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How should we assess our students' progress?
- This topic has 13 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 11 months ago by
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I understand that Charlotte Mason did not recommend using grades. Did she use some other method of assessment/giving feedback to her students? I once gave my kids a “report card” with ratings and/or descriptions of how they were doing. That’s been a long time ago…and I wasn’t thinking CM too much at that time. I really feel it was helpful and would like to do it again. I also understand the idea of them being motivated to learn for its own sake. Anyone have thoughts on this?
She did exams. I know it’s been talked about on the SCM blog before. Here we go: http://simplycharlottemason.com/2008/07/30/end-of-term-exams-in-the-charlotte-mason-method/ If you look at the bottom of that post you’ll also find 3 earlier ones in the series all related to assessment.
Hmmm…I am starting to do that….but I hadn’t thought about that in light of this. I guess I’m thinking more of a method of assessing and communicating to the kids (and their dad 🙂 how they’re doing in several areas. So, the exams could certainly be part of that, but I’m not sure it’s the whole deal I’m looking for. Maybe it’s the next step I’m partly wondering about…what do you do after the exams? I’m also thinking about things like attitudes, getting things done in a timely manner, character/habits…something on paper that they can take with them and look over and see…”This is how things are stacking up. I need to do better here if I want to get the results I want” (“normally” that would be an A grade). I could envision using the charts in Laying Down the Rails as part of it. Rating them in these areas somehow and then adding a section for the more academic things.
Those kinds of things were often included in the exams and were to be reported on by others at home. How children helped others and around the house, etc. were included. Charlotte believed true education was all-inclusive and nothing was left out. You could always record these things, whatever is important to you, on a form at the end of each term. Then it might be helpful to have a family discussion time and praise God for successes and goal-setting for what needs improvement. I have seen the the Laying Down the Rails for Children yet, but there may be ways to evaluate some of those things in there.
My oldest daughter once put this in perspective by saying that homeschooled kids always get “A’s” in all of their subjects because if you didn’t know enough about it or got a problem wrong, Mom goes over it or makes you redo it until you get it right. That’s correct thinking in a way, because we do make sure that a concept has been understood well enough before we move on–in most cases.
However, there are times that my kids want to know what a letter grade would be in a particular subject. This seems to be most often true for subjects like math or science (when we use a textbook like Apologia instead of living books), and that is easy to show them because I can grade their tests for Math-U-See or quizzes for Apologia biology, and there is a grade for them to see. We just have to work out whether the grade is averaged or changed if they do poorly, review, then retake the test.
I use these.
Weekly evaluation – http://fivejs.com/homeschool-conference-evaluation-forms/
Progress report – https://www.boxcloud.com/bc/1/4993eda8c4853069c124705c2c35b356/JolueqOGpciD6dgYhecNBoVpYxkvmYe1ZLheZor6BF4DUBIelMQTkFwYIys3nIibNIIEHUp447tBZLaXDzIbNQ,,/b8fef7e4b17c3375d5dbe9dcb6f82130/
Character report – https://www.boxcloud.com/bc/1/4c084ec4a704b8246bb6b1b2c1a60455/JolueqOGpciD6dgYhecNBoVpYxkvmYe1ZLheZor6BF4DUBIelMQTkFwYIys3nIibNIIEHUp447tBZLaXDzIbNQ,,/0042544e35aa9171aa781c3afb13b6e4/
One thing popped in my head when reading your post… Have you ever thought about blogging about your students’ progress? You don’t even have to allow it to be public – you can just give passwords to family members if you like. I’ve only been homeschooling a short while and my kids are very young, but I’ve found that blogging helps me see how much they have progressed. Having a written digital journal summarizing your monthly milestones gives a boost of confidence. You can also note things that your children need to continue to work on.
Just a thought!
Trying again…
Progress Report – https://www.box.com/shared/y1bf3yk807
Character Report – https://www.box.com/shared/4ekby66l8l
Christie, those forms are great! I’ll be using them all. And I think I’ll use the check sheets from Laying Down the Rails for goal setting and more specific evaluation periodically. Once again this forum has saved me a considerable amount of time. Thanks so much to all of you for sharing here!
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