MeTA musings

To...

Thanks to UNI's Dr. Brian Townsend for inviting me into his graduate class this morning to talk about grading and assessment.



The slides were not always viewable in the video, so I've embedded them below:

EDIT: This post has been updated.  


Here's a quick summary of our grassroots journey towards changing grading practices district-wide to better provide student learning feedback to parents and students through the grade book.

2008-2009

• I learned about "grade book" fixes at the state math teachers' conference (thanks, Lynne!).  After talking about it with my principal, I decided to give it a try with a section of Geometry students.

• A second teacher (a.k.a Shawn) begins to use standards-based grading after a parking lot conversation or two.  

• I led a group of eight high school teachers through a ten-week study of articles focused on formative assessment and grading practices.  The carrot: recertification credit through our area education agency and an opportunity to sit down and hash out our philosophy of education together over some good food.

• High school teachers who completed the study begin to implement changes to their grading and assessment practices.

• Two middle school teachers begin to implement changes to their grading and assessment practices.

• End of year: District establishes a study for 2011-12 that “stakeholders will analyze and study aspects of standards-based grading and reporting at all grade levels.”

2011-2012
District study:  “SCSD stakeholders will analyze and study aspects of standards-based grading and reporting at all grade levels.”

• Teachers continue to read articles, discuss proposed grading guidelines, and communicate with educators from other schools.  

• Video and additional information posted on district website

• Student survey

• Anonymous staff perceptions survey based on proposed grading guidelines

• Parent/community forum

• After discussing grading guidelines, implementation plan, survey data and other documents, b

oard of education approves grading guidelines.

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. 

Two metaphorical descriptors of professional learning that keep me up at night...


Christmas tree effect

"Many leaders base their leadership behavior on the assumption that the most effective way to improve schools is by implementing hot new intitatives.  In district after district, school after school, they can be observed frantically implementing whatever is new, whatever the district next door is doing, one initiative after the other.  The goal is to do, do, and do more.  Rarely do they stick with anything long enough to see if it's getting results...Eventually these schools (and their districts) begin to resemble a Christmas tree -- covered with program ornaments of every new educational practice or fad, leaving faculty and staff feeling completely overwhelmed" (Eaker and Keating, 2012, pp. 8-9)

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Shotgun professional development
In shotgun professional development, each day, week, month or year yields a new focus. Teachers who have experienced this type of PD say things like, "Last year, we focused on formative assessment, but this year we're focusing on positive behavior intervention supports" and are unable to form a connection between the two.   Teachers may also be asked to implement a new instructional strategy in the fall and then the strategy is never discussed again the rest of the year.  The faculty may see change as the "flavor of the month" rather than a systematic effort to improve school culture and/or school achievement, broadly defined.

To use a curriculum analogy, shotgun professional development is often a mile wide and an inch deep.  This type of professional development may lack follow-up and teachers may suffer from what Doug Reeves calls initiative fatigue.

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: