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The Need For Data, Collaboration, Trust And Successful Peer Training

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The Challenge The need for data, collaboration, trust and successful peer training are the most important aspects of developing the program I am going to design. As a first year Department Head of the Fine Arts Department within a large public school, I have been assigned the task of leading this department from a regular grading system to a Standards-Based Grading system. This type of change is what Schlecty (2007) describes as a systematic change. According to Zepeda (2012), this type of change “is the least understood and the most difficult to achieve (pg. 26). This is especially true for educators such as those on my team, whose teaching techniques have been the same for many years. The implementation of standards-based grading uproots almost every aspect of classroom teaching. Grade-scales are different, assessments are greatly different and the idea of remediation is paramount to SBG. While this conversion may not seem like a difficult task for a teacher, there are several factors that make it extremely challenging for myself to convince others to support. For one, all other 7 faculty members in the department have been teaching at the school for a few years longer than myself. This is why trust is one of my main key elements on which to focus. Having taught in another part of the state for many years, I must find a way to prove to them that I am on their team and will do everything in my power to keep their interests and concern on the top of the list.
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