Fixing Broken Grades

One of the fixes that stood out to me was Fix #15.  Don't leave students out of the grading process.  I rarely if ever involved the students in grading when I taught.  I now realize that was a mistake. Students should certainly understand from the beginning of a lesson what the learning objectives are and how grades will be determined.  Students are users of the information that comes from assessments, so the purpose must be clear to them.  Student involvement in assessment presents a powerful opportunity for learning. Students can be involved in creating grading criteria, applying criteria to their own work, giving feedback to peers, and going over test results. Each of these assessment situations can generate further learning.

It becomes clear that having students track their achievement and then communicating their learning with other students, teachers, and parents is very powerful.  When students are reflective they begin to understand their strengths and areas for improvement.   As Chappuis (2009) states, "Providing students with opportunities for a combination of peer feedback and self-assessment causes them to achieve at significantly higher levels, without more instruction.  These two practices increase their sense of ownership of the responsibility to learn." 

Maybe student led conferences would allow our students to take more responsibility for their learning?

Broken Grades

After our discussion last week it became very clear that we need to look at changing our current report card.  Our current report card simply does not fully communicate what students are expected to know and be able to do.   A new report card would allow parents and students to understand more clearly what is expected at each grade and or subject level. With this understanding, parents will be better able to guide and support their child helping him/her to be successful in our academic programs. We should also develop a second page (similar to figure 2.1 on page. 19) that rates key skills as they relate to effort and behavior, again giving parents and students more feedback as it relates to learning.  

We need to make an effort to give more attention to individual learning styles. Maybe that involves giving every student a learning styles test such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  What would engagement look like if  our classrooms were grouped according to similar learning styles?  How can we have students self-report learning styles and adjust our curriculum accordingly?  These are things that could potentially impact learning.  All children have unique learning styles and students clearly gain strong benefits when their teachers recognize their strengths and weaknesses as learners.  If we are not inclined to much self reflection about our teaching practices, we are likely to continue teaching others the way we learn best, assuming that this way will work for all students. Do you know how your students learn best?

Fairness in Grading

According to Reeves, “Fairness and accuracy are essential elements of grading, but they are not sufficient to form a fully satisfactory system of student evaluation.  Grading systems must also be effective, a complex requirement that includes specific and timely feedback on student achievement.  Grading should be designed to improve communication, making clear to students, fellow teachers, and future teachers the academic performance of a student.”

There are different areas of fairness in the classroom; fairness in interactions between teacher and student, fairness between students and fairness in grading and instructing. Each of these can be addressed by a teacher, aiding children in learning fairness as part of the unofficial classroom curriculum. 

Grading is a challenge for teachers. We want to be sure we are evaluating student work fairly, in the sense that our judgment is not subjective or inconsistent. Effective grading requires an understanding of how grading may function as a tool for learning, an acceptance that some grades will be based on subjective criteria, and a willingness to listen to and communicate with students. It is important to help students to focus on the learning process rather than on “getting the grade,” while at the same time acknowledging the importance that grades hold for students.

I encourage you to try and evaluate our student's progress without ever seeing a name on a paper or test.  According to Robert Marzano, “the score a student receives on a test is more dependent on who scores the test and how they score it than it is on what the student knows and understands.” Make the decision to treat everyone as fairly as possible, while remembering fair isn’t always equal.