November 2, 2012

SBG and Retention

Just wanted to make a quick post today before I take my students on a weekend trip for fieldwork in the wetlands - so looking forward to this.  Field work is real science - at least I'd like to think so.

This is my second year of using SBG and suffice it to say, it's still a work in progress.  I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do assessments.  In the past I had used quizzes, but am slowly (ok, stubbornly) learning that quizzes are actually for me to judge the effectiveness of instruction, not a student's understanding.  I need to learn different ways to assess student learning & understanding besides just quizzes.  How can I vary the way I assess students?  Someone suggested that a student project can be used as an assessment.  My challenge to that is -- but if I'm supporting/helping the student as they work, how can I determine they are learning?  Isn't the purpose of SBG for students to show me they have independently learned an idea or concept?  Can anyone shed light on this?

I just read a post over at Think Thank Thunk today and it triggered some thoughts about student retention.  What is learning?  What is retention?  How realistic is it to expect students to retain information about dwarf planets or the process of a dividing cell when they probably don't care about it?  It may be important to them now to retain the information because they earn a grade for it.  However, after they finish high school, will they continue to retain the information?  Most likely not, unless they have a career interest in NASA or being a veterinarian.

One thing I have determined -- students who have been in this SBG system for the 2nd year show increased effort and desire to do well.  First year students are also somewhat learning how it works.  What I want them to do is learn the values of (to name a few) hard work, practice, honesty with themselves, and developing problem solving strategies - these are the things I hope they "retain" after high school.  No matter the content they want to learn about some day, they will have these values that will drive them to be successful.

It is our character that helps us to be successful, not the amount of information we know or retain.