Grading Policies Evolved

Hello, colleagues! Are you guys tired? I know I am - it's the end of the year, and I just spent eight hours at our last track meet of the season yesterday. I'm also frustrated... we had students that couldn't compete in the competition because they were ineligible. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a teacher more than I'm a coach, so I've seen it all through my own classes. Students do fail assignments which cause them to fail classes. I've also had students fail my class and be ineligible. However, one thing I noticed this year is students failing a class due to strange grading practices.

Instead of blogging about what I think my colleagues are doing "wrong," I'm going to post about grading practices that I've changed over the years due to reflection and research.

1. No zeroes. A zero in the grade book implies that a student has LITERALLY DONE NOTHING. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Is that ever the case? Sometimes, sure. I've given kids zeroes on flipped learning because they never started it. Other than flipped learning, I did not give students a zero. If you look at a standard grading scale, an F is between a 0 - 59%. That is an enormous gap. If a student does not turn in an assignment, they still did work in class. Did they do 59% of the work? Usually, they did more, but just didn't turn in the assignment! A student should not fail a class because of one task. Give students a chance to be successful even if they didn't complete one project.

2. No late grades. Students have all sorts of reasons for turning in work late, stemming from them not wanting to do the task, to having a sibling get sick, or due to a family celebration. Should a student be penalized an arbitrary 10% because they turned an assignment in one day late? I don't think so! If students can prove that they know the information, and they meet the criteria of the rubric, then they deserve a better grade, even if it's overdue.

3. More formative assessments. Does this mean I should get rid of summative assessments? Absolutely not; they have a time and a place. Should a kid's grade suffer because of one test for an entire quarter? That's a tough one, but I would argue that it's also crucial that a teacher checks for understanding throughout the unit. Those checks should also be considered assessments, even if they are formative assessments. I would always know if a student would fail ahead of time because of all of the checkpoints that were done along the way. Also, if a student demonstrates quality understanding on a past formative assessment, then the grade should be changed. The student may have achieved proficiency at a later date, but they still exhibited mastery of the content.

4. No more "fluffy" grades. Students do not receive participation points. All students have to participate in my class whether it's by raising their hand or collaborating with a colleague. I also stopped grading assignments based on how they looked. My rubrics would have one category for "basic requirements" (like a specific minimum time or that it had the 10 pieces of criteria), but all of the other categories were based on research and content presented. Do I want a pretty project turned in? Sure, but I also want the students to show me and tell me what they know and what they learned.

5. Behavior does not equal achievement. Every day is a new day. Students act out for various reasons. There is no reason to "punish" a student by giving them a low grade. Grades should be reflective of student achievement, not student behavior. Yes, we want our students to be able to communicate, collaborate, be creative, and think critically. Human beings learn through practice, so if you want your students to learn to communicate, give them time to talk. Students don't need a grade to know if they can talk to other people.

The problem with sharing this information is that I definitely sound like an insufferable know-it-all. Do I have all of the answers? NO! I've evolved as an educator over the last twelve years (and will continue to grow as I teach). I just feel like these changes made a difference in my classroom. I want all students to have the capacity for success to have a promising future.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

End of unit reflections

Hello, teachers! Sorry for the missing blog last week! I came down with a cold last Friday but felt the need to go photograph some beautiful frost in town that same day. I'm pretty sure I made myself sicker, so my mind was not ready for blogging last week :(

This morning I am reflecting on a unit that my classes completed on Friday. It was a four week unit over what I call the pre-Civil War era (1820s - 1859). For the first two weeks, students were put into large groups in which they "presented" a whole class lesson on a decade (purely giving content). For the last two weeks of the unit, the students worked individually in which they picked three events in one decade to dive "deeper" into. They used a tic-tac-toe board to pick the products that they wanted to create while also choosing the proficiency level that they wanted to demonstrate.

What worked: Most students enjoyed "teaching" for a whole class period (in a large group). They were nervous overall, but they shined in front of the class. This set them up for success in presenting in front of the whole class. I could tell that some students accessed their group presentation rubric as most students improved upon their eye contact and projection for their second presentation. I also liked that when students presented individually that they weren't required to show memorized content, but instead talked about what they created and how their events caused change (the essential question for the unit). This helped with their confidence and talking to their colleagues instead of just reading from the screen. I heard many students say that they enjoyed having a choice in their topic and product creation, and I felt having the tic-tac-toe board at this point in the year ensured the success as they were comfortable with choice (as opposed to the beginning of the year).

What didn't work: I liked the students taking on the class lesson piece, but I do not feel like I set up the students for success in their content presentations. This unit, more than any prior, made me realize how weak my students' research skills are. This could be a whole other blog topic - teaching students how to investigate on the internet. I don't feel like I train them well in this aspect, and to some extent, expect the students to come to eighth grade prepared with research skills. I know that this is wrong, and I know that my students don't know how to analyze and dive deeper online. Do I know how to teach the students to research on the internet? I'm not sure, but I feel like I need to scaffold their research better. Unfortunately, this means created focused research handouts for each topic. That is something I need to create over the summer if I want to do this unit again (and I know for sure that I do).

I need to, somehow, clean up my directions. I'm not clear if this was all on me, but my students were missing what they were supposed to DO for the second half of the unit. The students just wanted to regurgitate information, when I kept telling them to be persuasive; that they are trying to persuade someone to move to the historical location to ensure that the historical event happens (because, you know, they are time travelers). I know that when I go through their products that most of them will miss that mark.

One struggle (that I've dealt with in the past) is that the students want to make sure that they are doing the assignment "right," so they keep asking me how their product looks, they are checking in with me, and they are asking me questions. This prevented me from checking in with all of my students. I was also trying to get through their research handouts as they were working, but I could never find time. The missing feedback from me did not help the previous issue of my students repeating content instead of being persuasive.

And the BIGGEST problem with this unit is a student problem: time management. Even though I had checkpoints and due dates in place, they were not enough. The students put off their project until the last minute and then scrambled the night before presentations started. I told all of the students to be prepared to present on the first day, but in one class I had to go ask 19 students to present before I could find five students ready to go. I believe that next time I will have more stringent due dates and clearer time management strategies to ensure that their time management is on point. I heard many complaints that I gave too much homework, but it was evident that putting it off until the last minute meant that they had a lot of homework in one night! I wrote on the board how much time they had which effectively ended this complaint.

I had a frustrating week when it came to presentations, but in the end, I know that this was a solid first start to a new design for a unit. I am happy with what I created and am excited to "fix it" for next year!

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

The value of an A

Good morning colleagues! Yesterday was the end of first quarter, so as always, the students were scrambling to get their grades up by the end. "The scramble" is nothing new; I have seen it every year that I've taught. What WAS new this year was that 1) my overall grades were lower than previous years and 2) more students than before were asking in the last week how to get an A in my class.

"The scramble" led to a conversation with a colleague about grades. My colleague had most of these students last year, so I wondered how her grades were. Overall, her grades were similar. The difference was that she did not have our "honors" students last year. Currently, their first B is in my class, and now I'm feeling the pressure. Do I curve assignments to ensure that students have an A? Are my grading procedures too hard? Or are my students even working at an A-level? What IS the value of an A?

I am not entirely sure from where the pressure is coming. The administration team has not had a conversation with me about having too few As, but I am waiting for that conversation to happen. I have only had slight pressure from one parent, so we will see how that goes next week. Most of the pressure is coming from the students. In general, I do think that this pressure is unfair. My class is challenging because students have to think in a different way, the thinking is very gray instead of black and white (which is DOK level 1), and students do not get 100% for turning in an assignment. I am trying to off-set the "challenge" of my class by trying something different with grading. On large projects, I am not putting a final grade on the rubric. Instead, I am marking where they are on the proficiency scale. I then Screencastify myself giving them feedback. Once the students access my comments, they can redo the assignment. My goal is to get students to proficient (*hint* this is an A). I am also allowing students to revise, actually, any assignment except for flipped learning.

I noticed that this group of students has a "one and done" mentality. They do not want to redo an assignment because they think that they did it right the first time. Students are telling me that my rubrics are too open-ended; they want to know EXACTLY how to get an A. They want my rubrics to be entirely black and white because they have used these type of rubrics in the past. But when I watch my students redo an assignment, they will change one or two things, then expect that they will get an A. I am not sure if my students understand that they have to work for an A. An A means advanced; if a student is getting As (or 100%) on "gray" assignments, then that student should also be advanced on state and national assessments.

The student may not get an A right away, but that is why the revising process exists. It is not about needing extra credit. Instead, it is about finding where one went wrong, making a change, and improving their assignment AND their learning. There is a jump in learning from seventh to eighth grade as there SHOULD be. Every year should be more challenging than the previous. The student, will at first, struggle. If the student does not have to exert themselves, and already knows how to do everything, then I am doing the child a disservice. I am not doing my job. I am not getting them ready for the real world. The real world is not black and white. There are many shades of gray. I have to help them learn how to wade through the gray.

This whole grading dilemma might be my biggest call for standards-based grading in my district. Grades should have meaning. Students should be able to understand their education, and where they stand on the scale of objectives and standards. Students should not be playing the game of school points.

So how can I get my colleagues on board? Where do I go from here?
Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel
@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website