The Practical Side of Standards Based Grading

Secondary math teacher, featured in Ed Leadership:

Seven Reasons for Standards-Based Grading

Patricia L. Scriffiny

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Seven_Reasons_for_Standards-Based_Grading.aspx

Why Change?

1. Buried in paperwork
2. Diverse student populations (over and under achieving) 
3. Parent communication-parent pressure to be accountable for student learning
4. Realization that there had to be a better way

Essential Questions

1. What are the practical aspects of SBG?
1. Ideal grading system:
1. efficient, understandable to teacher and students
2. focused on learning obj
3. supports best practices of instruction
1. Forces/requires that best practices are utilized
4. reflects a permanent record of actual student learning--everyone needs to know exactly what's involved
5. promotes desired student behaviors (responsibility and initiative)
2. Definition of SBG- traditional bs SBG--evidence is gathered based on learning objective, not evidence type (test, quiz, project, etc)
3. View of SBG from a practical level

• Instructional strategies are key
• Curriculum--SBG really helps you analyze your curriculum and hones it
• Use many of the same assessments-different is what you do with them and how to organize them
• Front loading time is critical
• Course really needs to be well designed before you get started

Getting Started-

Take on the change gradually. Take on what you can manage.

1. Implement changes you can really accomplish
2. Communicate with principal and counselors
3. Don’t over-plan in the first few weeks
4. Be able to communicate the whys behind your changes effectively--this is critical, that teachers have defined their personal core beliefs about the purpose for doing this
5. Clear written policies to send home
6. Be comfortable with holistic scoring

Student Concerns--great idea to get them involved

• Your higher level kids, who are good at playing school, will stress over this
• Need to really communicate and involve the students in order to de-stress them and involve them.  They will feel as though they are heard.
• Parents are going to want to know:
• They will have questions about how to interpret reports and online grade books
• They will want to know how to monitor their child’s work and how to catch problems before they get out of hand
• Parents of poor test takers will be concerned about the lack of points for effort
• They will be concerned if their child’s grade is much different than usual
• The good news is...once you explain to them, they will understand (equate to workplace values and habits)
• Most concerned about validating that you care about their child and that there are opportunities for them to succeed

Be very open minded to admit that it won't be perfect, and if something is wrong, you're willing to change

SIDE--doesn't give extra credit.  Justifies w/students

Advanced learning opportunities--alternate problems based on standards that can be integrated into the system

Students will need to be trained early on to work w/in this system.  It's ok for students to question you..they need to do it appropriately, but it should be encouraged. That's why you need to be very grounded in your practices.

Dealing With Colleagues

Using the Rubrics

• Students really liked it
• Started just by using rubrics

Need to support pilot programs--teachers need flexibiity

See her grading sheet- benchmarks are divided into Core +, Core, Secondary---transfers the P, PP, etc into the gradebook as numberical (0-4)

Records student skills:

Doing homework?

Is attendance affecting grade?

Are you a positive influence on others?

Do you need extra help?

Translation to letter grades:

Kids get an A, B, Pass or Fail.  (Kids who maintain the pass, work really hard to get an A or B)

Bottom line--kids need to trust you, and trust that you have their best interest in mind.

Next Steps--

Teaches AP Stats