Keeping track of things

A pile of papers to grade does nothing for either my sanity or my kiddos. They weren't getting the type of immediate feedback that I wanted them to have and I was falling further and further behind. Toward the middle of the year I started giving my kiddos a grade right as they finished working on their short independent practice pages, we practiced the procedure as well as what I needed them to do while they waited for feedback. It takes a lot of student independence to make it happen, but it isn't impossible :)

After about a week of working through a first-time learning direct instruction lesson, and once I know that at least most of my kiddos are ready, I assign Independent Practice. The assignment is usually a slide embedded into our Google slides lessons, a CFA (common formative assessment) created by our third grade team. 

1. Students work in their 'offices' (basically two file folders stapled together)

2. Students close their office and place their independent practice page, face down, on top of their office.

3. Students chose from our Must Do - May Dos once they are finished with their work, and are waiting for me.

4. Students who have already received feedback record the objective and their score on a progress tracking sheet (click HERE to check it ou)

5. Once all my kiddos have received feedback, and a score, they turn in their work in number order.

All I have left to do is input the scores into my grade book!

Grading made simple.... sigh

I think I miiight have heard the Hallelujah Chorus in my head when I finally figured this out!

I've seen the Fist to Five check aaaallll over Pinterest, but there is a difference between pinning my life away and actually using these things in my classroom.

I began by using the Fist to Five as a quick check during a lesson, I like to try to make it happen before and after when I can, and I've even noticed that it makes my kiddos feel great to go from a 1 to a 5 within the course of the lesson!

The BEST part about this - I am now using the same parameters of the fist to five for almost all of my grading. Every Friday, I take home the 2,3, or 5 (eeek! I'm the worst!) assessments that I give the class that day. As I grade, I keep in mind just how much the students can demonstrate their understanding *** what's up Common Core! ***

Redos: Students who score 1s or 2s have the opportunity to ReDo their assessment, these must be turned into our INBOX within a week, otherwise their scores will remain the same. Students who score a 1 - are part of my re-teach group (during Daily 5) I'm still working out some kinks here and there - like when to re-teach just Math and when to re-teach ELA, I'm thinking about trying 2 days for each. We make Daily 5 time a priority and are now having at least one round per day - the kids LOVE it. I'm also going to start keeping track of how many ReDos we have for any given assessment for my own planning purposes.

Meanwhile, the first Trimester in 5th grade was a hot mess when it came to missing assignments and last minute grading. After some brainstorming, I've come up with a procedure that is not only helping keep my kiddos accountable for their missing work, but is saving me a ton of last minute grading headaches - the eternal procrastinator, grading 33 assessments is bad enough.... waiting a few weeks and letting 99 assessments pile up, no fun.

I am now sending home a progress report every Thursday, sounds nuts - but it is keeping me (and my students) accountable. It is keeping my grading on track and is empowering my students to come to me and ask for help waaaay more often! I have a missing work log on the wall - I add names on Monday and give these students the week to both ask about and complete their assignments. I am not lowering grades for late/missing work within this week because I feel that the grade would not be a reflection of student knowledge and isn't that what grades are all about? However, and I've been super clear about this with my class, after a week - I won't accept anything that was missing. The log is erased and the grade remains an M.

Grading is a breeze now :) Now the only thing I need to do is focus on grading aaaaallll this writing!