Personally, I absolutely love the idea of standards-based grading! First, standards-based grading allows students and parents to really see what a student has mastered and what he/she still needs to work on. Getting a "B" in math tells the student and parents absolutely nothing, particularly when, in a traditional grading model, non-academic factors are also lumped into a student's grade including extra credit, frequency of homework turn-ins, and even attendance records. The "B" is meaningless. However, receiving a 3 for "telling time to the nearest minute" gives students and parents so much more information. As a classroom teacher, I would constantly have parents asking me what they could be working on at home with their child, but in a standards-based grading model, everyone is on the same page! Naomi Shak calls this benefit of SBG, "better feedback for improvement," and I couldn't agree more. Grades have always been considered feedback for students and parents, but a letter grade without any context or additional information is not at all actionable in nature. A standards-based grade, however, is actionable and lets both students and parents know what to do next.
Luckily, in our district, our curriculum committees have been working tirelessly for the past several school years to align our district curriculum to the Common Core State Standards as well as to write district-wide common assessments aligned to those standards. Additionally, the past few years, teachers have also been aligning our new curricular resources to our standards maps and pacing guides. It has been challenging but very worthwhile work! Teachers have been rolling out the new curriculum and assessments over the past few years, but one comment I hear very frequently is about how our grading system and report cards are the last pieces of the puzzle, since they are rather outdated and are not as closely aligned to what we're teaching as they could be. However, I like to think of this as a good problem to have. In the article 3 Peaks and 3 Pits of Standards-Based Grading, Josh Work talked about one of the pitfalls of SBG being that he needed to redesign formative and summative assessments, activities, and sometimes entire curricular units in order to have them align more closely to the curriculum standards. So in essence, we're lucky that our curriculum committees have done so much of that work for us already. I do think that our teachers are ready to make the shift and much of the foundational work has been done in order to make it as smooth a transition as possible from a curriculum and assessment standpoint.
One other obstacle I believe our district might face when transitioning to a standards-based grading model is pushback from the community. Our students' parents all went through a traditional grading system and that is what they know and are comfortable with. Also, in such a high-achieving district, so much weight is put on grades for placement into various courses within our district and into high school and beyond. However, I believe that with strong and consistent parent education on the SBG model and how it will benefit our students in the long run, parents will be on board with the idea. Any shift of this nature can cause frustration, but I truly believe our district is very much teed up to make the leap!
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteOne of my biggest concerns with moving to standards-based grading is definitely the pushback from the community. What I do know is that anything new is often stressful for others, but after a few years, I am sure that this change will be more accepted. I would love for our district to make this move! I decided to focus on Mastery Learning for my post, and think that standards-based grading would work so nicely with this type of framework. Students can learn about which standards they have mastered, and which ones to focus on.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI definitely see the pushback from the community with standards based grading. I think that the feedback that students and families receive from this type of grading is much more meaningful than just a letter grade. I guess my biggest question with all of this, and with teaching in the middle school, is what happens at the high school level? Students move to letter grades because that is what universities look at? I think the biggest argument at the middle school would be that we are preparing students for high school. It seems like it needs to be an overall shift of perspective in education!
You've made some excellent points Jessica! The district definitely has best practice and teachers behind the idea of standards based learning. Parents will understand more when more information is given. Look how many teachers have changed their tune! Parents simply want clear communication, they will jump on board as soon they see the benefits!
ReplyDeleteJessica,
ReplyDeleteThe community will have a fit when(hopefully when) we move to a standards based report card. In the community in which I live, the schools moved to a standards based report card for math only, and I engaged in many arguments with parents over this topic. Maybe because we understand this system it is easier for us to digest, but I do understand the pushback. I do agree with you that a "B" means nothing to us, but it makes perfect sense to a parent. There is going to have to be a ton of parent education and a very slow rollout for this to be successful.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteYou made so many great points in this blog post! One of my favorites was that a "B" tells parents nothing about how they're doing. I entirely agree! A grade should be communication home and that's exactly what standards-based grading is all about. This week I looked farther into the history of grading and how great would it be to instead of assigning grades, have conferences or write a narrative for a student to tell how they're doing in class.
I also agree with your point that I think the community would have a difficult time adapting to this. I remember when we were switching over from Illinois state standards to common core, there was push back from a lot of parents saying that this was not how they learned. And I agree! This isn't how I learned either,.. but that doesn't mean that the way we learned was correct. What is best for the child?