Welcome to our class!
I am so very excited to be your child's teacher this year! We are going to have a lot of fun while learning a lot of great content that will help to equip them for their future.
I welcome, any and all, parent participation so if you would like to come help out with grading during the week, please feel free to sign up by clicking on the link:
If you would prefer to help with classroom parties for Halloween and our Winter Holiday Party, please click on this link:
My Teaching Philosophy:
Grading & the Standard Based Grading Scale:
Students will not earn points towards their final grade in my class for participation, attendance, group projects, or homework. Why, you ask? Participation and attendance do not help accurately reflect whether or not your student is accurately grasping the concepts and strategies that will be taught to them this year. Likewise, I do not grade homework or group projects because these tasks allow your student to practice the concepts and strategies they learn. Group projects and homework are learning activities. Each student is accountable for their own acheivement.
So, you are probably wondering what will your student be graded on? Students will be graded on tasks that reflect authentic learning that will require them to use higher order thinking. So first, authentic learning means that the student is able to apply what they have learned in completing a real world task. Many times these tasks will require your student to complete a project or task. Tasks could be writing an extended or short answer response to a prompt. While a project may be writing an individual piece that will be included in a large class project, such as, replicating a news paper.
I will use a thing called summative assessment when assessing your students. I will be using rubrics to grade on most, if not all, of your students assessments. This allows me to be able to give your student specific feedback on what they need to work on. My goal is that every child will leave this class being confident and successful.
The grading scale used by Albuquerque Public Schools is Standard Base Grading. I'm sure you are familiar with it but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me by email (see below).
A little confused about where your child stands? Below is a breakdown of the current grading scale. If you have further questions about where your child stands, please do not be afraid to email me at mdrake947@gmail.com to setup an appointment. I would be more than happy to break down the scale further.
4: Advanced
3: Meets expectation for target
2: Partial mastery of target. Demonstrates partial understanding of target, or can perform portions of the target with assistance.
1: Little or no mastery. Cannot demonstrate mastery, even with instructor assistance.
Class Dojo (App):
In our classroom, your students will be earning DoJo Points throughout the day. You and your child may be familiar with DoJo points but if you are not, please let me explain. Class Dojo is a website that I will utilize to help encourage your student to always do their best in their school work, choices, and behavior throughout the day. Class DoJo wil also allow your student to share their work and learning by posting pictures and videos to their portfolio with you. You can download the app or simply access your child's profile by going to https://www.classdojo.com/ and signing up.
Remind (App):
I will also use this application to send you and your student reminders about upcoming assessments and projects. I do this because I know life gets crazy between working, sports, and just day to day life events. Please use this application as another avenue to communicate with me in regard to your child's academics. I encourage every parent to be involved in your child's learning process by helping them study- quizzing them with flashcards, word problems, etc. Let's make learning fun together!
SeeSaw (App):
This application will allow your student to build their portfolio and share it with you throughout the week. This application allows students to share and comment on the work of other students in our class. I have one rule for students while using SeeSaw and that is please only post kind words on another student's work.