I’m trying to get ahead of the game! This year my improvement plan is to increase the rigor of my assessments by concentrating on the content tests, or multiple choice portion. In my class, Modern World History, 50% of the student’s grade comes from the content test and 50% comes from the essay assessment. The focus today was on Module 27 “Years of Crisis” and specifically on Lesson 1 Postwar Uncertainty. Step one: I go through my test- highlighting the information in the textbook that I already have in it. 2nd Step: I start at the beginning of the lesson and read through it carefully adding questions I think are important. In our system we grade 1-4. A 1 means you are working toward a passing grade. A 2 means you have a basic understanding or a C at 50%. A 3 means you are proficient: 83% or a B. This is not easy to achieve. A 4 means mastery at 93%.

     Two weeks ago I would have said they are not necessary anymore.  Today, I would not say the same thing!  About two weeks ago, our server that has our Moodle system on started acting strange and working very s-l-o-w-l-y.  It was a rickety old computer that it was housed in and we needed to update.  To give you a little background about our school: We are a MacBook air, one to one school.  Teachers have MacBook pros.  The upgrade was a disaster, the program, in the best way I can describe it- imploded, costing me all my materials, test questions and my entire classroom platform.  We are talking two days before my last chapter test and one week before my cumulative final and I have no testing platform!  The Moodle front had collapsed and I was in panic mode.  The only thing I could lean on was that file cabinet with some old tests in it.  I paper tested the French Revolution, by the way I hate checking tests manually- never liked it.  I also hate reading hand written essays!  The lesson to be learned here is that keeping paper copies of assignments and tests is not such a bad idea.  Hopefully you never have to use them, but you never know!  Now I’m off to find a new learning platform for 2nd semester.  Wish me luck, or send me some suggestions:)  Mr. Harms