I know in 6th grade Red we talk a lot about grades and what they signify. We tend to agree that we should not be grading kids based on their ability to follow our directions, which I think happens a lot. The video made me think about moving on before skills are learned and switching the emphasis to the kids learning at their own pace.
I try to do this in my class through self-paced units. One question I have is how do you balance the end-of-the-quarter deadline? I believe that if a kid learns how to add decimals on the 2nd day of school or the last it shouldn't really matter, but I'm trying to figure out how to balance/organize that throughout the year with that many students and also how to deal with the mandated "cut-off" dates for grading periods.
One thing I am thinking about is utilizing smaller quizzes rather than large tests and basing them more on individual skills. I also love the idea of having a tool for kids to be able to track their mastery of skills throughout the year but I have not been able to dig into this much yet.
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