Making the grade

Making the grade

There is a lot of debate about grades and what qualitative data on student performance really report. What is an A or a C and how do those grades inform about what a student can actually do within a specific discipline? 

Yesterday, a colleague in my action-research cohort framed the question in terms of an analysis of his golf swing. He commented that if a golf pro were to observe his golf swing and afterwards simply respond "that's pretty good" or "nice job", it would provide him with almost no information about his golf swing. Sure, it would be a nice affirmation from a qualified pro, but it wouldn't tell my colleague much about what technical aspects of his swing he is doing well and which parts need work. Therefore his swing will just continue to be "pretty good", whatever that means. 

http://www.golfdigest.com

My cohort group's discussion over the past few days has focused on how to make reporting students' progress (i.e. grading) more informative for students, parents and teachers. We all agreed that grades are generally lacking in informative detail for a variety of reasons. 

By way of example, the B in Spanish class does not typically provide us with much information about a student's ability to use interpersonal communication to resolve a situation with a complication. Nor does the C in science elaborate on his understanding of how the water cycle processes might impact climate changes. Not that we would expect this kind of specific detail to show up on a report card, but the stand-alone B or C does not provide the student with any informative feedback about what specific skills he is strong or weak in, and to what degree. Worst of all, there is nothing a student can do at the this point because the grading is done and the goals have been measured. Now it is time to move on with whatever grade and skills he may have acquired. 

Robert J. Marzano, PhD, a leading researcher in education,framed the conversation with another sports analogy:

"Think of a baseball card — when you looked at Mickey Mantle’s card, it didn’t say an A on the back. It included his fielding average, hitting average, homeruns — then you know why he’s a good player. Why would we give a student just one grade?"   
(http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2010/11/qa_standards-based_grading_exp.html)


Public schools (all of them, I would suspect) have been using standards to develop their curriculum for some time now, but few schools use standards to inform about what the final grade means in terms actual abilities. Here we are talking about Standard-based grading, which is a grading system that provides information about how students are performing against a set of clearly defined learning outcomes, typically state or common core standards. 

With standard-based grading, "there is no single mark for a course as is traditionally generated by averaging or combining multiple scores across the duration of a class. Unlike traditional grade reports, standards-based grading measures students’ knowledge of grade-level content by reporting the most recent, consistent level of performance. So, a student might struggle in the beginning of a course with new content, but then learn and demonstrate proficient performance by the end of the course." (http://www.sumner.wednet.edu/studentfamilyservices/academics/pages/sbgparentfaq.html)

The focus here is on all students developing certain levels of developmentally appropriate proficiency in particular skill sets and demonstrating them through a series of assessments throughout the school year. Some student might get there more slowly then others, but all are provided meaningful feedback along the why in order to identify areas of weakness and to learn to strengthen those skills across the continuum of proficiency until they meet the standard. Some students might just meet the standard while others  exceed the standard, but all would need to meet the course standards in order to more on to the next level or grade. 

This is quite different from receiving a C in French 1 and limping on to the French 2 with whatever foundation you have built at the first level. Most of the time the C in French 1  might tell you that you covered chapters 1-7 and that you know how to use the basic present tense, and have some basic vocabulary related to school, food, self, and family. However, it tells us nothing about what a student can actually do with that content knowledge. 

Last winter, I visited Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine to observe their exploration-based learning model. While there I learned that they also use standard-based grading. Watching the teachers and the students in action, working actively and fluently with the standards in the classroom, I came to understand the value of setting clear learning outcomes for students and making them a requirement for everyone for course completion and advancement. The students clearly understood the skills they would need to demonstrate and at what levels of proficiency they would need to demonstrate them in order to earn course credit and advance. One student even explained to me that she was able to choose whether she wanted to shoot for an "Meets Expectation" or "Exceeds Expectation" on an assignment that asked students to use a piece of Spanish-language Caribbean literature, to describe how their ancestry influences  their identity. She told me that, at first, she was unsure she had the written communication ability in Spanish to reach the project's proficiency goals. However, as she worked on the project, discussed the theme with classmates, self-evaluated against project rubrics, and received ongoing feedback from her teacher, she slowly began to identify and understand her weak spots in her essay. One day, she decided to change her proficiency goal to "exceeds". When I asked her what she needed to do to reach that new goal, she was easily able to articulate that strategies she would need to implement. She ended by telling me: "Nobody is allowed to not meet the standard; it just doesn't happen here. If you keep up your habits of work, the teachers will work with you until you have the skills to meet expectation." 

Wow. What trust these students have in their teachers, in the learning process, and in their own ability to succeed. "That's what I want for my students.", I found myself thinking when the student finished.  

So my essential question for tonight is "what would be the impact of using standards based grading in a small affluent private school where GPA is seen as an essential tool for advancement educationally and professionally, and where teachers are accustomed to working and developing their own curriculums and grading systems autonomously?"

The following is a video that will illustrate the Casco Bay model: 
http://vimeo.com/43992570

Here is a PDF explaining Casco Bay's grading model.
http://cbhs.portlandschools.org/files/2012/07/Casco-Bay-Family-Grading-Guide.pdf