Meaningful Grades: Let's Not Loose Sight!

Recently I read an article from ASCD Express that focused on meaningful grades. Shortly thereafter, I found others relevant to the same topic. The one that I personally focused on is titled: Quality Over Counting: Mindsets for Grading Reform by Tom Schimmer. 

One key point that resonated was in section  number three; Standards Over Tasks. Typically teachers, including myself, organize our gradebooks by tasks such as quizzes, projects etc., however, we are grading on a "standards-based" report card. The truth is, the task-organization is not reflecting standards because of the type of evidence included. Schimmer explains how standards are organized by strands, categories or domains. 

The challenge comes with how to exactly grade if using tasks were to be set aside, and even Schimmer agrees to this point. Here are some of my thoughts for how we can accomplish this, especially with our current learning environments being different than they have in the past. Which, by the way, has added a whole new dynamic level to teaching, learning and grading overall. 

Educators can grade with/by: 

Using a domain/category as a learning goal in the gradebook. 

Reflect on anecdotal notes to recall how well students understood a specific strand/standard. 

Create a scale/rubric for scoring such as "meets expectations, approaching, etc." instead of percentage grades 

Include various lesson work, projects, journal entries and more as evidence of the scaled grade. 

Personally, I am not an expert on grading, nor will I ever pretend to be. I do believe however that we owe it to our students to continue to work on developing more effective ways of grading for our current learning environment, and for whatever our teaching will look like in the future. Recently before the pandemic, I struggled with reading grades because my district adopted the Readers' Workshop model, which does not regularly include cold-read assessments. We have of course, included our own with iReady reading and readers' response to stories read out loud in class, however this does not (in my opinion) accurately assess the goals of Workshop, or students' true ability and growth with their reading. I do feel cold-read assessments with comprehension questions hold value and should be part of assessment, however it does not cover all of the skills/domains of reading standards. We have created rubrics with criteria to correct this and assess specific skills for fiction, non-fiction, stamina, and engagement. Again I stress that using language such as "approaching the goal" would more accurately draw a picture of where a student is with reading, versus the percentage grade that has been instead attached to the rubric. Students are not numbers! They are learners who have interests, opinions, and want to develop their skills. 

It is my hope that in the future teachers can work closely with administration to review articles, books, and other research about various types of grading to affectively adopt a system that is more descriptive and evolves with students as they learn and grow to reflect true progress. As Schimmer stated, so many of our grading practices have sent the subversive message of speed... 

And this needs to change! 

Final thoughts: Keep advocating for positive change, keep reading about meaningful grades, keep drawing conclusions about how to share students' true learning and growth with families, keep in mind that education is not a race; understanding and confidence need to remain at the heart of what we do for our students. 

Visit this website for the article: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol16/num02/quality-over-counting-mindsets-for-grading-reform.aspx

Visit the website for more articles on meaningful grades: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol16/num02/toc.aspx?utm_campaign=ALL-Grading-Express16-02-10-01-20&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=96467024&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_YNXQu8Rs2Ga40QNL2ZJRQ383r4NF-PG0DwPgNaME7CzJv8Vs3yEUVyIYETUQ4ADfQ9dO-g_RJ352CXYcVReSmTukdEA&utm_content=96467024&utm_source=hs_email