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Friday, December 19, 2014

MRVED Business

The MRVED Staff would like to wish all of you a happy and relaxing holiday break.  The next MRVED Update will come Friday, January 9, 2015.  The MRVED offices will be open Monday and Tuesday of next week and will run a limited staff the following week.  If you need any assistance during this time you can try calling the office at 320-269-9297 or reach any of us by email.  Have a great holiday season!



Meeting Updates
DAC Meeting
The District Assessment Coordinators had the opportunity to meet at the MRVED on Monday before the ice storm moved through.  They spent a couple hours during the morning networking and asking questions of each other.  The District Assessment Coordinator in your district works very hard to ensure that all testing is completed and reported correctly.  In this holiday season, let them know how much you appreciate all they do!

FACS Best Practice Meeting
The FACS best practice meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday was cancelled due to the icy roads and numerous late starts.  They were scheduled to go to Willmar and tour Cashwise Foods and Bakery as well as Mr. B's Chocolates.  The meeting will be rescheduled for the Spring.

TAC Meeting
The Teachers Advisory Council met at the home of Karen and Steve Jacobson on Thursday.  Most of the day was spent learning about how to have a collaborative conversation as an instructional coach.  The group had the opportunity to practice the collaborative conversations.  They also spent some time viewing an actual lesson, scoring the teacher, and conversing as if they were helping that teacher get better.  The TAC also had the opportunity to look at the MELT sessions and provide feedback.  Overall, another great day of learning at the Jacobson farm!


Upcoming Meetings
January 9, 2015  Title III Paraprofessionals
January 16, 2015  Community Ed
January 19, 2015  MELT
January 28, 2015  Superintendents' Council

LAST Day to Register for the 2015 MELT

MELT Registration Open
TODAY is the last day to register for the 2015 MELT.  If you have not registered already, please do it right now!  Registration closes at 3:00 p.m. today (December 19).



MELT Information
Date: January 19, 2015
Time: 8:40-2:00
Location: Lac qui Parle Valley High School

MELT Reminders a la Mary Brown

1.  If you have a student teacher in January, please have them register by December 19, 2014 and select the district where they will be doing their student teaching.  Direct them to the MRVED website (www.mrved.com) and they can click on the MELT Registration article and it will take them to the brochure and the registration link.  If they are unable to do this by December 19, please have them contact me directly at mbrown@mrved.net or 320-269-9297.

2.  If you are presenting at the MELT, please register for your own session.  If you have already registered and haven't done this, no worries, I will register you for your own session.  Do not reregister.

3.  If you have selected to eat the catered meal, please pay your district the $5 by January 10, 2015.

4.  Lastly, if you did not receive a confirmation email at the completion of your registration, it is because you have entered your email incorrectly.  I have had about a half dozen emails come back to me because of that. I have corrected your emails in the registration but I'm not sure the program resends a confirmation.  

Repair Kit for Grading - Fix 13

The past 12 weeks we have been focusing on Ken O'Connor's 15 Fixes for Broken Grades.  I highly suggest reading through the whole book, it will change the way you approach grading in your classroom.  It's a very quick read, and well worth the time!

Fixes 1-6: Fixes for practices that distort achievement
Fixes 7-10: Fixes for low-quality or poorly organized evidence
Fixes 11-12: Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculation
  1. Don't include student behaviors in grades; include only achievement.
  2. Don't reduce marks on "work" submitted late; provide support for the learner.
  3. Don't give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in a higher level of achievement.
  4. Don't punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement.
  5. Don't consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately.
  6. Don't include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence.
  7. Don't organize information in grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goal.
  8. Don't assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations.
  9. Don't assign grades based on student's achievement compared to other students; compare each student's performance to preset standards.
  10. Don't rely on evidence gathered using assessments that fail to meet standards of quality; rely only on quality assessments.
  11. Don't rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment.
  12. Don't include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement, or use "I" for incomplete or insufficient evidence.
The last 3 fixes are fixes to support learning.

Fix 13: Don't use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence.


Formative assessments are assessments for learning.  They are used to gather information about what to do next in the classroom.  FA's primary purpose is to see if and who needs reteaching.  It is not punitive or rewarding for the student, so why would you use them for points?  Formative assessments should never be used to determine grades.  Once a teacher does an assessment of learning (summative) those can be counted towards a grade.  As mentioned in previous weeks though, in a standards-based reporting system, this is a non-issue.  You either exceed, meet, partially meet, or do not meet the standard.

Also a part of this issue is the debate as to what should truly be graded.  There are some teachers that grade everything and there are some teachers that grade very little.  So what is the magic formula?  The answer lies in your philosophy of teaching and learning.  The one piece of advice that has swayed my thinking, and I do not recall who it came from,, "learning is a process and we make mistakes through this process".

This makes me think about what am I grading, the learning, or what has been learned?  Why are we punishing kids for making mistakes along the way to learning something?  Grades do not need to be punitive or rewarding.  They should reflect what students know and are able to do.

Technology Tip - Quotacle

Quotacle
Quotacle is a great website if you are referencing different movies in your classroom.  Quotacle allows the user to search a database of around 200 big name movies and search through for some of the big quotes from the movie.  You could also use this as a starter in your classroom.  Now you don't have to search YouTube for the quote or scour the web for the clip you want.  Hopefully the database can continue to grow!

Example