By Mark
I've been having a bit of a problem lately in my classes.
My students were tasked to create a visual metaphor of the allegory represented in George Orwell's Animal Farm, do research about the "factual" side of their allegorical connection, and assemble this all into an end product that showed their skills at a whole slew of the Common Core State Standards in ELA-Reading-Lit and ELA-Reading-Informational Texts, with each standard accompanied by a proficiency level scale that clearly defined what achievement of the standard would look like.
My problem is that too many of them are earning A's. Even the kids who aren't supposed to.
The obvious part of this is that this isn't a "problem." I did some honest reflection about whether the task was simply too easy, and determined that no, in fact it demanded a high level of independent effort at complex thinking and inter-text connections. A huge factor in their success has been having those scales that clearly paint the expectations for proficiency.
The reason this is a problem has to do with all of the perspectives of teaching that I grew up with, and have spent much of my career employing. And it even has to do with the connotation of the word "problem" itself.
A "problem" implies something in need or repair, remediation… Google even defines it as "A matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome." Problem = bad.
Scroll down, or try different searches, and the meaning changes…such as what Merriam-Webster suggests: "a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution." Problem = opportunity.
My problem is also rooted in my "definition" of grades. I have held the belief that too many A's meant students have not been challenged. The distribution of achievement was supposed to bulge in the middle. I was using the definition that had been used on me when I was in school, and the definition that was imparted upon me in teacher-school. I had even been taught, and have even at times practiced, grading systems that involved lining student work up from best to worst, then ascribing the bell curve so only X number of projects earned an A, then Y number would earn an A- and so on, until there was a mandatory number of F's earned by the projects at that end of the spectrum.
Norm-referenced assessment might have a place, and certainly produces pretty bell curves. Shifting to a focus on standards-referenced assessment has changed the shape of my data, and that is at times unsettling. In my old mind, too many A's meant a lack of rigor. In my new mind, an abundance of A's triggers analysis: was the task too simple? If no, then the A's mean "standards achieved or exceeded."
And so my thinking evolves further: what does an average communicate, since that is what our mandated on-line gradebook currently limits me to? Trends, modes, and patterns tell me more than an average.
The "grading" problem is a biggie. Standards-based assessment, tracking student growth: these are the parallel impetus (impeti?) for my rethinking of what this all means.
The straightforward percentage grade is no longer so straightforward, and now seems to me to be less and less what I and my Language Arts students need in order to actually develop literacy skills.
I’ve always felt like it was my job to ensure every child earn an A or B.
It’s controversial, because on one side we think kids need to do it, it’s not the teacher’s job to work so hard. On the other side we think teachers need to serve kids.
There have been students who simply refused to work, were helpless, were absent and didn’t make work up, and failed, in any way, to show me they had met objectives. At that point I assume the child is working on something else in his life that is more important than writing, and I set him free to work on that and the gradebook reflects failure.
But mostly, my kids get their tests back with wrong items circled. They try again. They take a second test. They usually get an A or a B. They write an essay and I edit it and return it – either with a strong score or an “R,” for redo. An R means it didn’t meet my standard, and counts for 60% in the gradebook as a placeholder. Kids almost always redo.
Because this system requires grading and regrading, and I refuse to take work home (almost all of the time), this requires I assign less work and make it more valuable. A 500-word essay, instead of 3000. If you can’t write well in 500 words, I don’t want to read 3000. It just becomes translation and line editing. Tests are carefully constructed to be targeted and easy to score.
I don’t think the assessment was too easy if most of your kids got As. I think you taught well and assessed appropriately.
All teachers are wired to think if there are too many good grades, the assignment is not challenging enough. However in this day and age of diverse learners and differentiated learning, alternative assessments that think outside the box should become the norm. These assessments allow those students who typically do bad or are not score-minded a chance to shine. I love when I have a great number of good grades for a particularly challenging project. It shows me and the students that there are other ways to solve problems. It also prepares them for the real world.
Maren, you are right about wanting to wait to make the shift, AND about time being necessary. I wonder what kinds of work can be done now, though, to prepare both teachers and kids for that eventual shift? It won’t be an easy one for anyone. That change is the “big game,” and to be ready we ought to have some practice and conditioning. What that might look like in science, I’m not sure.
Hi Mark,
As we adopt new standards, like the Common Core or the Next Generation Science Standards, it definitely seems like an opportune time to re-examine grading practices! Standards based grading, or something along those lines, makes sense to me.
Here’s the thing: I do not want to move to standards based grading now, with the old science standards we are currently using–and then have to work it all out again when we actually implement Next Generation Science Standards in 1 to 4 years or whenever it is going to be. I would rather move to new grading practices when I move to new standards.
That would make new standards implementation more time-consuming if it also included implementing a new assessment/grading system, but I think that if it is important, teachers should be given some time to do it!