I was walking down the hallway of a 100-year-old building when it happened. My epiphany about grading started as I was walking my grade book down to the office at the end of the year. I can vividly remember just flipping through the different class period, scanning down each page, asking myself this question: "What does this even mean?"
That was the question that stuck with me. So often I don't think we ask that simple question on a large scale within our schools. Grades are grades, and we just take them at face value. They are an end within themselves.
What I realized with that simple question, though, was that I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing. I had no idea to what end my grade book was serving, and more importantly, I had no idea what value it held. My focus was entirely on the final grade, and as a result, so was my classroom.
It was through this experience that I started to begin asking myself important questions, and those questions are some that I still ask at the end of every year.
As you wrap up your year and head into summer, first off, take time to rest. You absolutely deserve it and need to take that time. However, if you find yourself in a spot to dig into your practice and teaching, don't start by planning. Don't start by focusing on what you're going to teach. Start by focusing on why and how you teach. Start with the foundation.
These are some of the questions that got me to question my own foundation. They are the questions that helped me become precise in my analysis of my assessment system so that I knew exactly what to work on. As you wrap up grades this year, take a glance at your grade book and ask yourself the following questions.
1. If I were to pass this grade book to the students' teachers next year, would it help them know how to teach this group of students?
My realization in that moment of walking my grade book down to the office was that there was nothing of value beyond the immediacy of my classroom. I knew who had completed what and how well they did, but I couldn't clearly identify academic strengths and weaknesses for my students.
What to do? If you find yourself in this situation, take time to really dig into the concept of standards-based grading. It is a good step into really discovering how to center a grade book around learning and communicate that to students, parents, teachers, etc.
What to read? Grading Smarter, Not Harder by Myron Dueck
2. Do students who demonstrated similar levels of proficiency have the similar final grades?
This was a big one for me. In that moment walking down the hallway, I could see some of my most-skilled students who had lower grades than students who hadn't grasped the concepts as well. It highlight for me that there were factors in there muddying up how final grades were calculated. I was letting missing work result in the communication of lower levels of proficiency. I'm not here to say that we shouldn't be thinking about and addressing behavioral factors in class, but I strongly would argue that a final grade should, as much as possible, be driven by academic components only.
What to do? Spend some time really analyzing how you calculate a final grade. For this, go deeper than category weighting. It's an important step, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility of behavioral factors impacting a final grade. Think about things like dropping low scores, for starters, but as you progress, start thinking about how you are using the student's body of evidence to do a summative evaluation that results in a final score for each skill.
What to read? Redefining Fair by Damian Cooper
3. Who is successful? Who isn't?
This goes for anyone. Even when we've reformed our assessment practices, we have to ensure that we critically examine our grade book through an equity lens. As I move away from automatically calculated final grades and more towards student conferencing and data analysis to determine a final grade, one of my major concerns is that my implicit bias has an opening to show its ugly head. As such, I do two things: (1) I analyze my scores and final grades through a number of different lenses (race, socioeconomic status, 504/IEP, etc.) to look for trends or concerning data points. [Note: I set this up with specific columns identifying this ahead of time in a spreadsheet, so it's pretty simply to filter that data.] (2) I have someone else look through my student scores to look for anything where I may have been unfair in my analysis.
What to do? If you identify an area of concern, ask yourself this question: "What about my grading practices resulted in this inequity?" Look for everything from how you scaffolded learning to how you possibly penalized certain behaviors, from how you calculated those final grades to how you use grading categories. Critically examine all of your assessment practices with this in mind.
What to read? Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman
4. Can I see the story of my students in their data?
Now, this one is where the literature lover in me comes out, but I found that if I can't see my student's stories in their data, I'm not tracking their growth well. Simply put, I'm unable to celebrate their growth if I can't see it. For me, this comes down to offering multiple attempts to demonstrate understanding of the major learning outcomes. If you can't see their story, you might want to think about how you are gathering evidence of learning in ways that shows trends and patterns. That's where you can start to see really meaningful information about your student instead of just a collection of scores.
What to do? Look at how your grade book is organized. Most often the stories are hidden because the grade book is organized by tasks. Going back to question 1, ensure that your grade book is primarily organized by learning, and that things are set up so that each learning outcome has space for multiple attempts.
What to read? Formative Assessment & Standards-based Grading by Robert Marzano
5. Were grades the primary focus in my classroom?
Okay, this isn't directly clear by looking at your grade book, but this question always comes to mind as I do it. We are obsessed with that little spreadsheet of numbers. I'm guilty of this, too. I cling to it as tangible evidence that I'm making a difference, and our students often cling to it as tangible evidence of their worth (and sadly, the opposite is true, as well). If you feel confident that you can align instruction with learning outcomes and gather data on that progress, then your next question is one of the hardest of all: How do I begin to shift away from the emphasis on grades and grading in general?
What to do? Honestly, this one is tough, but there are a few areas that I would emphasize. The first is in asking yourself how clearly you've structured learning progressions to guide students from the beginning stages of understanding a concept as a basic content knowledge level, all the way up to being able to synthesize that information and ideas with others. Second, I would focus on feedback. How are you providing feedback in meaningful ways to students and encompassing that within a system of making meaning from that feedback. Lastly, ask how involved students are in conversations around their progress. When students begin to be involved in the process of determining where they're at, they aren't so obsessed with the number game. Their obsession with grades often comes from a need for validation from a teacher (and admittedly, pressure from parents and society).
What to read? Point-less by Sarah M. Zerwin
There are so many other important questions to ask of ourselves as we wrap up the year, but when it comes to grading and assessment, those five questions should help you pinpoint exactly what is going to be the best use of your time if you choose to push your practice this summer.
In addition, my available dates are filling up fast for August. If you would like me to work with your team around assessment and grading, either through individual workshops or year-long cohorts, please reach out on
Twitter or via email at tylerrablin at gmail.com (obviously, with the at sign instead of the word).
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