The Data Speaks!

I was super excited/nervous for final exams to come around this year. I mean, this is what all the grading reform has been leading up to--right? All my hard work hinged on one test score. Well, the moment came and went and I am pleased to say I have great news. I graphed my final class averages (all the standards tests) and the final exam scores. The correlation was certainly positive, but I needed a number! After using the conveniences of Excel (**drumroll**) 0.89 correlation coefficient!!!!! This is super exciting. I almost could have given my students JUST the final exam.

A few things I noticed:

• The Special education students were the subgroup that had the lowest correlation coefficient. However, it was still 0.74. 
• The high performers had the highest coefficient at 0.91. 

I am anxious to see what May will bring with the state testing. So far all the tests (to include the final exam) has been made by either me or my department. The state test in May will be the true measuring stick for what I've been teaching this year.

On another note, I haven't been updating as much as I had hoped for this year. I will, of course, do my best to post relevant information in a timely manner. That may or may not happen more often next semester.

Purposeful Assignments

Ever since I have been using Standards-Based Grading in my classroom, I have noticed that I have been making my assignments much more purposeful. In the past my schedule would look something like this:

Monday:5.1 vocab/notes, guided practice
Tuesday: 5.1 guided practice, independent practice
Wednesday: 5.2 vocab/notes, guided practice
Thursday: 5.2 guided practice, independent practice
Friday: 5.3 vocab/notes, guided practice

Etc..., etc..., etc...., the boring cycle continued. Every now and then I would throw in a cool activity or two, but I would stick with the routine for the most part. I would assign problems just because it was independent practice day and not necessarily because it was what the students needed at that time. I would "worksheet" the kids through the chapter and then we would test at the end...simply because we had "covered" the material.

Now that I am working with SBG I feel like every assignment I give has an actual purpose. I am trying to learn more about what my students know or how I'm going to teach them something in particular. I don't lecture. I don't really give too many notes. I don't give homework. I give very carefully selected assignments.

The reason I am able to select the assignments so carefully is because I know what each of my students know and are able to do. Instead of giving endless worksheets, I give "mini-quizzes" several times a week. When the students are performing well on the mini-quizzes I give them their standard test.

It really seems like this system might stick around my classroom permanently.

...thoughts

As the semester is getting further along, I am enjoying SBG more and more.  I truly do not remember what it was like to be on the other side of the grading fence. I know my first two years of teaching I spent my days “grading” endless stacks of paper. Usually I ended up putting “+”, “+-“, or “-“ on the papers which had nothing to do with the actual content mastery. If they finished the entire assignment they got a “+”. If they finished more than half but not all of it they got a “+-“. And if they finished less than half (but at least turned something in) they got a “-“. I had so many papers to grade that I never really gave any one paper a good review. I was basically grading participation—behavior.  I was the teacher at the parent conference that scrambled to defend my grades when a parent asked, “Why is my student failing if they keep getting 100s on all the homework and classwork? Doesn’t that mean they should know it for the test?” And then I would say something like, “well, um…yea…anyone else wanna talk?” Embarrassing. I knew it wasn’t a good practice, but I didn’t know how to really fix it. I am so thankful that I finally decided to jump into SBG this year. This system makes sense. I am still embarrassed at parent-teacher conferences, but the difference is that I am embarrassed for my colleagues that haven’t figured it out yet. I watch them scramble to justify silly grading practices just like I used to. I really want to help them, but this is a philosophy that you kind of have to adopt on your own before you are willing to listen to others ideas on the "how to do it" side of things. 

One of the principals at my school said, "If you just change the grading system but nothing else, it won't be any better than it ever has been. In fact, it might be worse." I agree with that statement. SBG is more than just a way to grade papers. It is an entire philosophy. It has changed the way I teach and assess. I truly believe it is making me a better teacher.  

Wow...it's been a while!

As the title says it has been a while since I've posted, but I have reasons!!! (Don't we all?) Anyway, things are calming down at work a little bit and so I should be able to post slightly more often (but no promises).

At this point I have given my first four standards quizzes. I have a surprisingly low failure rate right now but I feel like it truly represents what my students know and are able to do. I love that I can look at my gradebook and know *exactly* what skill each kid needs to reinforce or refine.

Other things I like:

• The kids are starting to really buy into the system. I still get the "are you grading this?" type of question, but I no longer have to answer it. It never fails. When a student dares to ask that question, another student (un-prompted) says "Yes, she will grade it and give us feedback on it. This is evidence." Score in my column!
• The students really know what they know and what they don't know. If you ask almost any kid in my classes why their grade is what it is...they could tell you which standard (in their own words) that they need to improve. Score again!

 Things I need to get better at:

• Keeping a better paper trail of the formative formal/informal assessments than I do. At this point I grade them and give them back to the students. Occasionally (if I have used clickers or some other technology) I have kept records of the scores. Most of the time I just return the quizzes marked up with feedback to the students and move on. My plan is to devise some type of paper gradebook system that I can keep up with easily, but so far all my attempts have failed.
• Giving more timely feedback. Ideally I would like to give students their "evidence" back within day. Currently it is taking me a couple days. The more immediate the feedback is, the more meaningful it will be for the students.

Standards Quiz #2

Today I finished grading my second round of standards quizzes. We just finished standard #9: The student will be able to describe and/or order a given set of real numbers (rationals & irrationals). This quiz was much easier to grade than the first one. It only had 9 questions (3 easy, 3 medium, 3 hard) and it was all multiple choice. I made the students show work anyway. However, this saved me a lot of time. I was able to quickly skim the multiple choice responses for right/wrong and then any questions I wanted further clarification on I could just look at their work. I finished grading all four classes worth of quizzes before the day was over. I had just as much information as I did from the previous quiz and I was able to spend more time providing written feedback.

I will probably do the majority of my quizzes this way from now on. The state test is multiple choice anyway, so they might as well get used to it.

As a side note, I used a web-based program called Discovery Ed to make the quiz. It is a service my district has subscribed to. You are able to select the course and then drill down to the individual standard. It provides a whole back on easy/medium/hard questions. The questions are remarkably similar to the state test my kids will take at the end of the year. This has saved me a TON of time this year. I can pick through my choices and have a beautiful standards quiz in a short amount of time. So thankful for Discovery Ed.

First Assessment - Grading

My students took their first big standards quiz on Wednesday. I had no idea what to expect about grading. I didn't know how long it would take or how difficult it might be to score it correctly. So far I have finished two out of four classes and it is taking about twice as long to grade as it would have last year under the old system. However, last year I only used multiple choice tests. I could easily go through and mark off a, b, c, d, etc... This first standards quiz was strictly free response and essay. Therefore, I am not basing my "time it takes to grade" on this one assessment.

Overall, I like this system a lot better so far. The usual points or percentage systems never really made me too happy. Even though I have only graded two classes, I am pleased with the results. The kids who are currently failing are the kids who don't know what they are doing and that is a small percentage. I have one in each class right now that is failing. The rest are spread out As through Ds. The quiz scores match up perfectly, I feel, to what the students actually know.

Tomorrow I will be handing the quizzes back. The students are going to chart their own progress. They all have a "standards" tab in their binder (go me!). I will work on giving some valuable feedback to each student. I want them to know exactly what they should work on in order to improve their score.

I'm excited to give the quizzes back. I'm interested to know how long it will take for the students to really catch on to the grading system. I am sure once they fully understand it, they will appreciate it.

I'll keep you updated! As always, feedback is welcome.

The Stick and the Carrot

Well I knew this question was out there and up until today I have largely ignored it. As I talked to a colleague, the conversation drifted to standards based grading and they asked how I intended to motivate students without assigning a grade value to their daily work. Well... it's a multi-pronged strategy.

Shhhhh, I don't intend to broadcast the fact that the work doesn't "count". The work does count. I need to get the students to understand where the value is to be found. The work will still be used to assess the students progress toward the target learning goal. If I handle the feedback right, students will use it to track their own progress, set goals for themselves, predict their performance on formal assessments, and design their own remediation in hopes to generate ownership over their work.

This replaces the grade value with value over the investment that they made in their own education. Lofty goals you say? I agree, it will be a challenge but I feel that I have a lot of support from systems already in place school wide and in our small learning community. Also, my administration is supportive and another colleague of mine is also utilizing this grading system. I have access to great technology, the Smart Response clicker sets we use are amazing for providing the quick, effortless, informative feedback needed to pull this off.

I certainly don't have all the answers and I have not put any of this into practice. I would like to have some concrete effective strategies for dealing with the apathy that we already struggle with. It's not like grades have been an effective motivation tool for many of my students in the past.

One thought that I had recently, I think it originated with a tweet, was to bring professionals in the science field in to teach, advise, mentor or just talk about the relevance of education. I would like to have professional motivational speakers come and speak to our students on a regular interval. I think that these are some small steps that we can take to beat back the apathy. But really, in order to defeat it, a larger investment needs to be made at the community level.

Students arrive soon, very soon. I will have some actual feedback instead of the eduspeak chatter, (necessary eduspeak chatter), I have provided so far. It's time to put my money where my mouth is.

"Your gonna do what?"

I have been asked several times over the past few weeks if I was crazy for changing my grading system. The questions that follow are typically good and they have been constructive as I put all of this together but the level of doubt is surprising.
Most of the doubt centers on wether this type of system will lead to a large amount of "our" type of students failing. There are a few points that I would like to flush out and I apologize if I seem to ramble a bit.

1. If "our" students are defined as the ones who rely on participation grades, completion grading, and other types of padding and if we accept what I said about a grade earlier, then I would say we have been lying to these students, their parents, our peers and administrators about their successes or the degree of failure. Most importantly, and this has inspired my change, we have been lying to ourselves. We have been assigning grades, that are intended to inform all parties involved, that the students with a passing grade know the content. If we are including grades that aren't intended to reflect the degree of mastery, then sorry to use such strong language but where I grew up that is called a lie. I know that not all students fall into this category and I am speaking in general terms about our students but even the students who do well benefit from using this type of system because of it's accuracy.

2. Another point I would like to make to those with reservations is that if I only changed the way I assess the students, then yes, I would end up failing a lot of "our" students. Along with the reworked grading system, I have also changed the way I use the grade as feedback. Students will have the standards listed on a coversheet in their notebook with a list of the performance indicators. I will provide space for students to predict their level of understanding for each SP as they complete the assignments and plot the progress of their mastery over the content as they receive feedback through assessment. Students will be required to revisit material until they reach the target level for the standard. Our school has put in place times throughout the week to be used for targeted remediation. This is key to keeping those students who typically fall through the cracks.

3. Finally the hardest point to accept as a teacher; If I do have students who fail the course, then I have to say that I own that failure. The truth is that in the past I have let students make up work in the "eleventh hour", knowing full and well that the student wasn't seeking mastery, they were jumping through hoops. I have done this, in part, because I didn't want to "own" that failure. From now on, the student will know that in order to bring up a grade, they will have to demonstrate that they know the content. I am going to make a poster that says," If you were accused of knowing Biology, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" The challenge will be tracking, communicating and intervening in a timely and constructive manner. More on that to follow, for now students are coming soon and fina

Getting started

As an educator, I have always had a struggle with the grading policies pushed down to us from the district. I have also struggled with modeling my grades on the systems of most of my peers. The origin of my strife seems to tied up in trying to answer the question, "what is a grade?"
I think it is the scientist in me, but to me a grade is a measurement. And, like all measurements, we strive to make them both accurate and precise. The grade is a measurement of how much the students have learned. Historically, in my classes, the grade has been a measurement of more than that (or less depending on how you look at it.) Students could "earn" points for turning work in on time, organizing their work, participation Grades and so on. This system is partially based on data unrelated to the learning objective. The system is not precise!

Another problem that I have had in the past is that the assignments and activities were not necessarily designed to measure student learning as much as they are to facilitate it. However; we often assign point values based on completion of the assignments. The point values are typically averaged in and used to measure a students understanding of the content. The system is not accurate.

This year I am taking a big step and I am going switch to a Standards Based Grading System in an attempt to more accurately communicate my students level of understanding. I intend to use this blog to journal my thoughts, struggles, and accomplishments during the year. Hopefully, in the process, someone else may benefit from my journey.

First Opinions from Admin

I had a meeting with my administrator sometime mid-spring semester and asked her if she would support me through implementing standards-based grading in my classroom. She gave the approval for me to go forward with planning based on what she knew of it. The plan that I posted here was the first write up of what I informally presented to her. I added a few details but the bulk of what I wrote stayed the same. She did not require that I keep her updated, but I have found over my years that it makes life much easier if you keep your administrator in the loop.

Anyway, so I unveiled the plan and I got three questions in return:
1. How do you plan to communicate the plan and its benefits to parents and students?
2. What do you expect will happen to the distribution of grades? More As, Fs? Stay the same?
3. How can you make re-assessment more mandatory and less invitational?

I had a response for the first two, but the third one threw me for a loop. I don't have anything in place to make sure the students reassess. At this point, it is up to the student to reassess if they want to. They don't have to. Aside from staying after school (which isn't an option because I am coaching fall and springs sports) or coming in early (which very few students are willing to do)...I don't know what to do.

So that is where I am at with the process right now. I am thinking about how to make the process less-invitational. I hope to come up with a plan (or "acquire" a plan hehe) that doesn't require me to spend countless more hours at the school building. Maybe an in-class arrangement? I dunno...

Algebra I Standards List for SBG

This list of standards comes straight from the state list of SPIs for Algebra I. I decided to stick with the exact standards this year instead of making any adjustments. Next year I may split some standards or combine some standards. I wanted some type of "normal" to compare to though, so no changes yet.

I have also seen several people have their standards listed more like "topics". I decided not to do that because to me that is not specific enough.

 

THE STUDENT WILL BE ABLE TO….

Mathematical Processes

1.       Interpret patterns found in sequences, tables, and other forms of quantitative information using variables or function notation.

2.       Write an equation symbolically to express a contextual problem.

3.       Apply properties to evaluate expressions, simplify expressions, and justify solutions to problems.

4.       Translate between representations of functions that depict real-world situations.

5.       Recognize and express the effect of changing constants and/or coefficients in problem solving.

6.       Determine and interpret slope in multiple contexts including rate of change in real-world problems.

Numbers & Operations

7.       Operate (add, subtract, multiply, divide, simplify, powers) with radicals and radical expressions including radicands involving rational numbers and algebraic expressions.

8.       Multiply, divide, and square numbers expressed in scientific notation.

9.       Describe and/or order a given set of real numbers including both rational and irrational numbers.

Algebra

10.   Express a generalization of a pattern in various representations including algebraic and function notation.

11.   Operate with polynomials and simplify results.

12.   Factor polynomials.

13.   Operate with, evaluate, and simplify rational expressions including determining restrictions on the domain of the variables.

14.   Write and/or solve linear equations inequalities, and compound inequalities including those containing absolute value.

15.   Interpret various relations in multiple representations.

16.   Determine domain and range of a relation, determine whether a relation is a function and/or evaluate a function at a specified rational value.

17.   Determine the equation of a line and/or graph a linear equation.

18.   Solve systems of linear equation/inequalities in two variables.

19.   Find the solution of a quadratic equation and/or zeros of a quadratic function.

20.   Analyze nonlinear graphs including quadratic and exponential functions that model a contextual situation.

Geometry & Measurement

21.   Develop and apply strategies to estimate the area of any shape on a plane grid.

22.   Solve contextual problems using the Pythagorean Theorem.

23.   Solve problems involving the distance between points or midpoint of a segment.

24.   Convert rates and measurements.

Data Analysis, Statistics, & Probability

25.   Interpret displays of data to answer questions about the data set(s) (e.g., identify pattern, trends, and/or outliers in a data set).

26.   Identify the effect on mean, median, mode, and range when values in the data set are changed.

27.   Using a scatter-plot, determine if a linear relationship exists and describe the association between variables.

28.   Generate the equation of a line that fits linear data and use it to make a prediction.

29.   Determine theoretical and/or experimental probability of an event and/or its complement including using relative frequency.

1/3 Grading Scale

So we needed a way to translate the rubric scores to percentages because our district's grading scale is more percentage based (0 - 100). The district scale is:

93-100 A

85-92 B

75-84 C

70-74 D

0-69 F

We wanted something more specific than just 4, 3, 2, or 1 because it is possible for a student to master some of the level 3 content and all of the level 2 content. It wouldn't make sense to give that kid a 2 or a 3. We needed some middle ground. We considered using .5, but we also felt like that wasn't specific enough. After much discussion we settled on a .33 grading scale. Here it is: 

4.0 – 100% A

3.67 – 97% A

3.33 – 92% B

3.0 – 90% B

2.67 – 83% C

2.33 – 77% C

2.0 – 70% D

1.67 – 67% F

1.33 – 63% F

1.0 – 60% F

<1.0 – 50% F

So if a student mastered the level 3 content and got a minimal amount of level 4 content correct, he or she would receive a 3.33. That indicates proficient with a low-partial proficiency at advanced content.

Also, the top tier from 3 to 4 is not split into even sections. We decided to make a 3.33 a 92% B instead of a 93% A. It didn't make sense to have three opportunities for an A and only one for a B.

The Plan

After much reading and research (and several years of chickening out), here is the SBG plan that I have settled on. My colleague David is using the same plan. We are on the same 9th grade team and we want to keep things as uniform as possible with the new system.

A general 4 point rubric:
4- Advanced, learning exceeds goal
3- Proficient, learning meets goal
2- Basic, learning below goal
1- Below Basic, student needs help to reach basic level
0- Student isn't successful even with help

This rubric I got primarily from Marzano's Formative Assessment & Standard-Based Grading. However, I do not plan to make a specific rubric per learning goal like the book suggests. I will only have the one generic rubric and just make my learning goals descriptive.

David and I decided to go with a 1/3 percentage scale score. That will come in a separate posting. We had to have a way to convert the rubric scores into something usable for our grading system.

Record Keeping:
In my "official" gradebook that gets entered electronically, I will only have one grade per learning goal and then the final exam. This grade will represent the summative score for that learning goal. So after I have written out all my learning goals for the year, it is possible that students will only have about 50 or so grades for the entire year. Each score will go into the gradebook out of 100%. So even though the students will have fewer grades than in the past, the "total points" will be about the same.

I will also keep a paper record of all formative (graded) assessments that I give the students. That could be homework, bell ringers, quizzes, mini-tests, ...anything that will inform me and the student of progress towards the learning goal. These formative assessments will be crucial to the student's progress in my class. I will have to find an efficient way to provide timely feedback to each student, otherwise I think my plan is going to flop. I haven't come up with the "efficient" part yet, so that will be reserved for a later post.

I really like this because it is going to completely remove "missing work" and "late work" and "zeroes" from the equation. I absolutely HATED giving a student a zero simply because they didn't turn something in...or worse yet, they turned it in but it was late. I want the grade to represent how much they LEARNED, not that they are responsible...or whatever.

Reassessment:
The other key point that I want to include in the system is the ability for students to re-assess. I don't want their grade to represent what they knew in August. I want it to be (as close as possible) representative of what they currently know or learned.

That being said, I realistically I do not have time to constantly re-assess every learning goal. This part the students are going to have to take some ownership. I will have two days a week that I will be available for re-assessing. The students will only have the re-assess the goals that they are wanting to improve. They will need to give me at least a school day's notice so that I can prepare an alternate assessment for them. They will need to sign in with the reassessment log so I can keep track of who has come in, etc... I may limit the number of students that can sign up per day. That may prevent the "mad dash" at the end of the grading period. I'll have to think that through a bit more before I decide.

I do not plan to put a time limit on the reassessments. If they want to re-assess a skill in April that they learned in August, that is fine with me. The only time limits I will put on them will be at the very end of the semester...I'll have to make some type of a cutoff date so I am not grading down to the last second.

Other thoughts:
I really like this because if a student's grade is crappy then all they need to do is learn the material. They do not have to do hours of makeup work. They are not ever "hopeless". They just need to study up and re-assess. As for now, I do not have a way that I am going to require them to study or prove they studied. I also do not have a limit on the number of times they can reassess a certain learning goal. Both of those things may change.

Anyway, so that is what I have so far. Questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome. Stay tuned...because I'm sure it will change before August arrives.

... and David

My name is David Hawkins and I am the other of two contributors for this blog. Ashley has already introduced herself and together we plan to tackle a problem that we have noticed in our classrooms over the past years.

I have taught science at the same school for four years and I am beginning my fifth with a significant change in my grading system. I have an undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and graduate degree in secondary education. This year I will teach Biology, Honors Biology and a co-taught Inclusion Biology to freshman with the exception of a couple of sophomores. 

As Ashley has described, our school has made some incredible adjustments to the structure over the past few years.  The looping, Small Learning Community creation, an extended day for students, dress code, multiple intervention strategies, and more have provided us supports and systems for implementing a standards based grading system. We both saw a need to improve how we were assessing our students learning and communicating it in a meaningful and useful way.  After listening to Ashley’s ideas about standards based grading and doing a little research, I decided to team up with Mrs. Walther and take on this endeavor. 

Our blog will serve as a sounding board for us and hopefully we can generate some useful feedback through comments.  Neither of us has written books on the subject and both of us are humble enough to take advice and learn from anyone.  As Ashley stated, this will be a good reflecting tool so that as we carry this on into the sophomore year of these students, making changes to our systems will be more effective.

Meet Ashley

I'm Ashley Walther and I'll be one of the two contributors for this blog. The other is my colleague, David. He will introduce himself shortly.

I am a fourth year math teacher at an inner-city school in Knoxville, TN. I have my BA in Mathematics and my MA in Curriculum & Instruction. I've experienced both middle and high school, but the majority of my time has been spent at the high school level. I've taught every grade from 6 to 12. This upcoming year I'll teach solely freshmen.

My school does what is called "looping". The teachers follow the students for two years. The ninth graders I have this year I will have again as sophomores next year. In addition to this set up, we also have core-academic teams. David is the science teacher on my team and I am the math teacher. Ever since we became teammates, David and I have struggled to find ways to make grades more meaningful to students, teachers, and parents. We independently started talking about things that were hovering around the standards-based grading category.  Once we realized we were both talking about doing the same types of things, we knew what we had to do. We got permission from our administrators and this year we are jumping head-first into standards-based grading.

This blog will follow our journey through the ups and downs of SBG. Hopefully we will detail our trials and tribulations so that others may benefit from our experience. I also hope that this will be a good record for us next year when it is time to make changes.

This blog will be strictly about SBG, but you can also follow my math blog here. Most of the posts on this site will be duplicated on my math site, but the math site will have more than just SBG.