Holly Pond Middle School, a title I school for grades 6 through 8, is a part of the large Cullman County School System, a system of 29 schools. …show more content…
• It is helpful to develop rubrics that provide both students and teachers an explicit listing of assessed areas and to connect student score to assignment requirement.
• Offer specific feedback to students on their success in completing assignments or on areas of continued practice if the student struggles with the content.
• Return student work with feedback promptly. This provides a checkpoint for you and your students on their progress and on missing assignments.
• Have students keep a record of their grades. Demonstrate the effect of a zero enables them to see for themselves the effects of missing papers or assignments.
• Establish communication lines for parents and prepare a sheet for parents explaining the grading …show more content…
There will be two training sessions per grade level held within the first month of school. During this training, teachers will be acclimated to the conceptual understanding of this plan by the school administration. The entire training will be provided by the instructional coach and the school administration. At the conclusion of the second training session, teachers will design a calendar to schedule peer observations for informal reflections on the program. By October each pair will informally share progress of the program during grade level meetings on a monthly basis.
The Focusing Checklist will be administered independently to the teachers at the beginning of the year and in May. The student checklist (Appendix 2) will be administered to all students in December and again in May. At the end of the school year, teachers will compare and reflect on their pre and post data obtained from both checklists and observations. The teachers will discuss the strengths of the program in terms of student behaviors involved in self-discipline such as being able to use a rubric to self-evaluate, taking the opportunity to self-correct, and engaging in extra credit opportunities. The teachers will discuss what areas they still felt needed improvement in their own teaching practices and student behaviors. Those will become the focus for the next academic school