Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

This is How God Showed His Love Among Us:
He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.

This is Love:
Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is Love:
Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

1 John 3:16, 4:9-10, 16

If you need another "Gathering Information" Sheet, you can download it here.

Don't forget: Tomorrow (Tuesday) all students need to either bring some of their library books to school, or a note from a parent explaining why they don't have their library books.  Either way is fine, but it is not okay to come with nothing.

I understand most of you probably don't wake up in the morning thinking about standards-based grading.  A couple days ago when I asked for your feedback on the system, I didn't get much of a response.  I'm guessing that might be because your just really busy (if that's the case, stop reading this now), or possibly because you don't really see any difference from the way school has always been.

If you haven't given me your feedback yet because you feel like you don't have any opinion or anything to say about standards-based grading, I want to encourage you to comment anyway.  It is actually really valuable information for me to see if you see any difference at all on your end.

I promise, this is the last time I'll ask for your feedback on this survey.  

Thanks a million!

Today, we're going to get set up for your research project.  You will take a look at potential research topics, and what resources you will have available.

Begin by saving a copy of this Research Starter for yourself and completing it.

Don't forget to log on to Sycamore tonight and get your spelling and vocab quiz scores so you can enter them in your new test score trackers.

The reasons I'm having you do this are:
1)  It forces you to learn how to sign in to Sycamore and see your progress.
2)  Reflecting on past performance will hopefully motivate you to improve.

It's important to reflect on our past, so that we can learn from it, make adjustments and do better in the future.  Sometimes, though, reflection can be hard when our past is fuzzy.  

For example, do you know what your last four spelling test scores are?  Are you improving, getting worse, or staying about the same?  Sometimes, it can be hard to see what the scores on our tests mean to the bigger picture.

So, in an effort to help you reflect and improve your performance in the future, I've created a simple worksheet for you to track your progress.

Here's how to use it:

1.  Access the worksheet and make a copy for yourself and rename it with first your name.
2.  Sign in to Sycamore and get your Spelling Test percentages.
3.  Record those percentages into your worksheet and watch a progress graph be built.
4.  Do the same thing with your Vocab Quiz scores on the second page of the worksheet.
5.  Share the document with me so I can see your progress!  tmswedberg (at) gmail.com
6.  Watch the video below if you don't get it. :)

Hi everyone,

Next week I have a meeting to discuss how the standards-based grading pilot program is going.  If you have a second, would you mind giving your feedback so I can take you opinions with me to the meeting?  I'd love to hear from both parents and students.

You can give your feedback here.

We'll need it in order to get you set up for your new research project.

I wanted to share a couple success that two different students have had this week because they worked hard and because the Standards-Based grading system allowed them to show what they know.

A couple weeks ago, students wrote some short stories about Danny the Surfer (they're posted on the wall outside the classroom if you want to see them), and in those stories they were supposed to demonstrate the use of six different types of sentence openers.  As you would expect, some students used six types of openers, some used only one, and many others were somewhere in the middle. 

Well, just this week, two different students who had originally not shown much variety in their use of sentence openers, demonstrated that they could in fact write, using all six types.  One student decided to demonstrate his new understanding by working hard to include them in his Anything Project.  Another student decided to revise a previous assignment, and both proved they could use a variety of sentence openers.

Here's what you should notice about these stories:
1.  Both students had an opportunity to grow.
2.  Both students took initiative.
3.  Both students did extra work outside of the normal course of assignments.
4.  Since Standards-Based grading reflects students' current and consistent understanding, their new understanding is not "averaged" with earlier scores as it would have been in a traditional grading system.  Therefore, both students currently have "3's" for this objective as opposed to an average of all scores - 1.5.