything -- they're not accurate or useful as declarations of final proficiency, and you just confirm one more time for insecure students how dumb they are, or at least that's their perception of it.

In addition, you're basing your worries on the few students who may not have studied all along or took the time to prepare for the test. If this actually happens -- they do something less than responsible, it's not the end of the world that they got away with it. It happens. If it's a pattern, however, that's when you need to act, changing whatever you're doing with them. You're right, too, to not make those other students go through more review when they've already proved themselves regarding the topic. Thanks for doing that.

If you want to do so, in these situations go ahead and give the test to everyone, regardless of readiness and call it a summative assessment for some, a formative assessment for others. The data gained from the struggling students' sense of the topic will be helpful for planning and feedback. This is basically what we do when we allow re-takes and do-overs.

Students have an innate wish to be productive, to progress. We have to accept the premise (because it's true) that students want to avoid being left in the shallow end of the pool. As they see their classmates move forward, they will want to do so as well.

Fairness is not really the issue. On the pretense of wanting to teaching accountability, we sometimes do unfair things such as test students when they are not ready to be tested. Most of our students are sincerely trying. We should design our instructional policies around those students, not the exceptions to the rule who occasionally test the limits. Of course, we come up with adaptations of policies for those who need them; one size policy doesn't fit all situations.

'Not sure if this helped or you others agree, but it's my initial response. -- Rick Wormeli
 

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Liz, you used a very reasonable approach. In my opinion, as you continue to honor the readiness of your students and coach them to always give their best, they will value it and probably not take advantage of the situation. If you detect anyone taking advantage, a private conversation might be in order. They will soon see that the purpose of the quiz is to assess their ability to master the content/skills and not to 'catch' them for not studying. The quiz grade certainly has more meaning and is a true reflection of a student's mastery.

I'm wondering if what I did today is a good idea, or whether it is misguided. We were having a quiz on ratios, rates, and proportions. Yesterday the students passed in their study guidelines sheet that they did for homework and I reviewed it. There were quite a few students still struggling with the concepts,even though they could use resources to fill out the study guide. It got me thinking, maybe not everyone is ready for the quiz. So, I made up a review packet and new study guide for them to fill out. But thought it wouldn't be fair to those who were ready to take the quiz to make them do more review and put off the quiz. This morning's bellwork was to write me a note "are you ready to take the quiz? why or why not?". I then split the class, those ready to take it set up in quiz formation and those not ready went into small group and we practiced more. I was able to instruct them and give them more practice, even in the same classroom as those taking the quiz. These students will do the review packet over the weekend and take the quiz Monday while the other students work on independent activities. My questioning really comes down to, was this a fair way to go, was I setting my students up with unrealistic expectations going forward (in other words, will they no longer prepare when required thinking they have extra time)? BTW, I always allow retakes on quizzes and tests, but in this case I assumed these students would have needed the retake so I was trying to "beat the system". Thoughts and comments are appreciated, please.

Edited by author 03-13-2008 12:39 AM
Hi Rick,
One of the quotes that I heard you mention at the conference in Sturbridge that I emphasize daily in my instruction is that "practice makes permanent".
I agree and can you assist me with some additional information and perspectives on that philosophy. I am trying to get together a short presentation for the faculty at the middle school that I teach at. I to support the premise of that statement. I highly support and believe in that train of thought. I just thought it would be a good idea to get your perspective on that quote.
Thanks for injecting me with enthusiasm to differentiate instruction in my pedagogical practice and "bag of tricks".

Mike B.

Thanks for the website catch Rick! See you at the NELMS Annual Conference. Your general session sounds great!-Rose

This is great, Rose. I've used 4MAT quite often in my own classroom. We were trained in it school-wide in the 80's and 90's. It's very helpful. One quick correction, however: the Web site is www.aboutlearning.com, not www.aboutlearnin.com. [ 'Probability a sleep-deprived keystroke on this first day when we had to set our clocks back an hour. :-) ] -- Rick
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Edited by author 03-09-2008 11:48 AM
I have a preference for McCarthy's 4MAT to identify learning styles. If you go to her website www.aboutlearning.com, go to the section on differentiation. There are quite a few tools to set you on your way for using learning styles as a layer of differentiation. I also recommend http://www.cse.fau.edu/~maria/COURSES/CAP5...LearningStyles.html
It is a site that allows students (I've only used in on Gr 6 and above) to take a 15 question learning style inventory based on 4MAT. It is a great resource because it explains the learning style type well for each student. I used learning styles extensively as a teacher and found that when I created a group with a Type 1,2,3,and 4 together and designed the group work based on roles for each type, the group work was incredibly powerful and productive. Hope that helps!

Hey Dawn -- Thanks for inquiring and thanks for exploring the possibilities. You are basically asking two questions: 1) does responding to students' learning profiles in your instruction increase long-term memory of curriculum, and 2) does responding to students' learning profiles improve test performance. Those can be very different things, as performance on a standardized test doesn't always equate with long-term memory of material. In addition, "learning profiles" is a GIGANTIC category . It's basically anything that impacts a student's learning. You're talking about learning styles, multiple intelligences, personal history (family, schooling, culture, poverty or not, interests, giftedness or not, transiency or not, fetal-alcohol issues or not, ELL, etc.). This means it will be very hard to research and conclude anything but, "Yes, this stuff matters."

What you might want to do is focus on one aspect of learning profiles, such as multiple intelligences, learning styles, etc. For each of these, there is a lot of research out there, and I'd start with Web sites dedicated to the individual topics to get citations. Another thing to consider is that we can improve test scores just by teaching students test-taking savvy (how to read and interpret test prompts, how to respond according to the formula, etc.) but that doesn't mean the students actually learned the material well or moved it into long-term memory: they just became better test-takers. You'll have to be very careful in the connections you make, isolating very specific variables, and minimizing influence from other variables. You'll have to discern whether or not something a correlation or a causation, too.

In short, you're asking if we respond to our knowledge of the unique needs of our students via our adjustments to their instruction, will it matter? This is a worthy research pursuit, if for no other reason to confirm what's already out there, but to also pose new questions we may not have considered. Find a few authors of DI material that you respect - maybe Benjamin, Marzano, Tomlinson, Northey, Campbell, Grant, Forsten, Hollas, Winebrenner, Bender, and others -- and read through the citations in their books to launch your investigation.

As you feel comfortable, throw out questions to those of us on this listserv, and definitely let us know how it's going.

Anyone else want to chime in with advice for Dawn? -- Rick Wormeli
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Rick I attended your seminar on differentiated instruction in February. I enjoyed it and want to start expanding differentiation into my assessments. My interest is to see if differentiating assessment based on learning profiles will increase a students long term retention and allow them to preform better on a traditional test. Do you have any information or suggestions on this? I sent this initial request for information on assessments to NELMS directly and they instructed me to contact you directly. Thanks for your time in advance.

Thanks Rick. Just so you know they use this book at the University of Rhode Island. savas


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Hi -- I don't have an opinion on the book as I have not yet read it, but I see Deborah Blaz's name a lot of places. Let us know if it's any good -- I'm definitely interested in reading it! -- Rick

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Thanks Rick and Bill for your thoughts! I do games once in awhile but I do more elaborate communication tasks using menus and surveys which involves complete sentences. Sometimes a nice bingo game just gives a little umfff to the class.

Hi- I have a student teacher who will be working with me in March and she is reading Deborah Blaz Differentiation Instruction: A guide for Foreign Language Teachers. Any thoughts if this a good resource or not?

Rick, I agree with you that Bingo is useful for moving from simple recognition to genuine recall of single words, and having fun. I know a lot of FL textbooks (including all the French 1A, 1B, 1 and 2 books I've used) present large chunks of vocabulary and then practice them, more or less, in context by presenting large chunks of related grammar points. So if you are early on in the "acquiring large chunks of vocabulary" stage and want to reinforce single word associations prior to more advanced and creative language usage, I'd say Bingo is a fine activity. I've used Pictionary and Charades to similar effect.
I will add, though, that early in my career I had students fill in their own Bingo boards. Yipes. THAT is definitely major time suckage, especially since some kids finish in no time and others don't. This is when you want a time machine :-(

Hi -- Thanks for thinking about this. I don't have data on those specific games in terms of effect size (impact on learning), but I think that Bingo is basically a matching game, which is helping students memorize information for the short term: a student hears "Papas Fritas" and remembers that this is Spanish for "French Fries" and places an X on the square containing the words, "French Fries." If your goal is to get practice basic recall of terms and have some fun, this activity works. That's fine on one level, but it won't move the terms into long-term memory, especially if this is the only way students interact with it. There must be meaningful interaction from multiple angles, which implies an immersion experience, such as we might provide when asking students conduct daily conversations using the terms, or when they use those Spanish translations as they prepare a cookbook full of favorite recipes, or prepare a cooking video (or podcast) using only Spanish terms, similar to something Rachel Ray or Emeril would present. If it were my own class, I'd do Bingo and similar games once in a while for the fun of them, but I would be mindful of: 1) What is my goal with this game and does this game achieve it? [If not, change the rules of the game so it achieves what I want or scrap the game], and 2) What am I sacrificing while playing this game that might lead to more long-term retention of the Spanish translations. We want students to actually start thinking in Spanish, naturally putting the adjective after the noun, for instance, naturally understanding the direct and indirect objects, etc., not just see Spanish as something with which they have to stop what they are doing and stumble through word-for-word translations. It's kind of like moving an early reading student from, "word+word+word= meaning" reading to reading whole chunks of sentences at a time and using context clues to gather meaning.

'Anyone else want to chime in? -- Rick Wormeli

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I did a communication activity where students had to write down foods and ask in spanish do you eat this or drink this food. We did this activity in the form of a bingo game. Is this time suckage or what about games such as bingo, verb relays etc.?

This is great news! Better be careful, or you'll start a revolution! :-) Thanks for taking the steps and keep us posted on how it goes. -- Rick Wormeli

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Hi all- I just instituted yesterday that students could redo writing assignments in my foreign language classes but they would need to come before school or after school to do so. I sent a letter home to the parents explaining the change in my policy. Some of my students had expressions of joy and I explained that when you take the SAT you can take it more than once and that I wanted to see you produce your best work.

Hi Rose,
That was a great scenario and story. I also believe in school administration/leadership supporting a work smarter but not harder principle that clearly defines what students are accountable for and parents have been notified and are vested in the grading policies. It is not easy to keep everyone on the same page but you did it and my hat is off to you!!!!! Thanks for sharing your past experience.

Mike B.

Edited by author 02-13-2008 03:24 PM
Peter,
Congratulations on taking action after thoughtful reflection of your grading practices. Although I have been out of the classroom and in the world of administration for quite some time, I can remember the day I walked in to my principal's office and told him that I would be using a different grading system. I had read an article on the fairness of using the median as a measure rather than an average. It also gave me the latitude to weight different portions of the grade. I found that the students worked harder than previously, they always knew their grade and didn't feel so defeated if they did poorly on one thing. It also took me less time to do my grades! It gave every task so much more perspective. I do believe that the students perceived me as a fair teacher for them and I know that almost all of them worked to their capability. By the way, my principal's reaction was basically to make sure that I explained it to the kids and the parents and let him know how it went. Oddly enough, he started showing up in my classroom a bit more often and I noticed that he engaged with the students about their grades. That principal was responsible for moving me forward in the leaderhsip in my building.
Keep up the good work!

Edited by author 02-11-2008 10:01 PM
First I would like to thank Rick for a very rewarding two day experience in Sturbridge last week. It was a very thought provoking two days.

One of the ideas he presented that I felt I could institute immediately was the idea of allowing the students to have a redo when necessary or wanted. I went into this thinking that the students would be very excited about this opportunity and possibly not work as hard on the initial test.

I did place some requirements in order to retake the test. I believe Rick convered all of these:
1. Must have test signed (I have all of my tests signed anyway whether good or bad it is a policy of mine so the parents are aware of progress)
2. Must show a renewed effort in their preparation for the redo (the students came up with some examples of what this can look like)
3. Must stay after school in order to do the retake.

I also let the students' parents know that I would be instituting this change in policy and that parents would get a phone call if the student earned a grade of below 80 and did not stay after. (with a few exceptions)

The response of the students surprised me. As a whole they wanted very little to do with this new idea. More time studying, after school. "Mr Olson what if I am happy with my 72?" My response was that you would not be given an opportunity to demonstrate you knowledge and if I did not only offer you this opportunity but demanded it I would not be doing my job. So if you give your best and honest efforts the first time the exam is given then there is a good chance you would not have to retake the test.

What a wonderful eye opening experience. I look forward to overcoming this initial reaction to this change in policy and demanding the students meet with the success that I beleive they are capable of with the right support.

Once again thank you for your efforts Rick and I look forward to gaining more knowledge through this medium.

Chris's comment is very true. Einstein said something similar, though I believe he was paraphrasing Chris. I hope folks are clear on this: We definitely should evaluate and provide feedback on all those aspects of students' growth and learning regarding character, ethics, and behavior, but as you indicate your school is exploring, they should be reported separately from the academics. If they are woven with academic renderings of students mastery of specific objectives, they distort the accuracy of that grade and that can undermine the reasons why we grade students in the first place. -- Rick Wormeli

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Thanks, Rick, for your thorough and thought-provoking response. I'd like to add that my school is handling the desire to continue to assess participation, effort and citizenship by creating separate categories on our (still a ways in the future) new report card design. Students are going to participate in designing rubrics for all three categories, and the idea could apply to other categories like "Personal Skills" (bad name - but at any rate some general category that could include "meeting deadlines"). "Citizenship," of course, would include the goal teachers at Lori's school have of wanting kids to learn cooperation.

Even as I say all that, I am reminded, though, of Chris Toy's sentiment that not everything that can be asssessed is important, and not everything that is important can be assessed. That could be a good topic for teachers to chew over.

Take care,
Bill

Hey Lori and Linda (through Lori) -- This is a wonderful outcome on so many fronts! The students grades are now accurate, students feel unshackled from a seemingly inappropriate grading system, and teachers are talking about grading philosophy -- WOW! Thank for sharing all of this with us. Here's a couple of thoughts to pass along to those teachers who are still struggling with this:

1) Low grades do not inspire cooperation and more personal investment in students who struggle. It's a mistaken notion on the part of teachers. Low grades push these students away. Kids divest from the teacher and subject when they feel rejected by them -- whether it's because of something they did or not is irrelevant to their feeling of rejection -- they were found wanting. We have to keep them in the game in order to teach them. Pushing them away and basically saying, "That'll learn ya'" is ineffective and unprofessional. It's like sitting on the rim of the deep pit students dug for themselves and waving a scolding finger at them for digging themselves so deep a pit from which it seems impossible to climb.

2) Ask these disagreeing teachers a larger question: Will anything change if a student fails due to an immoral reason or a sincere reason? Will anything change if it's a big F or a little F? No. We don't need degrees or classifications of F. No matter what the reason or degree, an F means the student has not demonstrated mastery -- not that he's a jerk or slow or whatever else we think. It means the student hasn't learned yet or he hasn't presented evidence of learning yet. No matter the reason, we will still do the same two things: Investigate and take corrective action. We are there to save students from themselves. By giving that student's immaturity so much power over his learning and destiny, we've abdicated our professional duty. This is malpractice. Our commission is to teach so that students learn, not merely to have presented curriculum and document students rise and fall with it. On the pretense of teaching accountability and ethics to students and giving students the most punitive and
unrecoverable end of the F range, they actually do the opposite -- breed resentment, confirm that school is only about seat time and jumping through a teacher's arbitrary and unmeaningful hoops, and even inviting unethical behavior -- cheating -- as they have nothing left to lose and they need to survive. There's no hope. If a student has no hope, the teacher has a much bigger problem than his grading system. Hope is everything. None of us would be here today if we were held to our digressions like this or if hope were removed from our radar scope.

In addition, we can remind these folks that students who get 50's or 60's instead of a zero on a 100.0 point scale are not getting points for having done nothing. That's not even close to the truth of what's happening. What we're doing is mitigating the mathematically and ethically unjustified and imperfect grading scale that convention requires us to use. Just like we don't want an A to have undue inflationary influence if we gave it 60 points' range in the scale as we now do the F grade, we don't want the F to have an undue deflationary influence. Share with them the weather average example in Norfolk, VA and how important it is that grades be accurate in order to fulfill their role: clear and accurate communication for how students are performing against standards. We are actually lying to parents, students, and ourselves if we weave in zeroes on the 100.0 scale and so distort the grade. This is basic 3rd grade mathematics. Teachers should be models of virtue and honest communication.

Thanks for sharing the ideas with faculty and for exploring their application in your own work. And thanks for using this forum to share the journey with us!

-- Rick Wormeli


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Hi Everyone! My colleague Linda and I can't stop talking about the conference with our colleagues. We have met with mixed reactions. Our grades were due for 1st semester the Friday night of the conference. I went back to my grades and changed my zeros to F's and suddenly the grades did in fact reflect my students' achievements and mastery versus the fact that 4 months ago they missed an assignment. The next Monday Linda and I handed out new grading policies - our students kept saying, "who else went to that conference." It was as if they had a whole new lease on life. Some of our colleagues have entered into really good discussions, while others have put up the all and basically said that retakes and taking away zeros rewards students who don't do the work the first time. They can't see past the belief they have that low grades inspire cooperation and better work in the future. I was really convicted that I have been using grades as punishment for students who didn't do every speck of homework I gave them. How is the best way to deal with people who can't get past the "crazy" notion that students who don't hand in the homework (graded on a 100 pt scale) should only get an "F" and not a zero?

On a positive note - our Associate Head of School wants us to do a presentation to the faculty on what we learned at the conference - oh my - there was so much. We came back with more than a new mindset about assessment, but also a new way to think about DI. It is a lot to take in, but I just wanted to thank Rick (and NELMS) for a conference that was truly mindset changing!

That's fine, Lori. And if you find a better way to say it, feel free to edit it and I'll stand by whatever you say. :-)

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Thanks a bunch for your input, Rick. I will definitely pass that information along to my former colleagues and former principal. If you don't mind, I'd like to quote your exact words to them, especially to the principal, as I believe it will make more of an impact; may I? --Lori

Thanks, Rose. You're right, it may take longer, but some of the best things do. We can often get caught up in just surviving, but that can perpetuate an ineffective and unethical status quo. The news about NH's new directions for reporting competencies is a wonderful first step! And wow, there's that shifty "para-diggum" lurking in the minds of all who lead the schools. It's a very real creature worth pursuing. As you know, it's always wise to bring parents and business leaders into the conversations as soon as possible. Thanks for your leadership and insight, Rose! I hope folks know what gold they have in having you along for the journey. -- Rick Wormeli

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Hi Lori -- I agree that at first it seems overwhelming. The thing is, a standards-based report is doable and it's done well in a lot of places. If we don't move that direction, we're declaring that we really don't care about doing what's ethical and supports good pedagogy. The "How?" has overtaken the "Why?" as some might put it, and we don't progress. Ken O'Connor, Robert Marzano, and Tom Guskey have gathered the most research and clear examples of the standards-based report card, with Ken O'Connor being the most user friendly for cautious teachers, I believe. I'd check out their books, listed in the back of the handout. -- Rick Wormeli
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Hey Mike -- Thanks for writing. To be honest, there's really no limit to what you can do. You can differentiate informally or formally. For example, you can stop by a student's table and do a quick informal assessment of how he or she is doing, then respond according to what they need -- affirming proficiency, correcting improper technique, providing an additional tool the student needs, asking the student to add another aspect to the product to increase the complexity or challenge, or any of the other ideas we discussed at the seminar. Your question is a really important one because it allows me to remind folks that there is no one set of differentiation ideas for any one subject. They are all universal: we scaffold for students in every subject, we use flexible grouping in every subject, we increase complexity in every subject, we provide additional time, resources, and examples in every subject. So, if you want to get specific with a Tech differentiation question, then give us a specific learning situation and we'll brainstorm some options with you.

Just to get the juices flowing, what are your objectives for students in any one of the topics you list below -- podcasting, graphic communications, and video production? And are you thinking you need to modify content, process, or product, and what can you tell us about your students that makes you think this way? We can only differentiate if we know these aspects.
Thanks again, Mike! We look forward to hearing from you. -- Rick
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Edited by author 02-07-2008 07:17 PM
Hi Rick,
I also attended the conference on DI and thought it was great!!! You have great energy and believe in what you promote in the educational arena. What DI strategies do you recommend for the teachers of special areas. I teach grades 6-8 in the Tech. Ed./IA curriculum. I am doing manufacturing and production with students grades 6-8. I am looking to introduce communications technology with an emphasis on podcasting,video production, and graphic layout. I am mainly focused on a "hands-on" approach to learning. I have found my students successful at this type of instruction. I look forward to hearing from you and anyone else who has any suggestions that attended this conference. This was the best conference that I have attended in the last 10 years!!!!!

On my drive home to NH, I had to wrap my mind around some stretch learning that Rick brought me to during the two day experience. Although I have been a student, practitioner, and consultant in DI, use of an anchor activity has now taken on a new meaning for me. Rick's use of the Anchor for an opportunity to conference makes a lot of sense. I know I will expand this piece in my work with schools and teachers in making DI more manageable to the classroom teacher.
For NH folks, high schools will now have to give credit for courses based on mastery of competencies so there is already a lot of talk and work to go to a transcript/report card of standards based competency work. NH middle schools could draft on this new school approval rule at the high school level to begin the discussion of a standards based report card at the middle level.
Another entry point into a standards based approach is to systemically introduce it in the first year of schooling after the anecdotal report switches to regular grading-possible third or fourth grade. It is a great opportunity to introduce parents to a new paradigm and can be introduced to the teachers over time. It will take longer to get there but may garner more understanding and support along the way.
Be well--Rose

I'm wondering what people are hearing back as they talk to others. I know I caused a jaw to literally drop (one of my friends, a parent of teenagers) when describing ideas on turning assessment into report cards. Her comment was that the new format was *REALLY* comprehensive. (By the way, our proposal, in its current form, uses the sliding scale for different standards format, combined with separate indicators for citizenship, effort, participation, and a written comment explaining about the standards in more detail and indicating progress made.)
Take care!

Hello everyone.

Regarding the handouts from this conference. You will find three Adobe reader files under the link for this group. This is the handout.

If you have any problems with accessing this handout, please feel free to send me an email (kwilmarth@nelms.org) and I will be happy to send the Adobe files to you as an attachment.

Thanks so much for being a part of this discussion group, Rick. I really enjoyed the conference! Thanks.
As far as revising the report card process along with the DI...I worked in a district that overhauled the report cards for the elementary school (k-6) to the standards based type that you spoke about (which really does work nicely to better inform parents and students of their individual strengths and struggles, by the way), but the biggest argument for not carrying this process to the seventh and eighth grades was sheer numbers of students. The elementary teachers were responsible for anywhere from 18-48 students depending on the grade level. The seventh and eighth grade teachers were responsible for 108 students per grade level. The DI process was implimented within the middle school, and the teachers were definitely discouraged with the inconsistencies between the grade reporting and the good teaching methodologies that the DI offered. Do you have any information/research on implementing a standards based report card with higher numbers of students? Just curious. Thanks again.

I agree that report card revision is closely linked to the Differentiation process, but the reality in our district is that DI is being strongly encouraged and supported (which is terrific), but the report card revision, while under discussion, lags behind. Rick made a compelling argument at the conference to switch to a standards based report card- but that may take a year or two to accomplish. This is a little like a chiken-egg dilema, but we are marching forward despite the report card situation. Our teachers are looking at weighting grades as a first step toward addressing the problem. I will encourage them to join the discussion so they can ask their questions firsthand. Thank you for this wonderful resource.

That's a good point, Bill -- report card revision. If everyone recalls, we talked about the fact that schools may have to implement differentiated instruction strategies at the same time as they revise their report card. Not every DI thinker/author agrees with me on this, but I've worked in multiple school settings where it's a much greater struggle to implement DI when the gradebook and report card do not allow teachers to report what's happening in their classrooms accurately. Remember that the foremost reason for grades and grading is to communicate clearly. Many teachers' response to new DI strategies with, "'Nice idea, but what happens when it comes to grading students?" because they feel that the gradebook and report card formats denies (prevents?) differentiation, especially when accountability is such a high-pressure issue these days. As we explore this concern, we're really talking about cultural change.

-- Rick

Thanks so much, Rick, for being here. We've been on long weekend, with a diversity in-service today (plus I had NELMS Tech Committee on Saturday), so not a lot of implementation yet. But I think my first step at a personal level needs to be improving my ability to pre-assess and truly *use* the information I gather. At a school level, we are already in a discussion about changing our report card, with all the attendant issues around assessment. I need to think about how best to share more of Rick's ideas with our faculty, to keep us on our toes and focused on students.
Take care,
Bill

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the discussion. If you want the PowerPoint slides, contact NELMS directly. They said they would send them out to anyone who'd like them. Steve, is there a contact person for this? If you have any trouble getting these, I can send them out as well. The problem in using me, however, is that I'm often on the road and may be working with a fickle ISP that doesn't allow me access or to send attachments.

In the meantime, how's it going with implementing the ideas? Maybe you've only thought about the principles while in shower or driving to and from school, but have you drawn any conclusions yet? Have you changed anything in your planning process? Explained any of the ideas to colleagues? Come up with more specific questions? I'm up for the conversation when you are.

Thanks for giving it some thought. -- Rick

I enjoyed the two day conference in Sturbridge a great deal. Thanks Rick, and NELMS! I wonder if this is the forum for asking for a digital copy of the Power Point presentation. There are several teachers interested in the information at Bow Memorial School. Thanks! I hope to hear from you soon.
Donna