What's better than Golden Coral or Home Town Buffet? Well. Actually, everything, ever. But that's beside the point. The correct answer is: An AP Statistics SBG'ing Test Buffet!
Today my students had 5 standards to choose from. They were required to take two tests. They could take 3 if time allowed. You can see in the picture below, every test is a different color and I made signs so students could pick easily. They picked one, completed it, then came up for a second, etc...
I'm in the middle of testing, so I might have more to report later. But here are a few observations.
- Students knew which topic they had the lowest score on and grabbed that topic first.
- Some of my students with high grades opted to take their one low standard and then they did a Normal Distribution problem because that is easy for them.
- Testing this way seems to have alleviated some of the end of the semester whining about grades. Everyone knew that today they have a chance to prove me that they know their stuff. We'll see if that lasts into next week (the week before finals).
- The number of students who are clueless about which standards to take is (thankfully) very small. As I said, everyone seemed to be very focused on their worst topic. Some students are a bit hesitant about picking a second.
Overall, this seems like a fantastic way to finish up the semester. Next week we'll take one last chapter test (random variables) and the final exam will be all multiple choice. If nothing else, this means I won't have to grade FRQ's over the Xmas break!
Next semester I want to try a test where half the test is the standard we just finished and the other half is a roll of a die to randomly determine an old, spiraled standard!
Standards Based Grading Buffet Test in AP Stats
For my AP Stats buddies, the 5 standards are:
- Categorical data, independence and probability
- Quantitative data
- Regression
- Normal Distribution
- Surveys and Experiments