What's Hot?

(Part of @teachthought 30-day Reflective Teaching Blogging Challenge) more info here.

"What's Hot, and What's Not?" is a phrase that I often hear in the field of education. In fact, just yesterday I received a magazine with a page highlighting the current "hot" and "not" topics in reading education. So today's reflective blogging challenge topic fits in nicely with the theme:
 
 ~ Day 24: "What learning trend captures your attention the most and why?"

I received an email today inviting me to a couple planning sessions for the upcoming Grading & Reporting Committee. This committee has been working on reviewing Standards Based Grading (SBG) and how it can be implemented into our school system.

This possibility of revamping our current grading and reporting system to a system that is based on standards and objectives and not focused on points, percentages, and letter grades is exciting to me. As a teacher and as a parent, I can say that I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable with the subjectivity that our current system has along with the negative effect that a few poor scores can do to a student's average.

I'm looking forward to being a part of a system change that is being studied and hopefully implemented soon. If students, teachers, parents, and the community are fully informed of the changes and their impact they may be pleasantly surprised at how SBG will give them better academic information about what is being learned in the classroom.