Talk about fast paced! Well I knew it would be, I've been lurking (reading without participating) for a while. I don't really like having to tweet something so quickly without time to go over it carefully and consider the conversation carefully, then consider my response carefully along will spelling, etc.
The topic this week was about report cards. I ended up having a short conversation with Michael Milton about how often report cards go out in North America. He mentioned "bi-monthly" which I took, in the rush, to mean fortnightly, although afterwards I realised he meant every 2 months. So my comment about only getting report cards "bi-yearly" when I was at school probably sounded extra weird, when what I meant was twice per year.
Report cards are bi-monthly check-ins on student progress. #NTChatIt was an interesting chat, about the intended audience of report cards and what should be written on them. I noticed most people felt that report cards are primarily for the use of parents and sometimes students. Not many people engaged with the use of report cards by potential future schools of the student.
— Michael Milton (@42ThinkDeep) November 7, 2013
There was a general feeling that parents and students care about what is written on a report card. That hasn't really been my experience (albeit very limited experience). I don't want to be overly negative about it, but where I'm from, it wasn't uncommon for parents to not even ask to see report cards. In that case the only real use of them ended up being for the teacher (in case they didn't already know the student was failing?!) the school - to gather data on how many students are failing, and future potential schools that the student may wish to enrol.
I have to agree with Justin Aion's tweet:
Elementary report cards are more valuable for feedback as they don't just assign letter grades, but give info. #ntchatAlthough... I remember getting written feedback on high school report cards, they all read the same really...Usually something like "Tegan is a caring student who could achieve well if she applied herself" which got the response from 13 year old me of "Yeah, good-o, whatever". I also remember getting feedback on my Kindergarten report card that I was bad at ball games...Well that followed me around all through school, I heard it early enough that it became part of me. In that way I think report cards can actually be really dangerous. The same teacher also labelled me a "worry wart", and that's exactly what I became, you wouldn't believe the things a 7 year old can worry about!
— Justin (@JustinAion) November 7, 2013
To me, I think the best take-away message from this chat was from Steve Mefford:
If the truth isn't positive, it should be addressed WAY before report cards #ntchat
— Steve Mefford (@Meffscience) November 7, 2013
Yes. Just yes.
ReplyDeleteI work at a private school, and teach one-on-one with almost all of my kids. Our report cards (four times a year) have grade, credit, and a paragraph about the student, their current challenges and successes, attitude, and course content. They're definitely a pain to write (especially when the kid is being a jerk), but way more meaningful to kid and parent.
I think also, for the report card to be meaningful to students, there already has to be a good relationship between the teacher and student. If the student loses respect for the teacher, for whatever reason, then, I think, the information on the report card is more likely to be ignored.
DeleteI definitely agree. I'm also at a private school, and we give report cards with a paragraph, a grade and a rubric of how they're doing with 8-10 mathematical practice standards.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with the tweet you closed with! Our school also does Interim reports halfway through the term with the same info AND a 5-10 minute individual meeting with every student. It's an exhausting week, but those conversations are often the biggest cause of change and growth for students.
I imagine it would be exhausting. I also think the idea of having individual meetings with students would be very beneficial for students and teachers. I never liked the finality of the marks on my work. I always thought it seemed strange that my teachers would write questions on my work, but there was never an opportunity for me to answer or explain.
DeleteWith online grade systems used so frequently now, I've wondered what real use report cards have (other than when students transfer to a new school). Everytime I grade an assessment, I enter the grade online and students can see their current course grade with comments. Everytime they re-take an assessment, I update their online grades. No more need for progress reports or report cards. Individual conferences, though, might be the way we should go from here.
ReplyDeleteI know for some places here, you can use a school report card as a form of ID!
DeleteThe only worry I would have with doing away with paper report cards is parents who don't have computer skills or internet access.
Individual conferences sound like a very positive step, I think the difficulty would be involving parents - I know quite a few parents (know them as friends, not as parents of students) out there who are either afraid of schools or just don't see the point of communicating with teachers. However I think some very positive things could come from even teacher/student conferences.
sounds as though your chat experience was much more successful than mine. my school issues report cards three times per semester. we've just switched to an online system which is horribly cumbersome (entering a grade with comments requires clicking in four different areas of the screen. and if you enter the grade before the comment, the grade will be erased and you have to go back and re-enter.) but it's better than a few years ago when we had to fill out a bubble sheet. cheese, louise! is this the 21st century, and we were still using bubble sheets?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like really bad programming by whoever created the program you guys have to use! Even using Excel would be better than that!
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