Published: 2010-09-27 11:09 |
Category: Grading |
The first attempt at anything is usually inefficient, clunky, and unpolished. That’s how I feel with my class at the moment. I’m trying to polish and refine, but I need to be patient, because I will probably never be completely satisfied…but I think good teachers are never comfortable with everything they do. We need to be finding ways to constantly improve our methodology and be refining our pedagogy.
The biggest challenge I’ve had thus far with mastery is the unbelievable volume of daily grading and checking I’ve been doing and the brainpower it is taking me to think about 10 different assignments all being shown to me at once. Feeling fried out (after one unit, mind you) I queried Jonathan Bergmann, a mastery guru (he’s in his 4th year using the method right now). A recent blog post of his had to do with how he and a colleague switched from grading every assignment to grading specific objectives they wanted students to accomplish. Needless to say, I loved it.
I will be using this with my next unit, but I wanted to share his thoughts. I am in no way responsible for coming up with the idea…I’m just borrowing from him to try and improve my class…thanks Jon!