This year, I’ve begun each quarter by sharing new (or “new”) expectations. These are simple reminders of rules and routines expressed in a slightly different way to keep management tight. For example, Q2 featured “less English, more Latin” to address increased chatter from students becoming more comfortable. This week, I introduced Q3 with “mostly Latin, almost no English.” However, I still don’t require or expect students to speak Latin (i.e. forced output). Here’s how that works…
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How To Plan So Your Plans Never Get Messed Up
On any given day, it’s common for teachers to have wrenches thrown into their plans without warning. Sometimes these wrenches appear during the very class teachers are required to plan for! Other times, it feels like the whole damn tool chest is being tossed our way! This post offers tips on how to structure your planning so those wrenches have absolutely no impact, whatsoever…
Grading Scheme: DEA & Proficiency
**See this post for all other grading schemes*
Here’s a new idea inspired by advice I was giving on various DEA and Proficiency grading weights. In other posts, I’ve written how my DEA weight has been anywhere from 0% to 50% of the grade. You could also try this sliding scale throughout the year…
Quarter 1
DEA = 100%
Proficiency = 0%
Quarter 2
DEA = 50%
Proficiency = 50%
Quarter 3
DEA = 10%
Proficiency = 90%
Quarter 4
DEA = 0%
Proficiency = 100%
A grading scheme like this would establish very clear expectations of how important it is to exhibit behaviors and routines that lead to language acquisition in class (e.g. Look, Listen, Ask). This would work best if you have the admin support to manually override the final grade with just one Proficiency grade from Quarter 4, as suggested in other iterations of my grading systems. Why? We don’t reaaaaally want the 4 quarters to be averaged, but if they are it’s not the end of the world. This kind of grade is far more forgiving so the focus can be on input and not assessments.
N.B. Proficiency is given 0% weight at the start of the year. This doesn’t mean that students see “0” in the gradebook. What this means is that their 95, which they see in the gradebook, holds 0% weight because in the sliding scale scheme we’ve placed all 100% weight on DEA for first quarter in order to set expectations and establish routines.
Magister P. 