PROFICIENCY-BASED
LEARNING
IMPLEMENTATION UPDATE
Parent Forums
Nov. 5, 2013 – Mahoney Middle School
Nov. 7, 2013 – Memorial Middle School
OBJECTIVES
Provide some background to Proficiency-based
grading and reporting
 Review JumpRope as a proficiency reporting tool
 Gather input on some big questions
 Respond to any questions that we can
 Take any questions we cannot answer to the K-12
Proficiency-Based Learning Steering Committee
or to the School Board

K-12 PROFICIENCY-BASED
GRADING STEERING COMMITTEE
 Made
up teachers, parents, administrators,
Board members
 Addressing a number of different questions
about how this work will be implemented.
 At this time, the first 4 questions are:
 How do students demonstrate exceeds?
 How do we recognize/honor students?
 How will we determine eligibility?
 Will we do an end-of-year conversion to
a grade?
WHY PROFICIENCY-BASED?
CURRENT GRADING DOESN’T TELL THE FULL STORY
A School Perspective
WHY PROFICIENCY-BASED?
CURRENT GRADING DOESN’T TELL THE FULL STORY
A Student’s Perspective
2 Students from the same math class:
Bill
Sue
Homework
60%
95%
Classwork
70%
100%
Quizzes
98%
60%
Tests
95%
72%
81% = C
82% = C
Quarter Grade
What does the “C” tell us about what each
child knows and can do in math?
WHY PROFICIENCY-BASED?
CURRENT GRADING DOESN’T TELL THE
FULL STORY
 Does
a course grade of an 85 tell you
what your student knows and can do?
Understands how to evaluate an algebraic
expression (including exponents) given
specific values for the unknown.
Is skilled at converting between written
and numerical expressions and equations.
Is skilled at finding the area of triangles,
parallelograms, trapezoids, and other
polygons.

REVIEW OF BACKGROUND
 SBG
Committee (5 years) - 4 agreements
Report out on MLR and Common Core
Separate HOW and Content learning
Use a 4 pt rubric (1= does not meet;
2=partially meets; 3=meets; 4= exceeds)
Use trending to honor that students do
not all learn things at the same time

 LD
1422
BASIS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION
PROPOSAL



Had to find a way to begin implementation of these
beliefs
Had to work with the community
Had to build capacity with teachers in grades 6-12 for
a move in this direction
BASIS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION
PROPOSAL
Struggles:
 Where do we start, which grade level,
how extensive, …?
 What will it look like in IC? (How do
you trend? Do you record by task or
essential learning target?)
 What will it look like to parents?
Decisions:
 Gr. 6
 Use M, PM, IN
2013-14 GRADE 6 IMPLEMENTATION
JumpRope - A tool that allowed us to honor the
original agreements:
 Can enter our essential learning targets
 Can link assignments to content and HOW
but report separately
 Can use numbers and we dictate the type of
calculation
 Has a built-in formula for considering earlier
assignments as less and later assignments
more automatically
PARENT COMMUNICATION TIMELINE
Staff presentation: mid May
 Parent 6th Grade Orientation: early June
 MS Handbooks*: September
 6th Grade Open House*: September


*Informed of tool and the change to 1, 2, 3 ,4
Progress Reports: October 7
 Parent Letter about portal: October 10
 Student Intro to portal: October 10
 Notice of upcoming parent forum in Nov.: October 10
 Email with username and password: October 11
 Parent Forums in November

6TH GRADE PROGRESS REPORT
Click here to see
grades!
WELCOME SCREEN
Click here to see
grades!
Shows overall score in the class.
CURRENT GRADES
Click on the small gray triangle to the
left of the class, a list of folders opens up.
WHAT IS REPORTED FOR A CLASS
Foundational - refers to information students need to have and
skills that students need to be able to do to to become proficient on
the Content targets. (mini targets, rungs on a ladder)
Content – these are key, essential things we want students to know
and be able to do in a subject.
WHERE DO THESE NUMBERS COME FROM
This score is a calculation based on the scores for work
done on foundational targets, content targets or Habits of
Work targets.
Teachers put in a whole number and JumpRope
calculates a score.
Scores, however, will not necessarily be whole numbers.
HOW CALCULATES SEPARATELY
Habits of Work are not part of the calculation for the
overall course grade.
HOW are critically important and are therefore reported
separately and not combined with a course average as in
the past.
The “U” appears here as a reminder.
TARGETS CURRENTLY BEING
WORKED ON
Click on the triangle next to
a folder and a list of the
targets currently being
worked on appears.
WORK DONE TO GET TO THE TARGETS
To see the work that has been done
on a target, click the gray triangle
and a list of all the work done so far
to meet that target appears.
HABITS OF WORK
To see scores on the Habits of Work
targets, click the gray triangle to the left
of the Overall Habits of Work Mastery
folder.
WORK THAT HAS SHOWN HABITS OF WORK
A “U” (uncalculated) is here because there
is no overall, single grade for Habits of
Work.
To see the tasks that have been completed that have shown progress on
a habits of work target, click on the triangle next to the target.
ALL THIS INFO??
Formative means that this was a task or assignment that students were
given to help them form their understanding or to practice a skill.
Summative means that this was a piece of work completed that was meant
to show the teacher exactly what the student has learned and is able to
demonstrate for that target.
ALL THIS INFO??
CW tells us that this was done in class as class work. If it said HW we
would know it was homework. It could say test, quiz, presentation, lab, etc.
A brief description of the content follows.
The date is listed last.
COMPARISON
6th Grade Social Studies – Traditional Report card
COMPARISON
6th Grade Social Studies – Proficiency-based Content
A FEW THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
ABOUT PROFICIENCY-BASED
GRADING
 The
teaching and learning – what
happens in the classroom is
unchanged; the way we report out is
different.
 Formative & Summative Assessments
 Foundational & Content
 What do the different “codes” in front of
assignments tell me about the
task/assessment?
THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
 Questions?
 Please
take a moment to review the
charts and use the post-it notes to add
questions or comments.
 Please
complete an “Exit Slip” to
provide feedback to us regarding this
presentation.