MeTA musings

I appreciate all of the feedback provided this summer during the SBG "How-to" crowdsourcing project.
The goal was to provide a discipline-neutral guide for teachers to use as they begin or continue to implement grading guidelines approved by our board of education.

As promised, here are the current explainers we're using as a part of our district-wide SBG journey.  Feel free to use them in your own classroom or with your colleagues.

1. Entries in the grade book that count towards the final grade will be limited to course or grade level standards.


2. Extra credit will not be given at anytime.


3. Students will be allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of classroom standards in various ways.


4. Teachers will determine grade book entries by considering multiple data points emphasizing the most recent data and provide evidence to support that determination.


5. Students will be provided multiple opportunities to practice standards independently through homework or other class work.  Practice assignments and activities will be consistent with classroom standards for the purpose of providing feedback.  Practice assignments, including homework, will not be included as part of the final grade.

Part five in the standards-based grading "how-to" crowdsourcing project.  Today, we're tackling the final grading guideline, the role of homework.

What practical applications have worked for you that are not included in this grading guideline document?  Comments are open.  

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Grading Guideline:  

Summary:
What it means....

• Homework or practice assignments should be purposefully utilized to enhance students’ understanding of classroom standards.
• Assignments which are designed for students to demonstrate their understanding at an early part of the learning cycle should not be counted towards the final grade.
• Opportunities (i.e. quiz, project or test) later on in the learning cycle that follow feedback on practice assignments should be considered for the grade book.  

What it doesn’t mean...

• Homework or practice assignments are no longer assigned or students are no longer asked to complete homework.  
• Students are not provided feedback on homework or practice assignments.
• Work completed outside of class (i.e. project, paper) cannot be entered into the gradebook by standard.  

Briefs from the literature:
“The belief that the carrot of a grade entices students to complete work is an illusion, one with roots in behaviorism and a negative view of learners (Vatterott, 2009). At its core, it negates students' intrinsic drive for mastery (Cushman, 2010; Pink, 2009) and implies that homework is inherently distasteful. As Daniel Pink (2009), puts it, "We're bribing students into compliance instead of challenging them into engagement" (p. 174). In addition, grades only motivate students who are motivated by grades—and some students couldn't care less” (Vatterott, 2011)

“...past experience has taught us that we are often too quick to assign homework before students have had an opportunity to learn the skills and strategies needed to successfully complete it” (Fishey and Frey, 2008)
     



Putting it into practice:



Suggested reading:

• Cushman, K. (2010, September). Show us what homework's for. Educational leadership, 68(1), 74-78.
• Vatterott, C. (2011, November). Making homework central to learning. Educational leadership, 69(3), 60-64. 

Part four in the standards-based grading "how-to" crowdsourcing project.  Today, we're talking about utilizing the grade book to reflect student growth and progress.  


Our context:
we're open to using systems designed specifically for SBG, however we are simultaneously locked into using PowerSchool as our student information system due to state reporting requirements and local technical support to do so.  


I anticipate our secondary buildings discussing the pros and cons of 4, 5, 10 point scales this year as we dig deeper into our implementation.  Regardless of the scale used, teachers will still need to reconcile reporting student growth and progress from one assessment to the next.  


I'm really struggling to provide practical suggestions, as you can see in the "putting it into practice" table below.  Help!  Comments are open.  




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Grading Guideline:  

Summary:
What it means....

• If a student demonstrates a low understanding of a standard on a Monday assessment, but demonstrates a higher understanding two days later, the mark in the grade book for that standard should improve.  
• Scenario: Student A performs poorly on practice assignments and quizzes, but demonstrates the highest level of understanding on the test/project.  Student B performs well on practices assignments and quizzes and demonstrates the highest level of understanding on the test/project.  Student A and student B should have similar entries in the grade book for the standard(s) assessed.
• Teachers are able to provide evidence (one or more examples of student work) to support an entry in the grade book.

What it doesn’t mean...

• Homework, quizzes and/or test scores are simply averaged to calculate the grade book entry for a given standard.
• The most recent data must be used when determining the grade book entry.  

Briefs from the literature:
[In progress]




Putting it into practice:

Part three in the standards-based grading "how-to" crowdsourcing project.  Today, we're talking about the stuff that happens after the final regularly scheduled whole group assessment for a given standard.  In other words, 

How do we handle re-takes in a standards-based grading classroom?

What practical applications am I missing in this grading guideline document?  Your suggestions are welcome in the comments.  
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Grading Guideline:  


Summary:
What it means....

• Students learn at different subjects at varying rates, therefore students who did not demonstrate understanding by [insert date] should be allowed to demonstrate understanding at a later date.  
• Teachers should provide individual students additional opportunities to demonstrate understanding after the final regularly scheduled whole group assessment for that particular standard. This can take place during class, study hall, seminar and/or outside of regular school hours.  
• Teachers should consider utilizing multiple ways of assessing the same standard for different students.   
• Students complete additional assessments targeting specific standards they currently do not understand at a high level.

What it doesn’t mean...

• Students should be encouraged to retake assessments without first completing additional learning opportunities individually or with the teacher, peer or parent.  
• Reassessments must be optional.  
• Grading periods are eliminated or students’ quarter/semester grades need to be changed after the end of the grading period.
• Students must complete the entire assessment again if they have already demonstrated a high level of understanding of a standard on a previous assessment.  

Briefs from the literature:
“Classroom assessments and grading should focus on how well – not on when – the student mastered the designated knowledge and skill” (McTighe & O’Connor, 2005)


“The goal is that all students learn the content, not just the ones who can learn on the uniform time line. Curriculum goals don't require that every individual reaches the same level of proficiency on the same day, only that every student achieves the goal.” (Wormeli, 2011)



Putting it into practice:

Part two in the standards-based grading "how-to" crowdsourcing project.  Today, we're talking about extra credit.

I'm especially struggling with the "common pitfalls to avoid."  Your critiques and suggestions are welcome in the comments!
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Grading Guideline:  

Summary:
What it means....

• Individual students will not be given extra assignments to be completed that will artificially improve their final grade.  
• Students will not be awarded points towards the final grade that are based on providing classroom supplies.
• Grades should improve when students learn at higher levels rather than when they complete additional work.

What it doesn’t mean...

• No longer providing students with extra practice or extension opportunities.  

Briefs from the literature:
“Sadly, this emphasis on earning points in order to procure the grade commodity diminishes the value of learning”  (Guskey and Bailey, 2001, p. 20)

“A low grade simply communicates a learning gap; the way to raise the grade is to learn more” (Winger, 2005, p. 64)

Putting it into practice:

The school district I work for recently approved a series of grading guidelines which will be adopted by all teachers over the next two years.  (I plan to write more about the change process we went through at a later date.) I am really excited to be a part of a district-wide standards-based grading movement.  With this excitement comes a bit of nervousness though.  Early adopters, and we have a solid core of them in my district, have already been using these grading guidelines in one way or another for a unit, a semester, a year, or in some cases love it so much they blog about it already.  


The challenge ahead of me and the early adopters is helping all of our staff understand the approved grading guidelines, what they mean, what they don't mean and how to put them into practice.  

1. Entries in the grade book that count towards the final grade will be limited to course or grade level standards.**  
2. Extra credit will not be given at any time.
3. Students will be allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of classroom standards in various ways.  Retakes and revisions will be allowed.  
4. Teachers will determine grade book entries by considering multiple points of data emphasizing the most recent data and provide evidence to support their determination.
5. Students will be provided multiple opportunities to practice standards independently through homework or other class work.  Practice assignments and activities will be consistent with classroom standards for the purpose  of providing feedback.  Practice assignments, including homework, will not be included as part of the final grade.  

As a teacher, I used these guidelines myself and although I still regularly lead professional development and present at conferences on assessment and grading reform, I am a bit rusty when it comes to the nuts and bolts of putting these ideas into practice in a variety of disciplines.  Talking with and observing teachers, reading every single #sbar tweet and standards-based grading blog post I can find keeps me grounded in practice, but I still admit I don't have all of the answers in this grading shift.

Here is where I am hoping my readership (YOU!) might help.  I am in the midst of creating a discipline-neutral "how to" document for each grading guideline.  I'd like to crowdsource these documents throughout the summer before using them with teachers this fall.  The purpose of these documents is to expedite teachers' understanding and implementation of the grading guidelines while avoiding common pitfalls we've all tried and failed at in our own classrooms.

You may be thinking, "Hold on, what's in this for me?!"  I am committed to posting the "final" versions of these grading guideline documents here in August for anyone to use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial -ShareAlike 3.0 license and, if time allows, these ideas will form the basis for a self-published book. Thanks in advance for your contributions to this project.

Without further ado, here is a draft of the "how-to" document for grading guideline #1.  Your feedback, particularly in the "summary" and "putting it into practice" areas are greatly appreciated - leave your critiques in the comments!

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Grading Guideline:  

Summary:
What it means....

• When creating a new entry in the grade book that counts towards the final grade, it must be a standard such as “Find the area of a regular polygon by applying trigonometric ratios” or “Understands how evolution occurs (natural selection, mutation, migration, and genetic drift).”
• Assignments or other activities that do not count towards the final grade may still be recorded in the grade book as long as they do not count towards the final grade.

What it doesn’t mean...

• Course or grade level standards must be word-for-word from the Iowa/Common Core essentials concepts and skills list.  
• Entering “Mitosis Project” or “Unit 5 Test” in the grade book.
• No longer recording student practice.

Briefs from the literature:
“When grades are not deliberately connected to learning, they provide little valuable feedback regarding students’ academic strengths and weaknesses, and can even be counterproductive.”  (Winger, 2005, p. 62)

“Teachers should use learning goals as the basis for determining grades...They provide a profile of a student’s knowledge and direct evidence of his or her strengths and weaknesses.  This type of assessment allows teachers to appropriately plan instruction, and allows students to focus their learning” (O’Connor, 2007, p. 231)

Putting it into practice: