More Proficiency Scales

I think I am a little obsessed with proficiency scales.  I blame my district for switching over to a 4-point scale and expecting us to just easily switch over and completely understand what mastery means for each of the standards. I don't understand how a district can switch something as big as a grading system without giving us any guidelines or training on how to do that. We received maybe one professional development day two years ago on proficiency scales and nothing else about how to justify the grades we give. Honestly, I am surprised that more parents don't complain and question why their children are receiving the "3" or the "2" or why not the "4". There's little or no consistency between teachers about what these words- meets, approaches, falls below, and exceeds- mean. What approaches in your room might meet in mine, but that's not the way it's supposed to be.
We have three new teachers (new to our school, but not new to teaching) on our team next year. Last year was quite a mess in terms of even agreeing what the standards mean, let alone being consistent with our grading system.  Because we are a newly formed team,  we decided to take a step back and look more closely at our standards together. We decided we needed to "unwrap" them and come up with some learning targets that we could all agree upon. (I feel like this is something that our district should have done for us, but that's a whole other story.)
Once we created these learning targets, we decided upon their depth of knowledge. We used Webb's Depth of Knowledge scale. From there we created the proficiency scales. We are going to use these scales to create our Common Formative Assessments and to guide the activities we do to teach the standards. These scales give up common language to use to talk to the students about their learning. The scales allow all of us to be more consistent across the grade level with our grading. It should eliminate the discrepancies we saw last year from room to room in terms of grading.
We only did the scales for our 1st Quarter standards, so we aren't finished yet. But, since I am so excited about these scales, I decided to post them as a freebie on TpT. Get the freebie here. Hope it's something that might be valuable to you.

Behavior Proficiency Scale

We are officially checked out and on summer break!  Woo Hoo!  This year, due to budget cuts, we have a furlough day this Friday which is usually a teacher work day.  So we had to get everything done and checked out before Friday.  Kind of challenging to get everything done, but we made it!
But, of course, I never stop working even when the end is near.

We have seven standards on our teacher evaluation system.  Standard 5 is called Learning Environment.  Here's what it says: The teacher uses resources, routines and procedures to provide a respectful, positive, safe, student-centered environment that is conducive to learning. We are evaluated on these standards and given a score of "Highly Effective", "Effective", "Partially Effective", or "Ineffective."  To get a "highly effective" it says: "In addition to meeting the standard, the teacher creates a dynamic learning environment that maximizes learning opportunities and minimizes disruptions within an environment in which students self-monitor behavior."

So, I needed something to use with my students that allowed them to self-monitor their behavior throughout the day.  We use a 4,3,2,1 scale for report cards- Exceeds, Meets, Approaches, Fall Below so the students are familiar with this scale.  Here's a picture of what I created.  I am going to make it into a poster anchor chart for the classroom. At the end of each day, students evaluate their behavior throughout the day and decide which number they should receive. They privately show me their score and I agree or disagree. They write their numbers in their agenda and give a reason why they received that score.  Parents will be aware of this proficiency scale and will read what their child wrote and initial it.  ** Please note: after I pinned this, someone commented that I should be sensitive to "brown-skinned" children because the pictures show "brown-skinned" children with the lower behavior score.  That was NOT my intention at all- it was just the clip art I had... so, as not to offend or make some children in my classroom feel they could not achieve the higher scores, I revised the proficiency scale to just the numbers. See below.  But I kept the children as well, so you can choose which one you want to use.

Get it here as a freebie at my TpT store: Behavior Proficiency Scale
Hope it's something you might be able to use!

Happy Summer!

Active Listening Proficiency Scale

Back a million years ago when I taught 3rd grade before, I used to make a t-chart to show what Active Listening was and what Active Listening was not.  Then we would do some practice scenarios where students were actively listening and some scenarios where students were not actively listening and we would talk about the differences.
In Kindergarten, we always spent a lot of time talking about what it means to listen.  We practiced a lot- we practice the whole year.
There are a million cute visuals out there on active listening- or whole body listening. And they are all wonderful!  But this year, with my brain thinking about proficiency scales, I decided to create a proficiency scale for Active Listening.  I plan to go through this process with my students, but I needed to do one ahead of time to think it through.

When I do proficiency scales with my students I explain the numbers this way:
4- Above and beyond
3- Just right- exactly where you should be
2- Almost there- just missing a few things
1- A good start but a long way to go


I started with that "just right" listener- and asked myself what that student is doing. Going back to my kinder days, this listener is listening with his ears, his eyes, his body, his hands and feet, and his brain.  Those became the criteria for the "3".  Then I bumped it back to a "2"- maybe they are doing everything except one of those.  Then I bumped it back to a "1"- maybe they are missing two of the criteria.  Then we always end with the "4" and it's always the hardest because sometimes the "3" has everything you want.  For the "4" on the active listening proficiency scale, I decided that I would use the last criteria we talk about in Kinder and that is the heart- the listener cares about what the speaker is saying.  But I added to this and said that the listener is engaged in a conversation with the speaker.  I thought that would add that extra above and beyond that the "4" needs.

It's not perfect and you'll need to make it your own with your students, but it's a different twist on a common back to school topic.  Here are some pictures of what's in the FREEBIE. To help you make your anchor chart, I added some adorable pictures from Melonheadz that you can use as labels for your descriptors, the numbers for the proficiency scale and a title if you want to use it.

Back to School Proficiency Scales

Proficiency scales became a large part of my classroom last year in Kindergarten.  We had one for our math journals (See blog post here) and several for writing (see blog posts here and here).  I want to continue with proficiency scales in my 3rd grade classroom because I feel like they are a great tool for students to assess their own learning.  But, I want to introduce proficiency scales in a fun way for students. I recently made some homemade chocolate chip cookies.  When I finish a batch, my son always looks at the cookies cooling on the rack and he takes a very long time deciding which cookie he wants.  While he was doing that this weekend, it hit me- why not make a proficiency scale for the perfect chocolate chip cookie?  It's not the best idea- there are flaws inherent in the process because everyone likes their cookies a little different- some like chewy, some like crispy etc... so when you look at this, keep that in mind.  But, I think it serves its purpose- to introduce students to the concept of proficiency scales in a fun way.  I began by thinking about characteristics of the perfect cookie- size, texture, and color.  Then I created the "3" which would be the "just right" cookie.  After I created the criteria for the "3", then I went down to the "2" and to the "1."  Get the whole freebie here. I included a little background on how I created the scale, the final scale, and then some cards you can use to have the students grade the chocolate chip cookie.  My grand plan is to bring in different kinds of chocolate chip cookies and have the students score those cookies on the scale (and then have an extra snack-yum!), but the cards will work too. I think this will make a fun first week of school activity.  Tune in tomorrow for my "Active Listening" Proficiency Scale.

Response to Literature with Fairy Tales

Kinders can offer opinions all day long. "I like it because it's good."  "I like it because it's funny."  I've read those sentences so many times.  But it's more difficult for them to offer evidence to support their opinions.  I decided to do this type of writing with fairy tales.  We use proficiency scales for our writing and our team created this one for response to literature.

We began by reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  It was the James Marshall version and there are some funny parts.  We decided our beginning sentence would be "Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a funny book."  Then we made a circle map where I asked them to support that statement with evidence from the text- what parts were funny?  Then they used our beginning sentences or one of their own and our circle map (or their own ideas) to support their opinion. Here are some samples.

 I think Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a funny book.  I liked when she jumped out the window.  Goldilocks rocked and rocked the chair got broken.

 Goldilocks and the Three Bears is funny.  The book was funny because she jumped out the window.  The book was funny because she broke the chair.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is funny.  Goldilocks was funny when she jumped out the window.  Goldilocks was funny when she got squooshed in the soft chair.

Here's a link to my freebie on TpT that includes writing sheets for six different fairy tales as well as two different versions of proficiency scales for response to literature.

Math Journal Proficiency Scale

Since we use math journals for problem solving almost every day I decided to try out proficiency scales with our math journals.  When I created the original one, I asked the students to help me.  We talked about the things that I needed to see in their math journals to tell that they understood the math problem (the 3).  Then we talked about what it would look like if they almost understood (the 2) or didn't understand at all (the 1). Finally, I asked them what would be above and beyond- what could they do extra to show that they really understood (the 4).  This is what we've been using for 2nd Quarter.

It worked really well for 2nd quarter because we haven't introduced addition yet.  Students were just drawing pictures to solve the word problem and circling their answers.  But now that we can finally (I detest our district curriculum map waiting until 3rd quarter to introduce addition) introduce addition and an equation we had to change the proficiency scale to reflect that.  So, my team and I sat down at one of our PLC meetings and came up with this new scale.  It's not much different- written in more kid-friendly language, but it also introduces the idea of an equation that matches that action of the word problem.

And, I made a better anchor chart than the one I had before. I apologize for the pictures- camera was acting weird.

So, I made all of this into a freebie on TpT.  Click here for the link.

Hope it's something that can help your students assess their learning!