I'm trying to make the shift to standards based grading next year. One of my concerns is that I teach at the high school, and students need to have some sort of current grade for sports eligibility and some sort of semester grade for colleges. Somehow, I need to be able to translate mastery of standards into a letter grade. Personally, I would do away with all grading if I could figure out how to pull this off.
I've always been a big fan of mastery learning. I tried to structure my quizzes and tests so that students would have opportunities to try again if necessary. I used to argue this with my principal on a regular basis. He felt that students should "step up to the plate," and study for the test when I was giving it, not be given "second chances for slacking off." He also felt that I should be grading every homework problem every day and not just grading on completeness. (He would be horrified that I am thinking of not grading homework at all next year.) Thank heavens that paradigm is shifting. The more research I read, the more I feel vindicated by my grading practices throughout the years.
It always amazes me when I talk to other teachers how many of them "would never allow a student to make-up a quiz!"--always spoken in a shocked tone as if I were suggesting heresy. Or they "simply will not!" accept late homework--again with the indignant tone. Are we grading students on the skill of turning homework in on time? My goal is to create a grading system that will reflect actual student learning. This paradigm will shift slowly, I'm thinking.
This year, I started "grading" quizzes by first going through and commenting on them. Students would receive their quizzes back and have the chance to work on them some more. Sometimes, I had a couple of problems or favorite mistakes to go over with the class ahead of time. Sometimes, I would have them do some extra practice problems before handing the quizzes back to help them develop a bit more understanding. Finally, I would put a quiz grade in the gradebook as a last step. Students finally stopped asking me "what I got" sometime in February.
After Robert Kaplinsky's session at NCTM, I'm really trying to think about those comments that will move the learning forward. I keep looking over the comments I've made through that lens and cringing. But I'm cringing less and less as I reflect on them. The challenge is to say something that will lead to thinking, but not give the game away.
For instance, in the example below, I think I should have said "what do the instructions say about your answers?" and left it at that on #11. I gave this particular student too much information. On the other hand, another student might need more information in order to move their learning forward.
I like how this practice forces me to think deeply about where a student is at in their mastery of the topics and I can see how easily it would be to move from this practice into standards based grading. I also like how it forces me to think deeply about what exactly the standard is asking and what mastery should look like. I'm curious how other teachers set up a standards based gradebook. Our elementary teachers here do standards based grading, but they don't translate it into a letter grade as far as I know.
Any high school teachers out there doing this?
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