Friday, October 22, 2010

Questions for SBG Advocates and Practitioners

My main question is how many students you have, but I'd also like to know what grade level you teach, and what courses.

I teach community college math. This semester I'm teaching 3 sections of beginning algebra. I started with over 40 students in each section.

I'm asking because I can't imagine using some of the systems I've seen described, when I have this many students. But even if you only have 25 students, I know high school teachers usually teach 5 or more classes, and that would be about the same number of students I have.

I'm adjusting my systems as the term progresses, and I'll report soon on what I'm doing. I don't think I'll know until the end of the semester how well it's working, though.

11 comments:

  1. I teach high school and I have 5 classes.
    1 section of Algebra 1 (25 students)
    4 sections of Math Analysis (149 students total)

    This means I really leave it up to students to come in and reasses. If every single student did it, I would be overwhelmed!

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  2. High School
    Physics 3 sections total 60 students
    Geometry 3 sections 60 students

    I am the only teaching doing SBG & Mastery. No one has come to reassess yet.

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  3. Interested in what's happening in lower grades?

    I'm a consultant who often works with elementary classroom teachers. This year I've worked with a lot (majority?) of classroom teachers of grades 3-5 who have over 30 students in a classroom. Too many have had more than 35! 37 even. That's like teaching 2 classes at once!

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  4. I said at the beginning of the semester that my students had to pass each mastery test at 85% or above to pass the course. I may have to soften that...

    I've had better retention this term than in the past, but that may be something about the economy, rather than my 'new, improved' system.

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  5. I teach 8th grade Math and I have 4 Math classes (and 1 US History), BUT I am currently only doing SBG in my Algebra classes.
    I have 2 sections of Algebra 1 (60 students total)
    I have 2 sections of Pre-Algebra (65 students total)

    I leave it completely up to the students to come in and reassess, but I do keep an eye on them and give a few who are struggling more reminders.

    I hope that next year I will be able to start SBG in Pre-Algebra, still working on the skills list and a few other things though.

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  6. Sue,
    I also teach CC math. I am doing SBG with only one class since it is the first time. It is 1st semester calc and I have only 19 students. I also can't imagine what I will do next semester when I have these same students plus others in 2nd semester calc. On the other hand, my summative assessment midterm was a resounding success. Students did better on the midterm than any class I have ever had. On the third hand (?!)I had a steady parade of students for reassessments keeping me swamped for two days before the midterm.

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  7. Sue,
    I teach a class each of 5th grade math, 6th grade math, 7th grade math, and 8th grade Algebra I. I have a total of 68 students. This is my first year using SBG. I have kids who want to reassess and I am about to assign Monday as the reassessment day and I think I will have kids pick two topics to work on. This way kids can prepare over the weekend (I don't assign homework over the weekend)and I can suggest work for them to do to prepare. I don't like to test on Monday, but I see reassessing in a slightly different category: its voluntary and individualized and the kids control their work. I'll see how it goes.

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  8. High School
    I use SBG for 2 non-AP calculus classes. That is about 27 students.

    I have a lot of kids coming in to reassess. So far I've written over 40 reassessments, each with only 2 skills to reassess.

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  9. I have about 140 kids this year a little lower than normal but not unusually so.

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  10. I have 5 classes of 28-30 each, so 145. That is a HUGE improvement of last year, with 170 kids!

    I teach 9th graders a "algebra lab" that's supposed to make struggling students pass their algebra 1 class.

    My policy is to give students THREE chances to take each quiz in class (I usually give quizzes once a week, and they take two at a time - one old and one new) and then they have to come after school to remediate.

    ~ Surani

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  11. Sorry for the lateness...way behind on my Reader. Anyway, I have 120 students in 5 classes. They reassess on their initiative.

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