That Successful Feeling!

Yesterday we did another problem at the VWBs.

It had been a while. 

We had to review expectations,

And talk to why some were harder to follow at this time of year!

(End of the year attitudes are a tough hurdle to get over!)

Since we had been learning about volume before the state assessments,

The task was to find the remaining volume in a cylinder after a cone with the same diameter and height was placed in the cylinder.

I only gave them the slant length and diameter.

Only about 1-2 groups were able to work through the problem.

And this was even AFTER we would pause for some rough draft thinking aloud as a whole class!

I asked a few of the students that were successful on their own solving the problem,

How they felt after completion of the task.

Their responses are below.

The students responding to their success only included one high achieving student.  

The other two have struggled in math.

"Knowing that I can make mistakes while solving problems takes most of the pressure off so you aren't thinking that you have to get it right and if you mess up you can't change it."

"When completing a problem in math, it's exciting and makes you feel like something you did is good.  It makes you feel relieved and like you just won 100,000 bucks!"

"I feel great and it's exciting.  It's fun when you understand what's going on in the problem."

When You Change the Way You Grade...

When you change the way you grade,

You might be paving the way for more learning.

This year, I took away grading any and all classwork.

I no longer gave homework that was required.

Answer keys were always posted on Check Your Understanding days.

Some days students completed a LOT of problems.

Some days, very few.

But every day our goal was the same,

To move our thinking.

With the implementation of Vertical White Boards, (book Building Thinking Classrooms)

And Rough Draft Thinking (book, Rough Draft Math)

Students were more focused on the math content

Then on just getting the problems completed.

When the goal is just to complete something,

Then we've lost focus

on meaning-making,

and using the content to move our thinking.

Just the other day, out of the blue,

One class announced how they liked this grading system better than other classrooms.

I was shocked.

It's a much harder way to earn a good grade

With only quizzes and individual work counting.

But by doing this,

A more accurate picture is being drawn on what the student knows.

The grade is no longer how responsible the student is in getting work completed,

It no longer reflects classroom participation,

It is a true measure of their learning.

To support this evidence,

I counted the number of semester F's for this year, 2021-2022.

I also went back several years,

Back to a time where I gave a grade for completion,

Where classroom activities resulted in participation grades.

And remember the Covid Year, 2020-2021?

(Who could forget that year...hybrid this, remote that...it was crazy!)

To keep a better track of my students progress in the learning activities,

Absolutely everything posted to Google Classroom got a grade of some sort.

Check out the number of F's that year!

In summary, I will continue with this grading system into next year.

Is it a fluke and only worked with this group of students?

Is it legit and really is the best way to enhance learning in the math classroom?

By taking away the grade, does learning really increase?

Can't wait for the state assessment scores to if that's the case.  

Fingers. Crossed.