In the next month or so, I’ll be giving two talks on my implementation of standards based grading. (Okay, if you want to be really precise, that should say that I’m giving the same talk twice.) The first will be hosted by our “Teaching, Learning, and Technology” (@TLTCofC) division as part of their events for “Assessment Week”, and it will be on Wednesday, April 1st at 2pm. The second will be at SOCAMATYC  — the South Carolina Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges Annual Conference. They haven’t finalized their schedule yet, but the conference runs Friday 4/17 through Saturday 4/18. Thanks go to Frank Monterisi (@frank314) for letting me know about this opportunity.

Here’s a blurb about my talk:

In this presentation, we will give an overview of standards based grading (SBG) including helpful answers to questions of the form “What?”, “Why?” and “How?”. While an implementation specific to Calculus II will be discussed, the method outlined could be applied to courses in any discipline. If you’ve ever wondered about alternatives to traditional grading and how to avoid hearing the question, “What percent do I need to make on the final exam to get an 82% in the class?” then this is a great place to start.

Once I have put together my slides, I’m hoping to upload them here, along with some updated SBG documentation from my Calculus II course, like my current list of standards and the information provided to students about how the grading system works.

In a way, it feels a little strange to prepare a talk about standards based grading when I feel like the relative newbie to this topic. My entire system came about after many conversations and interactions with fellow educators on Twitter, and I am still indebted to them for all of their helpful support and guidance. In particular, I couldn’t have gotten my course running smoothly without inspiration from Frank Noschese (@fnoschese) and Joshua Bowman (@thalesdisciple). A quick google search just told me that Joshua gave a similar talk about his transition to SBG; I stumbled on his slides here.