SBL/PBL/PBGR (Alphabet Soup)
In attendance: Full house!!!!!!
3.8.16
Thank you to everyone who attended the meeting.
There were many questions and lots of discussion. Below is a recap of the discussion highlights. PiE will discuss how to continue parent education around PBL. One idea is answering 1-2 questions in the Viking. If you have other ideas, please share them with PiE.
Resources:
Meeting Opening
Carla Wuthrich, HCS PiE Chair, welcomed group.
Jeff O’Hara walked through agenda, mapped out the evening’s activities and introduced the panel.
- Jeff Evans, Director of Student Learning at CSSU (former CVU principal)
- Patti Tomashot- Director of Student Services
- Allegra Miller- HCS co-principal, K-4
- Jeff O’Hara- HCS co-principal, 5-8
Adam Bunting was encouraged to attend CVU Women's Basketball championship game- Congratulations Redhawks!
SBL/PBL General Overview
Standards Based Learning = SBL
Proficiency Based Learning = PBL
Standard Based Grading = SBG
- Terms are often interchanged
PBL has been in CVU for 4-5 years, not all teachers have not been practicing PBL, they must adopt the practice this academic year
- One parent noted that uneven adoption has been challenging for CVU parents
- HCS is learning from CVU’s experiences
HCS teachers are in still learning/engaging in professional development around PBL
- All HS teachers must use Jumprope (standards based reporting software) this coming academic year.
- Giving up the grade scale (A-F scale or numerical score) was one the most challenging shifts for teachers
Standards based teaching is not new
- What is new is that it is leading to instructional shifts
- Also driving instructional shifts, is new information about how the brain learns or the science behind learning
- PBL teaching practice are based on science, challenge teachers to be even more self aware and encourage them to become even better educators.
Today, teachers need to be more than knowledge providers, they need to teach students to learn so students can adapt to an ever-changing world
- With the traditional system there is often a disconnect between practice and learning assessment
- PBL helps break apart cognitive learning vs. learning habits (how we learn)
With PBL, the learning targets remains constant, the paths to learning for each student is different
- Teachers must tailor learning plans based on where students fall on the proficiency scale both at the low (1) and high end (4)
- K-4 uses standard learning targets
- 5-8 and 9-12 use unit level learning targets which are specific to the content being taught
- Teachers define unit level learning targets
- Learning targets should include cognitive learning and learning habit targets
Jumprope will replace Jupiter
- It allows parents to drill down online to understand where their student is struggling (at the specific unit level learning target)
- K-4 will not be implementing Jumprope in the near future
There two types of assessments
- Formative assessment= constant feedback loop, quick assessments
- Summative assessment= end of assessment, after all the learning is done
High School/ Higher Education Discussion
Colleges/universities are accustomed to reviewing different types of transcripts and different assessment styles
- The practice of standard based grades/learning is described on CVU school profile so that colleges can accurately assess CVU student transcripts
GPAs are not going away at CVU anytime soon
New England is leading in PBL/SBL adoption (all states except MA have adopted or are in the process of adopting)
- Is being adopted across US but adoption is slower and some states are just beginning to discuss or learn about PBL
Someone raised the question of what is happening to honor societies at CVU
- Patti shared that CVU is discussing if National Honor Society will be eliminated after this year and what could be an alternative
- Honor roll has been eliminated at HCS
- The rationale was that HCS wants students to chase love of learning not the grade
General Comments
Some commented that PBL challenges kids to compete against themselves but is it preparing kids to compete against each other which is more reflective of the real world?
Are kids putting their best effort forward first if they know they can retake or have more time to do improve? Is this creating an unrealistic practice for college and beyond?
