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Less Physics Mo Problems

Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms...

Make Progress on Progress Reporting

I've been looking to address some of the feedback students gave me about term 1.  Specifically in this post I'll address my first steps to try and do something about the lack of connection between standards and content and goals and progress monitoring.

The first step I'm taking is to revamp my student progress monitoring process.  Previously, I have had students record their progress in a unit on a single Google Doc.  I've explained the process in a previous post.  I found that process was good for some things, but the reporting of numbers didn't require true depth and the ability to revisit the student created goal.  So, I've ditched that model in favor of a document that asks students to report more in depth on each objective identify strengths, room for growth, and a plan for improvement.




The idea is to fill this out several times as the unit progresses so that students can reflect on their progress towards objective mastery.  This may be done after a quiz of as they work on their summative assessment piece.  Eventually, these sheets will be added to their portfolio (I'm redoing this too, but we'll save that for another post.)

So, the student just fills this in and I look at it?  No, I wanted this document to do more. A strategy for 1:1 student conferencing being done in FLIGHT, QUEST, and INSPIRE academies in Waukesha gave me an idea to do more with these progress sheets.  They use a Google script called Autocrat to generate progress sheets summarizing student conferencing and sends a record of that to parents and students via email.  I am looking to do the same with these progress sheets.



I tried it for the first time this week, and found that the Autocrat script add-on was very simple to work with and has done exactly what I hoped it would. In the progress sheet above, you'll see that there are <<tags>> where information would be filled in.  That is essential to the process.  Here's the process:

  1. Students fill out a google form with information associated to the tags.
  2. Autocrat merges that information with the progress sheet template doc.
  3. Autocrat makes a copy of the progress sheet for me in my Google Drive and sends copies to students and parents.


I've created a short video documenting the process I have it set up now.









This was just take 1.  I'm hoping that I'll learn some efficiencies and maybe some experts out there will give me feedback about how I can better run the script so students won't have to enter their parents' emails every time.

Please reach out if you have any ideas for how I could be more efficient.
or
If you want some help from a newbie, I might be able to get you set-up.

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