Fall is a beautiful time…the colorful leaves, the crisp air, and the grueling grading period. Many of you will be sending grades out soon. Have you ever reflected on how you grade? Every year, I find myself closer to the ideal grading situation. There is nothing inherently wrong with grades. However, grades have always been a hot topic in education. What are your thoughts?
Join in the discussion on grades. This post is unique. I have not written a 400 word post, carefully crafted with my opinion. I do have a bias and it is relatively transparent…I suppose the photo for this post is a bit revealing. However, I want to hear what you think; I came to my current philosophy on grades by talking with parents and teachers and adjusting my practices. If we each take from the discussion a new way to impact our teaching, the students will benefit.
My Current Ten Reflections on Grades/Grading
1) Grades have not changed much since the late 1700s (which, interestingly, coincides with the industrial revolution whose strength was the ability to produce consistent products, consistently)
2) There is a great deal of disagreement in what part of the student’s performance in the classroom is graded (i.e., do you grade participation, work completed, meeting deadlines)
3) The meaning of a letter grade (and where it falls in relation to pass/fail) differs among teachers, and certainly among parents and what they had when they were students
4) Quasi-non-grading methods (rubrics, numbers like 1-2-3-4, or statements like Proficient and Mastery are only subtle changes to a letter grade—students figure out how to translate these methods back into a letter grade). How can we use this?
5) Deciding when to grade can change the outcome of the student’s letter grade.
6) Does everything deserve to be graded?
7) What are the options for not grading?
8) If you are interested in not using letter grades, what can you do within the school or district in which you work as you have to abide by their structure? Some schools have only narrative grades.
9) Is grading harmful? Counterproductive?
10) What are the implications of a student who fails the WASL, but does well in class OR fails class, but achieves high proficiency on the WASL? Does it invalidate the assessment or the classroom, or something else?
UPDATE: (2008.09.30) Here is an article on the cash incentive program used at Washington Middle School. Attendance and punctuality have improved, but grades have not. I guess if it means being in the right place at the right time, money will get you there. If it means working on your own time for however long it takes to get the learning, money is just not enough. It is over at The Core Knowledge Blog.
(2008.09.30) And again, another great post on the topic over at Flypaper.
as well as …. at the blog entitled, Thoughts About Education Policy.
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Chris Harris
This fall I started a new teaching position that really has challenged me. Not only am I teaching content that requires a great deal of preparation, I am also getting acclimated to a new teaching system. Besides that, I still am teaching online for another University. While all of this was brewing, we sold our house, bought another, and moved. Plus my daughter started a new school. So let’s just say that I haven’t been on my “A” game this fall.
Personally, i think there is something wrong with the grading system in the first place. Why people judging a kid’s ability base on his/her performance at school or a specific activity? And these grade will follow these kids for life, affecting his future and may discourage kids who have low grades. I want a better system but well not like i can think of a better one.
Thanks for clarifying your assumption about teacher effort, Travis. It seems reasonable. I look forward to you discussing in a future post about political, religious, and psychotheraputic roots of implications of reasons not to grade students in traditional ways.
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I think the reality around grading is that when my students attend high school and college, they will have to deal with the traditional grading system. So, I have to ask myself, What is the purpose for grading? I think it is multifacted, provide students with feedback, prepare them for the inevitable (especially college – where magna cum lade means ‘A’s), and give my clientelle what they expect (primarily parents). I think the challenge is how to be precise in this process (this is where rubrics come into play). How to help students achieve proficiency (the lovely state tests). I don’t think it is necessary to grade everything. I do think there are times when students can self-evalutate, with training, and teachers can spot check work. Grading for me is about always asking myself “What do I believe is critical for my students to know”. That is what I have to grade with care.
Travis – Your point #10 is actually at the heart of a debate that is being had behind closed doors at my high school. Our beginning of the year inservice had a great deal of time dedicated to the question of what actually goes into a grade. The real question being – what does it mean to grade with standards based grading?
It’s tough – your post is very thought provoking!
@Ariel Sacks, for me there is no direct comparison or implication that can be made from a classroom grade v. an assessment score. However, many people would say that they should match, and certainly people outside of the field of education would expect the two scores to match.
There is some overlap when a student is prepared. For me, for instance, a student who goes through my course and gets the writing techniques and the process, will do well on a state assessment simply because the assessment is so simple in comparison to the intricacies of knowledge in the course of the course.
What do you think? What do you others think?
Interesting discussion here. I’m especially wondering about your question #10, because I’ve seen educators look down on teachers whose grades don’t match up with the students’ test scores. But grades and test scores don’t measure the same thing. So what should we be measuring in our quarterly grades? Is it better to measure against one (somewhat arbitrary) grade level standard or measure a students’ progress against him or herself? I guess as Patricia is saying, we are not likely to be able to reform the way our cities and districts require us to grade, but given the flexibility we are given in how we calculate the grades, which way should it be? What about for ELL’s? grade against the same standard, or grade progress? What about for ELL’s who are not receiving services they need?
There’s an interesting discussion going on over at “Thoughts About Education Policy” on grading as well:
http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008/09/grades-are-stupid.html
I think all the comments, taken together, illustrate that schools and teachers don’t have a clear, common understanding of what grades are supposed to do: inform for the purpose of improvement? rank and sort kids? serve as motivation? (good luck with that one…)
Here’s a question: If grades went away, tomorrow, forever–who would gain? and who would lose?
Great thoughts, Travis. Keep posting on this subject.
@Bob Heiny, your last question regarding how many teachers I think….
Well, I tend to surround myself, group up, and team with teachers similar to myself with regards to the philosophical aspects of education. We differ widely on practice or subject, but the theory and philosophy are similar. Given this, I think 100% of the teachers with whom I work closely see distinctions of grading.
To be even more transparent, my favorite author on the subject is Alfie Kohn (whose link is in the original post).
I like to think of grades not as “grades” but as a way to provide feedback to my learners. When I have better ways of doing this–conferences, narratives, rubrics, charts, video reflection, video annotation, skill comparison against a model–I use those first. The letter grade is last in my wishes and wants, but required by every district for which I work so the student gets at least one letter grade at the end. Prior to that, it is whatever best suits the activity, skill, student.
I tend to use the term “feedback” or “assessment” to get away from the grade issues.
I also believe in a difference between assessment FOR learning (learning what a student knows/does not know for future skill acquisition–preassessment) and assessment OF learning (learning what a student acquired for future reteaching or goals–post assessment).
I also believe that not everything needs to be assessed as much of what we do in my class is practice the skills that the students learn. After all, what better time to practice a skill than when the instructor is there for assistance and feedback?
I usually find out what a student (or students) needs, create a lesson to move the student closer to the goal, and practice and practice and practice, then take a progress check (but not grade) to find out how the student is progressing (and here is where many teachers do wrong, I do not use this for a grade in the grade book. It is an assessment to further my teaching of the student), then, when the student has shown that they are ready to demonstrate mastery of the skill, we assess OF learning.
This is the way that real life works: sports, painting houses, military, teaching your son how to walk, or teaching that other son to use the bathroom, or the other son how to ride a bike.
Speaking of which…let’s take that last thought–riding a bike.
So I want to teach my son how to ride a bike, the worst possible way to do this is to give a pretest and put that grade in the book. Then I could show him how to ride a bike, of course on a larger bike with me riding it fast and him watching. Then I ask him to do it. He does okay for a first time, and I write the grade down in the book for how he is doing (he got a F, by the way). Then I give him 15 minutes to work on the skill by himself in a location where I am not. The next day, I give a pop-test and have him ride the bike for me; he does not do well; I put that grade in the book. This goes on for a few days and then, in the end, my son fails riding a bike, based on the grades in the book. However, he does possess the skill of learning to ride so has mastery despite me.
And this process of education is worse that leaving the child alone to figure it out himself. At least if you leave him alone, he has a chance to enjoy the process of learning.
Thanks for clarifying your assumption about teacher effort, Travis. It seems reasonable. I look forward to you discussing in a future post about political, religious, and psychotheraputic roots of implications of reasons not to grade students in traditional ways.
I take it from your last comment that you also distinguish between feedback about learning progress, evaluation of academic performance, and ranking of that evaluation against other students as well as against other criteria. Yes? How many other teachers do you think also use these distinctions when discussing “grading?”
@Bob Heiny, yes, how best to give feedback is the question I ask. I go into these questions with the presumption that teachers are hard working and want the best for their students. In my career so far, I have always been amazed by the skill, strength, and smarts of the teachers with whom I work. Teachers amaze me. Teaching amazes me. I love to watch teachers teach; that is why I work with teachers pursuing National Board certification.
This discussion thread is not over yet, but I will make a prediction. I predict that the comments will deal with alternatives to grades, ways to give better/stronger feedback to help students/parents. I predict that there will not be a comment that says “We should get rid of grades and put nothing in their place. Let’s just hang out.”
Interesting question, “to grade or not to grade.” It’s a political and religious question. It assumes teachers have a choice about evaluating student performance against specific criteria and how to share those evaluations. That assumption seems irrelevant to pragmatists outside of schools. Of course teachers as well as others make judgments about (grade) each other. Who assumes anyone can do everything about anything with everyone all the time?
The question, then, is how we share those judgments and what results we want from those evaluations.
I want frequent, ongoing feedback from people who know how to do something I have not yet mastered, so I can adjust what I do in order to do that too.
If seems to me that teachers misunderstand grading without that assumption, right?
Thus, I ask this Q, “What feedback for which student on what schedule increases what learning most that student?” I’m guessing that’s your implicit Q also.
Travis – interesting idea about narratives… I have used them in the elementary world for many years with both positive and negative results. For me, the positive outweighed the negative — the only thing that was tough was to read narratives that ‘spin things’ too much so that the students seems to be on track but really is not. So, it all comes down to how ‘honest’ the narratives are written for them to be effective.
A question to ponder: given all the ‘issues’ associated with grades, why do we give them? I have heard a variety of answer; some are: 1) history… anyways done it so we must continue 2) communication – to tell parents and students where they are in relation to the ‘norm’ 3) motivation – the power that we have over learners. Others? Does our belief about the purpose of grades match the method that we utilize?
@Karen brings up another grade related topic that creates differing voices among teachers: Extra Credit. Are you for it or not, why?
I clearly recall an entire school year where I wrestled with this issue so much that I found myself dreaming about grades, standards, and assessments. I wish I’d dreamed up a perfect solution because I hate having to assign a single letter grade to a trimester (or more) of learning. Helping students take control of their own learning by having them track their own progress toward standards, assisting them in determining strengths and weaknesses and working with students to help them overcome their weaknesses while celebrating their successes makes so much more sense to me than letter grades and has become increasingly more well received by parents and students.
To communicate information about how students are doing I have students complete a self-reflection piece at report card time (and other more important points in their learning) and have them share their Standards Tracking Form/Self-Assessment with their parents. Not a perfect system by any means as I still get asked, “but what’s my grade?” The fantastic news is that I have students asking me how to improve their understanding of energy transfers instead of asking for extra credit.
@Richelle . . . how do you communicate to a student (or parents) that progress is occurring, but the student still has not met standards? In this scenario, the student would have a F or a D (not meeting standard), but can you place those grades on a report card and have it translate the message “Working real hard and making progress towards goals, but still work to do. Will probably meet standard by next term so keep going”? Chances are the grade will shut them down. Hmmmmmm.
I would prefer narratives. I know, a lot of work. But in the end, I think the cost benefit would be worth it and, in fact, it might be easier in that the students would do better and have more ownership and parents would be better informed so everyone would be part of the team. That is a fair trade for narratives.
Out of interest, I did a narrative or a sheet of paper that I stapled to the report card for every student in one of my classes. It did take time, but if I did 5 of them a day, it did not see overwhelming. Parents loved them, students appreciated them, and the unexpected benefit was that it helped me to reflect on the student which helped me to better think about the goals of the student and how they were progressing…basically, the student and I had some one-on-one time in my head. It personalized the learning.
What do you think? Any takers?
Great points raised to this complex issue… I think that grades CAN be powerful, depending on how they are used.
They CAN inform the learner/ families about progress made toward a stated/ goal standard, when the standards are clearly identified/ stated. I think that we get into trouble when we unfairly place ‘grades’ on learning when that standard is not clear…
Also, I wonder about the learner who is ‘trying really hard’ but not ‘making the grade’ — this is when I see grades as really harming the learner. There has to be a better way to tell the learner that they are improving (and here are some great goals for the next step in learning), without reducing their efforts to a ‘low grade.’ On the flip side, if a student gets an “A” are they done learning?
Overall, I just wonder if grades say it all in our changing educational system… what other options are there for clear communication to learners and their families?
I guess I think that grades are inherently wrong….They place an artificial emphasis on the learning process making what is measurable by numbers and letters important. What is important in learning is the learner’s understanding and how the learner can apply and utilize this understanding in life situations…An ideal situation would be if we could engage our students’ interest through their natural inquisitive natures combined with our ability to pose (or elicit from them) questions and problems they would want to solve to be the motivating factor for learning.
@Patricia brings up a good point. What difference do you make between ASSESSMENT and GRADING? For that matter, do you conceptual differences in your assessment?
Although grades have not changed, I think the way we go about assessing has for those seeking a better way. There are better options. In my extensive professional development with Understanding By Design, the focus on assessment is not that of one “high stakes,” end of unit exam. Rather, it is a series of snapshots throughout instruction to measure student engagement with the objectives. This can take on many different forms: journals, discussion, cooperative learning, projects, writing, and public speaking to throw around a few forms of assessment.
As one who has always loathed the idea of an end of the unit exam as the one way to measure student learning, a variety of assessments appeals much more to me and provides more extensive feedback while the student is learning instead of only after the fact. The collection of information that forms the student’s grade is more comprehensive rather than the drill and kill method taught to most pre-service teacher.
It would take a major reform effort to eliminate the idea of grades completely, but we can change the way we assess.