By Jill Harlow – Loveland, Colorado … Campion Academy teachers and staff spent a week during winter break developing new skills and preparing for the upcoming semester. The training session included sessions with the Rocky Mountain Conference education department on the new standards-based learning and grading (SBL).
This style will be a significant shift away from traditional letter grades to evaluating students based on achievement by academic standard.
Paul Negrete, RMC associate director of education, is eager to see schools move in this direction, “The SBL framework will allow us to be more intentional and transparent regarding the instruction and learning taking place in the classroom. This shift in education will have a dynamic impact on how we are able to report on student progress and adapt instruction to better fit students.”
Campion Academy plans to begin implementing SBL in some classes next school year. Teachers were introduced to this concept last year and have been completing a course on the topic in addition to the conference training.
Campion’s academic vice-principal, Kent Kast, commented that SBL would clarify expectations for students. “Instead of instruction being very general and teachers giving material and saying there will be a test in a week, the students can focus on the skills and information they need to learn outlined in the priority standard.”
With standards-based grading, report cards will give more specific feedback to students and parents. Kast shared an example to compare traditional letter grades to standards-based: “In my chemistry class, if a student does very well all year, but doesn’t get balancing equations, their overall score could average out to be a B. What does that tell us? That the student is a little above average in chemistry. That’s it. SBL will instead tell us that the student did very well in every area except balancing equations, and if the student wants to improve, that’s where they should start.”
Campion Academy plans to be well ahead of the North American Division’s goal to implement standard-based grading across all Seventh-day Adventist schools within the next seven years.
–Jill Harlow is Campion Academy’s communication director; photo supplied
