Summer Flew By

I can't believe how fast my summer as flown by after my first year of teaching.  Although it was a wonderful time I am in full swing into the 2015/2016 school year.  This year I'm doing things a little different in my classroom.  I've decided to slowly implement Standards Based Grading (SBG) into my classroom.  Our district will be completely transitioned next school year (16/17) with this year having a select few teachers piloting.  Allthough I'm not piloting I have found several ways in beginning the transition so my kiddos are not so shocked come next school year.   Since my social studies team has already come up with our essential learning standards the first thing I am doing is giving students a learning log over each standard as we go through each unit. 

Example of the first couple of strandards we will be focusing on this year. Students keep this in their binders. They self check by write down pre-test scores, checkpoints, and final test scores to see where they need improvement.

With social studies each unit will cover two, three, and even sometimes four standards.  The second thing I am doing is posting the standard of which we are focusing on for that day or week.  I thought this would be a good visual for those who are working on a project who may not have their learning logs visible while in class.  

Not the best picture, but the idea is for them to see the goals.  Eventually I'll post examples of  student work on this board that has been given scores of 3 and 4.  This way the students can see the quality of work and differences in each score. 

The third thing I am doing is attempting to implement Google Classroom.  I believe this will be essential in allowing students the ability to complete work at their own pace and allowing them the opportunity to explore further to reach that 4 score.  So here's to my second year of teaching, surely to be filled with excitement, craziness, and a lot of learning from my students and I. 
Here are some pictures of the setup of my classroom this year.  Enjoy!