Teaching in a Co-op: grading policies? Honors vs Regular?

[Porridge]

I'll be teaching in our coop next year - 9th grade science. We'll have a few kids on an honors track and a few on a non-honors track. All will use the same text (Berean Builders Bio). 

Do you have experience or advice on differentiating in a coop setting - honors vs non-honors?  They will all use the same textbook, cover the same material, and perform the same labs. (It's too complicated to have them covering differnet material or doing different labs).

I was thinking of several ideas -- Could you let me know if they sound reasonable or if they sound like a bad idea? 

--weight the grades differently: for honors track, weight the tests heavier. For non-honors, weight the homework heavier

--allow non-honors students to omit 1-2 Questions from each test. I'd probably let them pick which Q's to omit 

--Use the publisher's test for the honors students. Make different tests for non-honors kids (this would be a lot of work that I would prefer to avoid, as planning the class is already a ton of work)

--Honors students turn in 2 lab reports / semester. Non-honors students turn in 1/ semester

Any other ideas or advice?

Thank you!

 

[kirstenhill]

In some of my public school kids' high school classes where there is an "honors option" running within a regular class, the students taking the honors option do additional research/writing projects outside of class.  For example, for Health honors option they had to write 3 short research reports on a health topic over the course of the semester.  I think they may have also had the option of attending a health - related educational event and writing about what they learned. 

[EKT]

We did Oak Meadow Biology (well, I used their curriculum as a spine for our biology book work; we did different labs). But in addition to the weekly assignments and labs listed in the curriculum, it offers a list of biology-related novels and biology-related non-fiction texts. (For example, one option was Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, but all the options on the list were interesting! But you could obviously make your own list.) Basically, Oak Meadow suggested that if students read one of the books and wrote a paper on it, then you could give them an honors credit.

I like this idea of an in-depth, optional extra assignment, because then you're not giving the non-honors students "less," you're just offering the honors students the option to do "more." The bonus for you is that you don't really have to do anything extra or differently, other than outline the guidelines for the extra assignment and grade it at the end. (You could present it as an option at the beginning of the semester, and just have students submit it by the end.) 

[Farrar]

I was also going to say "additional research assignment." You could do one per semester - one that's more of a student-designed typical high school science fair style project (though if you don't have a real "fair" you could just have them write it up, no need for the big trifold boards) - and one that's more of a library based research project. Another idea would be a project involving reading real scientific papers.

[Zoo Keeper]

Another vote for additional reading/lab/research report for the honors students.  Here's an excellent example of something like that using Henrietta Lacks in a bio class... https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/beyond-just-a-cells-unit/

[Clemsondana]

I typically ask an extra 1-2 questions per test over material that requires a higher level of understanding and a bit of extra knowledge.  It's only worth a small number of points, but over the course of the semester they would add up to be the equivalent of a lab report or a couple of the small unit projects that we do.  I also grade the work a little more rigorously.  Teaching co-op classes can be a bit of a challenge, in that I have students who are not doing college prep in a class with students who are headed to college on a scholarship with plans for med school, and I try to help give them the preparation that they need.  

[lmrich]

It might be hard to weight the tests differently if you use grading software provided by the school. 

I typically expect honor students to complete more test questions, complete more homework (the hard questions), and complete an extra project. 

 

 

[Clemsondana]

5 hours ago, lmrich said:

It might be hard to weight the tests differently if you use grading software provided by the school. 

 

 

 

I make the extra points a separate assignment and then leave the column blank or not required for non-honors so it doesn't show up in their point totals.