Standards Based Grading Information for Parents and Students

Standards Based Grading Grading will represent what students know. To make sure grades are accurate and reflect student learning, there will be two categories in the aeries gradebook: Major Grades (Summative; Tests, quizzes, assignments and projects designed to demonstrate what students have learned) ……………………….……………………………………………………..…………………………...60% Minor Grades (Formative; Assignments designed to show the process of learning including notebooks and practice work)…………………………………….…………………………………………………………….40%

Standards Based Grading With SBG, grades will communicate how much of the content students are understanding. Non-Academic factors will not be graded unless it is essential to a specific skill (i.e. organization of the science notebook).

Students may Re-do assignments Students will be able to redo assignments not meeting standards or turn in late work without penalty. All assignments that receive a score lower than a 10 can be redone and turned in for an improved score. There is a cut off point for turning in missing, late or redo assignments The cut off is when we start new units. For example: if we are on Unit 2 a student cannot turn in assignments from Unit 1. For a notebook check, students are given 1 week after notebooks are returned to resubmit.

Aeries Please note, missing/late assignments will be in the gradebook as a “5”, as this is the lowest score that can be received. Therefore, aeries will not note any missing assignments. Scores will not be any lower than 50% because there will be no zero’s in the gradebook. Zero’s are mathematically inaccurate with an A-F grading system where each grade represents 10%. Ex: A= 100-90, B= 89-80…F= 59-0… Each grade letter represents 10%, so why does an F traditionally represent 50%? It gets students into a hole that is too difficult to get out of. If students receive a zero for a missing assignment, it essentially punishes them 6 times more than it needs to. If grades tell us what a student knows, 1 missing assignments should not devastate a students’ grade.

Work for the “A” Students who routinely receive “A’s” but are not challenged are not truly showing what they are capable of. Students that routinely turn in high quality work that shows deeper understanding should receive a higher grade than a student that has turned in the bare minimum. To receive an “A” the student must show understanding that exceeds what was taught in class. Grades should be utilized as feedback that the student can use to self-assess and improve learning. Allowing students to take more time if needed and allowing them to resubmit assignments gives students every opportunity to achieve an “A”…but they have to work for it!

Neatness, organization, etc. While neatness, organization, creativity and turning in an assignment in a timely manner will be important on an assignment, these factors will not help a student’s grade if he or she does not understand the material. If a student(s) is not finishing work in a timely manner or completing assignments, we will address it together and again points will not be taken off an assignment.

General Grading Rubric This rubric is used for most assignments. The expectations of each assignment are discussed with students prior to being completed.

Notebook Grading Rubic For notebook checks only! 10 9.5 9 8.5 8 7.5 7 6.5 6 5 4 Exceeds Expectations 3 Meets Expectations 2 Approaching Expectations 1 Not Meeting expectations 0 Not meeting Expectations The student has a notebooks that fully meets criteria. Has gone beyond guidelines in organization and information. Example: Margins are used for annotation. The student has a fully updated table of contents. Each page has a title, page number, and date. Writing is legible, note pages are filled out, and notebook assignments are complete. Notebook is missing at least one of the key components listed in ”Meets expectations” Notebook is missing at least 2 of the key components listed in “meets expectations” No judgement can be made about the student’s notebook. Ex: notebook was not turned in.