MeTA musings

A teacher recently asked...

"What is the connection between our district's professional learning community philosophy and standards-based grading?"  

Here is what I came up with and shared with our teaching staff...

The questions guiding the work of our professional learning community philosophy are in orange followed by a comparison with assignments-based grading (likely the system we all grew up with) and standards-based grading.

Assignments-based grading: Grade book entries may say “test” or “project.”  The specific standards students should be learning may or may not be communicated with parents or students. Students who are receiving low grades may ask to complete or re-do activities rather than learn at a higher level.

vs.

Standards-based grading: Grading guideline “Entries in the grade book that count towards the final grade will be limited to course or grade level standards” Standards explicitly stated on tests, quizzes, projects, etc.  These standards are also listed in the grade book to give parents, students and teachers a clear picture of what students are to be learning. 

Teachers plan classroom activities and assessments that have explicitly communicated connections with course or grade level standards.  

Assignments-based grading: Grades based on quizzes and tests determine students who may need extra time and support. A “B’ may mean a student has not turned in some work, but is learning at a high level.  This makes using letter grades as an indicator challenging to determine which students have learned at a high level.
 Individual teachers determine student proficiency and there may be significant variability between classes or grade levels.

vs.

Standards-based grading: Grading guideline, “Teachers will determine grade book entries by considering multiple points of data emphasizing the most recent data and provide evidence to support their determination.” Teachers collaboratively create common formative assessments and their corresponding rubrics. These assessments are based on power standards, a subset of the class standards, which are communicated to students and parents.

Assignments-based grading: Teachers may respond when students are receiving a low grade or do not perform well on an assignment or test.
 It may be challenging to differentiate which specific standards students are experiencing difficulty. Extra credit may be used to provide students an opportunity to raise their grade.   The extra credit activities may or may not be related to standards students are currently experiencing difficulty.    

vs.

Standards-based grading: Grading guidelines, “Students will be allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of classroom standards in various ways.  Retakes and revisions will be allowed” and “Extra credit will not be given at any time.” Teachers respond first in their class to students who do not currently understand class standards.  This information is readily available, because assessment feedback is broken down by standard.
 Teams of teachers collaboratively discuss results of common formative assessments.  Students who are experiencing difficulty are provided extra time and support, i.e. supplemental groups, in-class differentiation, after school tutoring, additional teaching during home base or seminar time. 

This time is more purposeful, because individuals and teams of teachers can clearly pinpoint what students are struggling with and provide the focused support they need to learn the standards.   When students later demonstrate higher levels of understanding, this information is communicated in the grade book and does not penalize slower learners.  

Assignments-based grading: Teachers may respond when students are receiving a high grade or have performed well on an assignment or test.
 It may be challenging to differentiate which specific standards students have already demonstrated understanding. Extension activities may or may not be related to areas in which students have already demonstrated a high level of understanding.

vs.

Standards-based grading: Grading guidelines, “Students will be allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of classroom standards in various ways.  Retakes and revisions will be allowed” and “Extra credit will not be given at any time.” Teams of teachers collaboratively discuss results of common formative assessments.  Students who have already demonstrated understanding are provided extension activities related to course content and/or non-essential standards, i.e. supplemental groups, gifted education services, in-class differentiation.

What did I miss?

Clay, Soldwedel and Many in Aligning School Districts as PLCs:

Loose and tight leadership is based on the premise that relying exclusively on either a tight "top-down" or a loose "bottom-up" leadership approach is not effective.  Fullan (2009) has said: "Top-down change doesn't work because it fails to garner ownership, commitment, or even clarity about the nature of the reform.  Bottom-up change -- so-called let a thousand flowers bloom -- does not produce success on any scale.  A thousands flowers do not bloom and those that do are not perennial."  The implication is that a balance between loose and tight provides an optimum leadership style.  Of course, getting that balance right is the challenge." (p. 24)

In the district I work at, I believe we value bottom-up ideas, however there's not enough time in the day (nor is it realistic) to seek input on every single decision.  I'm not naive enough to think I am a part of the ideal tight-loose leadership model in action, however I thought of a few examples that lead me to believe we're on the right track.

• Requiring all teachers to be a part of a collaborative team
• providing the teams with time to meet during the contract day twice per month.
• asking teams to set a SMART goal for the year within the framework of our district and building goals
• Requiring teams to create agendas and minutes every time they meet
• providing teams with Google Docs so that agendas and minutes can be created on the fly, accessible to building and district administrators, rather than requiring extra paperwork to turn in.
• providing self-paced Google Docs tutorials and help sessions.  

On June 9-11, five classroom teachers and three administrators including myself attended Solution Tree's Professional Learning Communities at Work Institute in St. Charles, Missouri.  Without reservation this is the most beneficial conference I have ever attended for two reasons:

• The entire team commented on the quality of the keynote speakers as well as the break-out sessions.  In general, the hallways were empty and the break-out rooms were full.   This speaks to the quality of the super-majority of the speakers.
• I was amazed by the connectedness among all the keynotes and breakouts.  Too many times, I have experienced conferences that lack a cohesive theme.  This was clearly not the case.  All of the speakers made explicit connections to the "big ideas" of a professional learning community.  

Our district has a year under our belt exploring and beginning to implement the professional learning community philosophy.  Our progress varies by building and team, but all teachers are familiar with and have participated in at least one learning team focused on student learning during 2010-11.  The educators from our district attending the conference had read a chapter from Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work as well as a webinar by Rick and Becky Dufour on the idea.  Several of them had read Learning by Doing which was given to all attendees as part of registration.  

Here is a summary of our collaborative notes:

Context:  Educators work really hard.  No teacher comes to school thinking "How can I screw up kids' lives today?" 
Problem: "There is no way a single teacher has all the time, all the knowledge, and all the skills to meet the needs of every child."

We shouldn't be "doing" PLCs...it should be the way we operate.  This concept cannot be accomplished in a year or two or five - it is ongoing. 

We need to continue focus on learning (there was quite a bit of grading talk at this conference!)  Our teams should be spending their time continually answering these questions:

1. What is it we expect kids to learn? (think: standards, alignment)
2. How will we know when they have learned it? (common assessments, when appropriate)
3. How will we respond when they don't learn? (systematic and directive (not voluntary) response by the staff in the building, not merely individuals - think: high school "seminar" time -- "Allowing students to choose to be irresponsible does not teach responsibility")
   
4. How will we respond when kids already know it? (extensions, etc.)

We need to continue to be committed to a collaborative culture. 

Last, we need to continue assessing our effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions.


Our team also created a list of action steps which we will be using throughout the year to continue our journey.  Many of the details are specific to our building and district's schedules, staff and resources.

I'm interested to hear from others who have attended this conference or who are currently embarking on the professional learning community philosophy.  What are your success stories and struggles?