Benchmarks

Last year Mike and I needed to show student growth; that is, how much students learned. We started with giving students a pre test that was the same as the post test. The students really didn’t like this, and just didn’t put any form of effort into it. This was for information that they would soon be learning, so just how useful was it to take a test beforehand that didn’t affect their grade, anyway. I understand. So Mike and I decided to change things and give a benchmark test at the start of every marking period. This test would include 80 questions on the entire curriculum. Students should do better as the year goes on.

The students weren’t as opposed to these, possibly because they didn’t have to take them as often. There were some students who already knew a fair amount of the curriculum, and at the end of the year the average grade was pretty good. It did show solid growth through the year.

This year I’m doing the same kind of benchmark tests. I’ll be tying them into Student Growth Objectives, probably with an objective of a certain average overall grade by a certain date.