WHAT ABOUT THOSE GRADES?..... In general, students will be assessed on their growth in several areas over the course of the year. There are guidelines that they must follow and benchmarks to reach that will help them to "master" the goals of our 6th grade curriculum. Students who put forth consistent effort will achieve optimal success rates.

GRADE DETAILS: These are the things that I will assess through formative and summative assessments throughout the year. I am using a hybrid of standards based grading and traditional grading this year. This is designed to reflect the growth you make over the year and align with our learning benchmarks.

FORMATIVE PIECES: These are given during the learning unit and are more diagnostic in nature. They show student growth over time and are generally hold a consistent theme as a focus. This is our "REQUIRED WORK"

SUMMATIVE PIECES: These are generally given at the end of a learning unit and assess mastery of the content or focused skills within the learning unit. These are significantly less frequent. These are our "ASSESSMENTS"

LABS/PROJECTS: These are essentially the places where I can see if they can apply the knowledge they have gained. (and communicate it!)

Science and Engineering Practices= These are skills that are used across Science as a whole core subject area. They include things such as calculating and measuring accurately, collecting/organizing/analyzing data, and providing claim/evidence with thorough reasoning in an argument. These will be the main focus of our daily and weekly FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS and show up in a few places on our SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS.

Disciplinary Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts= This area refers to knowledge, information, and techniques that are specific to the current unit of study. These will be the main focus of our SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS.

Work Habits= This is essentially the student's overall responsibility towards homework assignments, labs, classwork and also includes their collaboration and contributions to our classroom climate. This area will become a factor when a student would like to revist an activity or assessment that they want to redo. These will be the main focus of our FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

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Student trimester grades are calculated using a combination of both assessment types.

Here is a quick video on standards/performance based grading.

Each of the above areas (Skills, Content, and Habits) will have a clearly defined rubric and be assessed as either mastery, proficient, and developing. These areas combined will often produce a grade for that piece of work. On most rubrics, a student's progress will be noted as mastery, proficient, developing, and introductory. Some assignments will nto have a rubric and be graded with simple points. However, all grades entered into the online gradebook will be categorized into one of our two main areas depending on the activities that it is to primarily target.

The weighted areas will ultimately combine to produce the final grade for each trimester. Students will be given opportunity to rework assessments and boost grades slightly with solid work habits and effort.

OTHER POLICIES WORTH NOTING:

- Safety is of the utmost concern and any misbehavior in the classroom will NOT be tolerated.

- Students are solely responsible for coursework (Including during absences due to illness, activity, or vacation).

-The responsibility to turn in incomplete or missing work rests with the student. Inability to complete basic classwork will result in limited or complete lack of opportunity to rework assessments and re-do things that they would like to improve upon.

-Students are expected to have the required supplies for Science class. Some supplies will stay in our classroom and some will travel with them, but all students are expected to be prepared for class on a daily basis.

Classroom Student Guidelines

- Students will be sure to read and follow all directions.

- Students will be open to ideas of others and be willing to test these ideas. We will not pre-judge others.

- Students will understand that failing is an essential part of making progress and true understanding of information in Science. We are okay to FAIL!

- Students will be respectful of the space, materials that we all share, and each other.

- Students are each responsible for their own success.