Grade abatement tracks your learning through profiles, which contain predictable and consistent language about universal skills, traits, and knowledge. Every three weeks, a profile score delivers an evaluation and a blueprint for improvement, and this is part of a much more robust and embedded form of feedback.
Each of those hyperlinks demonstrates the depth of the system. There are levels to this. The more invested you are, the more rewarding the learning is, as if a second course was contained within the first one.
That first course sometimes requires old approaches. It sometimes becomes necessary to track the value each of you adds to or subtracts from the learning environment on a moment-by-moment basis, and we will do this through the gamification of in-class choices.
TL;DR, or the gist of this shift:
- You must meet a goal of almost 100% focus when you are in the physical classroom.
- If you are off-task or unfocused, you trigger negative consequences.
- If you are on-task and focused during class, you will be successful.
This is your space, and you are old enough not to blame others for how it functions. Learning to own your choices is part of the curriculum. You can read the full version of this post to understand more:
Each day, you should go out of your way to appear focused. If you actually are focused, you don’t have anything to worry about. The work is robust and responsive enough to take care of your learning. Otherwise, you might want to fake it, as the second excerpt in this handout explains:
You have been given the tools to be productive — or, at least, to fake productivity long enough for a few positive benefits. Log into your school-issued Chromebooks, for instance, and know that the school’s 1984-inspired Securly software will monitor your focus. These reports can be run at any time to identify if you’re treating the space as a study hall.
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- This…
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- …instead of this.
That’s the digital trail. You can also use the physical space effectively by choosing a different seat at the start of class or by organizing your workspace deliberately to minimize distractions.
You must focus, in other words, and be obvious and even ostentatious about focusing. If it looks like you’re focused, you are. If it looks like you’re not focused, then you’re not.
For more on why “focus” is an essential skill for all citizens, read below:
- Focus Lecture, Levels 1–3: https://tinyurl.com/focus-focus-lvl-1-3
- Focus Lecture, Level 4: https://tinyurl.com/focus-focus-lvl-4
When we track your choices, good and bad, any mention of tally marks is conceptual or metaphorical. If it helps to literalize it, however, you can:
Positive contributions correspond to upper-tier profiles: galvanizing actions, creative collaboration, insightful self-assessment, that sort of thing. Doing more than just what’s required boosts your learning, the learning of others, and the products of the space.
Here is a partial list of what triggers a metaphorical red mark:
- Inability to sustain focus
- Inability to think critically
- Inability to self-direct
- Inability to self-assess
We could also pull a representative list from the essay excerpt on Occam’s razor and faking it. Those metaphorical tally marks indicate
- watching sports highlights;
- scrolling through social media;
- completing a Social Studies presentation;
- researching prom dresses;
- looking up dirt bikes;
- playing a game on your phone; or
- having an in-depth but off-task conversation.
As you rack up poor choices, you’ll eventually tip the scales. You’ll go go from non-heap to heap, and then there are repercussions. These have already been established as separate from GAP scores. Some repercussions happen in class:
- Assigned seat
- Restricted access to technology
- Additional daily check-in
- Individual work contract
But if you’re wasting time in the workspace, you must pay back that time. You’ve cost yourself. Again, the TL;DR or gist of this shift:
- You must meet a goal of almost 100% focus when you are in the physical classroom.
- If you are off-task or unfocused for a significant percentage of class time, you trigger negative consequences.
- If you are on-task and focused during class, you will be successful.
You have to make up the time you waste, not just to insure you’re getting the work done, and not just to insure that you are ready for the future, but because you owe the space that time. This, too, is mostly metaphorical, but it can become literal. In that case, you may have to pay back the time wasted.
Again, this is all designed to promote your learning. Here is a partial list of what can happen:
- Interventions or meetings with Guidance
- Interventions or meetings with administration
- Mandated one-on-one conferences before or after school
- Schedule change: SSH → Study Hall
- Schedule change: SSH → tutoring in Learning Center
You don’t need hundreds of metaphorical tally marks for us to justify helping you; you need only to have demonstrated that you are struggling with the skills and traits required in a learning environment.