What Is A Skills Based Classroom?

The Skills Based Classroom is different from most of the teaching platforms you have been exposed to in the past. First of all, we are not researchers or professors of education. We aren’t a big education company with things to sell you. We are active public school teachers with an idea. We acknowledged problems within our classrooms and created a plan of attack to address those issues. We recognized that many obstacles were tied closely to antiquated teaching practices that have been dyed into the fabric of our profession for decades. What we came up with is progressive, but not radical. You can make a few changes to what you are currently doing and make a greater impact right away.

We set out to fix problems such as:

• Unreliable Grades

  • Two students with the same grade may have vastly different abilities and their grades may not be an accurate description of either student’s level of understanding. A grade should reflect learning rather than compliance.

• Homework Hatred

  • Students and teachers both hate homework and the amount of time it consumes. Teachers will say it’s imperative for student growth, but students who comply are only doing so simply because it helps their overall grade. For too long, it’s been used as a behavioral bargaining chip. Our conclusion is that homework is NOT providing enough value to justify assigning it.

• Makeup Assignments

  • Keeping up with students who are absent and the mountain of makeup work (incomplete, missing, or late) is overwhelming. Problems are compounded when teachers have to unexpectedly miss a day of school as well. The traditional lesson planning schedule wastes time and has little instructional value.

• Student Learning Variations

  • Some students just need more time and more instruction than others. Yet, it seems like we tend to move from one chapter to the next without ever taking a serious look back at who learned and who didn’t learn. Students who failed to show understanding on a concept early in the grading period never had a chance to catch up.

In an attempt to address these issues (along with many others), we developed The Skills Based Classroom. It’s a unique plan that incorporates elements of Standards Based Grading, but also fits neatly in your current 0-100% grading system. We separated the content and compliance grades in order to get a more reliable grade for our students. What started out as an experiment in our classrooms became an incredible success story for our students. We quickly realized we were on to something big. Our workload has decreased, but more importantly, students started realizing HOW to be responsible by being accountable.

More learning for students, less work for the teachers, and NO HOMEWORK!

Since we aren’t conducting large scale research on our own, we rely heavily on our own observations and feedback from people like you. Tell us what you think about our ideas. Please share your own thoughts on what works and doesn’t work in your classroom or your district.

All we ask is that you have an open mind and be willing to take a good look at your current practices. Take an honest inventory of what you do and be willing to let go of things that no longer belong in the classroom.