Grades - What do they mean?

Presented by: Karen Teff, NBCT

Questions I will try to address:

•Why change?

•What do grades mean?

•What does standards based grading look like and what are the key components?

“Fair Isn’t Always Equal” by Rick Wormeli

“How to Grade for Learning” by Ken O’Connor

“Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading” by Robert J. Marzano

The following presentation is a combination of my opinion and opinions based on the research

presented in the following 3 books:

All grade examples and stories are real and were supplied to me from various people

across the country.

Taken from: How to Grade for Learning by Ken O’Connor

Why I Made a Change:

•My son came home one day with a C on a math test. His comment was, “I get it now... but I didn’t get it when we had the test”

Reason 1:

•I told him that he should ask his teacher if he could retest. He came home from school the next day and I asked him if he had talked to his teacher. He said he had...

•The teacher’s response was, “We are already done with that chapter and have moved onto something else. You will just have to do better on the next chapter test.”

•Standards based grading means that the only outcome that is important is student understanding of the benchmark. That means anytime, not just on your time.

•Students should not be penalized for learning at a different rate than you teach - or for having a bad day

•Students should be allowed to redo assessments as many times as they want to or need to in order to demonstrate proficiency.

•I actually require 3 re-assessments on every benchmark (benchmark grouping). The 3rd one is used to replace earlier/lower scores.

•I continue to re-assess these benchmarks... all year long!

“The primary purpose of classroom assessment

should be to inform learning, not to

sort and select or to justify a grade” - McTighe and Ferrara, Assessment and Learning in the Classroom

•What does that tell you about giving a “test” within a week of the end of a marking period?

You could also add authors, actors, singers... hardly anyone in the real-world is judged on

their 1st attempt at anything and certainly not on only one attempt.

“The consequence for a student who fails to meet a standard should not be a low grade, but rather

the opportunity - indeed the requirement - to

resubmit his/her work.” - Reeves, “Ahead of the Curve:

The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning”

•Students saying, “I got an A in ____ and I used to know that but I can’t remember it anymore.”

Reason 2:

•In addition to re-assessments, standards-based grading means constant revisiting of benchmarks to ensure long-term knowledge of the topic.

•No more “chapter 1” then move on to “chapter 2” and never re-visit the topics in chapter 1.

What about students who experience multiple absences -

for whatever reason??• If a teacher follows the structure of

“teach, test, move on... teach, test, move on... think about a student who is absent for 2 weeks due to an illness. When will this student ever learn and be assessed on the material missed?

• Now imagine if this happens once or twice a year for many years... how many holes are in the student’s knowledge?

• I have actually had students say to me, “Oh, I was gone last year when we learned that so I never really got it”...

•Learning for long-term understanding, not just for the grade takes the “game” out of school that students play. Cram, test, forget, repeat. Cram, test, forget, repeat...

“Students see their schoolwork as a game they play for grades” - Winger, Grading to Communicate

•It appeared that grades didn’t mean the same thing in my class as they did in other people’s classes. I wanted my grades to be meaningful.

Reason 3:

“The private nature of grading and the dramatic inconsistency in

approaches within departments in high schools and colleges and

between classrooms in elementary schools means that educators have major problems to address” - Ken O’Connor, How to Grade for Learning

•Part of that “private nature” is the decisions teachers make as to weighting of particular items.

If the only changes made here were:Weekly challenge: 5%

Quizzes/tests: 90%Homework: 5%

This student’s grade would now be 88.96% = B+

•May not seem like a big deal, but if that also happened in Q2, this student’s Q2 grade would have been 91.56% = A- instead of 92.32% = A-.

•So what, right?

•Wrong! This would have changed the student’s semester grade - the one that goes on the transcript and affects class ranking, which in turn affects scholarships, colleges, etc... would have been 90.26% = A- instead of 89.65% = B+. The exact same scores, just weighted differently... who knows the long term effect??

Just by switching grading

scales, this kid could have

had A, A, A, A-,

A

•What does that say about our class-rankings? Opportunities for scholarships?

•I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the way the previous grades are calculated, nor with how the grading scales are made. I am simply asking this: Are you OK with the fact that grades have different meanings in different classes? Or should the meaning of a grade be consistent across classes and across schools?

•In a standards based grade book, all benchmark groups are weighted equally.

In an age of standards, grades are anything but

standard!

??

•A parent once got angry at me when I said to her at conferences that the reason her son was struggling in geometry was because his algebra skills were weak. I suggested her son get extra help on his algebra understanding. Her comment was “He got a B in algebra - he understood it just fine.” That got me thinking...

This is what I found: He indeed did get a B!Q3 Homework 

week 15 7/8 88%

p 365, 1-30 30/30 100%

p381, 6-62 26/28 92.86%

p375, 6-58ev 23/27 85.18%

week 16 8/8 100%

p387, 6-64ev 26/29 89.66%

p393, 6-50ev 25/27 92.59%

WS8.5AB 61/61 100%

p 401,4-54ev 24/26 92.31%

week 17 8/8 100%

p407,6-30ev 24/26 92.31%

p413, 6-22ev 16/18 88.89%

p421, 1-39 39/39 100%

week 18 8/8 100%

Parent signature 20/20 100%

p430, 6-48e 35/42 83.33%

week 19 8/8 100%

p435, 8-42ev 22/26 84.62%

WS 9.3 39/46 84.78%

p441, 8-34 75/52 144.23%

p446, 7-20 25/28 89.29%

week 20 8/8 100%

WS9.7Ao/e 70/30 233.33%

p475, 1-44 42/44 95.46%

Q3 Homework Totals 669/ 647 103%

Q3 Tests & Quizzes 

Quiz 15 7/8 87.5% Quiz WS 7.6 10/16 62.5% Test Ch 7 15/30 50% Quiz WS 8.2 21/25 84%Quiz 16 4/8 50% Quiz MCA 17 4/8 50% Ch 8 Test 39/70 56% Quiz 2/8 25% Quiz 18 5/8 62.5% Quiz 20 4/8 50% Quiz 21 4/8 50% Quiz WS 9.7 19/36 52.78% Test Ch 9 14/50 28% Q3 Tests & Quizzes Totals 148/283 52.29%

Q3 Quarter Grade Totals 817/930 87.8% B

•I was finding several students who, for whatever reason, were not doing homework, but were able to do well on assessments.

•In addition, I was finding the opposite - some kids did all their homework but still didn’t do well on assessments - what did I want their grade to reflect?

Reason 4:

I want my grades to reflect evidence of

learning!

Major changes in my own teaching and grading practices

since embracing the philosophies of SBG:•Home work is less than 10% of my

grades - typically closer to 5%. In addition, lots of homework assignments aren’t graded at all. They truly are just for practice. I used to count it up to 40%.

•Kids actually do homework now - they see the importance of the practice.

•Students are grouped by proficiency of the benchmark for enrichment or intervention.

•Multiple re-assessments are for full credit, not just for corrections or partial credit.

•I follow standards not textbook.

•My grades incorporate multiple scores for each benchmark or benchmark group - the more scores the better!!

•One “test” will have multiple benchmark scores, so are graded in several grade “bins” or benchmark categories.

•For every one thing I enter into the grade book, there are probably 2 that I didn’t enter... many formative assessments (like a ticket-out-the-door) are used as practice and as a quick check for student understanding... and still I have probably 3 times as many grades as some gradebooks I have seen.

•These formative assessments drive my next move.

•No more extra credit!

•The only things graded are those which show attainment of benchmark knowledge - not attendance, behavior, book covers, etc. “If a teacher must use a point system to satisfy

an administrative mandate or to use a particular grade book, that teacher can still use a standards-based system. The crucial idea is to use a system that is not based on the inappropriate use of averages. The system must not allow students to mask their level of understanding with their attendance, their level of effort, or other peripheral issues.” - Patricia Scriffiny, Seven Reasons for Standards Based Grading

Any comments?

Student A

various random assignments

Student A Continued

“When anything other than the level of achievement on the

stated learning goals is figured into a grade, we lose the

meaning of the grade” - Chappuis & Chappuis, Understanding School

Assessment

Student A Continued

again

True Story: I was recently told by a mother that her son, who is now in college, received a B in a class one time. This was in the days before

Parent Portal... She had been asking her son about his classes and he said

he had an A in all of them. So, she was quite surprised when she saw a B on

his report card. She went to talk to his teacher to find out why he had a B.

Upon seeing the fact that her son had 96% in this particular class, the

Mom’s comment was, “Wow! You must have a very strict grading scale

if 96% is a B!” The teacher’s response was, “No, it’s just that I

refuse to give an A to a student who doesn’t do any extra credit. He could have done more and chose not to.” That was his only B from 8th-12th

grade.

Talk about having the ball pulled out from under you!!

•Grade inflation helps nobody. Neither does grade deflation.

Let’s revisit this grade - any comments?

Another true story:

Another true story:

After deciding to change my philosophy, I also had to change my ways of writing and

giving tests

Note: this is only a part

of the assessment

•This means creating multiple versions of each benchmark assessment - in small “chunks” so the student only has to redo the parts on which she/he was not proficient.

•This also means no grade is ever set - it is always a work in progress - until the artificial cut-off of report-card time.

Keeping track of student progress

Name __________________________

4 = mastered it!3 = I get it2 = I kinda get it1 = I don’t get it

Semester 1:

IIIA/9.3.4.4: Properties of Linear Functions

_____ calculate slope when given 2 points

_____ write an equation of a line when given a table of values

_____ find x and y intercepts on a table

_____ find x and y intercepts in an equation

_____ translate equations from slope intercept form to standard form and back again

_____ graph lines when given a table or equation or points

_____ determine slopes of parallel lines

_____ determine slopes of perpendicular lines

_____ write the equation for an arithmetic sequence and use it to find a given term

VB5/9.3.4.4/9.3.3.4: Coordinate Geometry

_____ calculate midpoint given 2 points

_____ use the Pythagorean theorem

_____ calculate the distance between 2 points

_____ use slopes and distances to prove ideas such as rectangle, rhombus, isosceles, parallelogram, etc

VB3/9.3.3.7: Properties of 2 Dimensional Shapes

_____ know and use the triangle sum theorem

_____ calculate complementary and supplementary angles

_____ exterior angle theorem

_____ interior angle sums and interior angles of polygons

_____ mid-segments of triangles

_____ mid-segments of trapezoids

_____ properties of quadrilaterals including parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, square, trapezoid

_____ isosceles triangle theorem

VB1/9.3.3.1/9.3.3.2: Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal

____ vertical angles

____ corresponding angles

____ alternate interior angles

____ alternate exterior angles

IICG2/9.3.1.1/9.3.1.2: Using Formulas

____ area of triangle, parallelograms and non-regular figures that can be broken into familiar shapes

____ perimeter of anything

____ volume of prism, cylinder, cone, pyramid, sphere (may include finding slant height using pythagorean theorem)

____ surface area of prism, cylinder, cone, pyramid, sphere

____ area and circumference of circles

IIBG10: Proportionality and Similar Figures

____ dilations and scale factors (using mapping notation such as D(a) = (.5x, .5y) or knowing how scale factors change a figure)

____ side-splitting theorem

____ proportional altitude theorem

____ similar figures

____ perimeter, area and volume ratios

•I use the self-check sheet as well as assessment data to group kids by benchmark understanding. I may have one group of kids working on ideas of proportionality, one working on using formulas and one working on the computers investigating new information about a benchmark not yet taught.

•Sometimes the kids who have already demonstrated proficiency at a given benchmark act as the “group leaders” or “helpers” and they help the other students who are struggling. These leaders often change, depending upon the topic.

•In a pure SBG system, students would be given the following scores:

• 4= you have exceeded the standard (exemplary)

• 3= you have mastered or are very close to mastering the standard (proficient)

•2= you still need to work towards mastering the standard (partially proficient or emerging)

•1= you need more support and practice in order to master the standard (not proficient)

•Because of the world we live in, I found it not realistic to grade this way. I still need to give a letter grade because colleges, parents, scholarships, etc still understand letter grades. In addition, our grading programs are not set up to handle a pure SBG system.

So I would say my grade book is a blend of traditional and standards based:

If I were in charge of grading, I would have reported this student’s grades as:

Linear Functions - proficient/exemplary (A)Coordinate Geometry - proficient (B)

Properties of 2D shapes - emerging (C)Using formulas - proficient (B)

Properties of 3D shapes - proficient/exemplary (A)Proportional reasoning - proficient (B)

Things to notice: mid-quarter, strengths/weaknesses, review

•From my experience, parents love a standards based system because it makes sense... it is not based on whether or not a kid can learn at the teacher’s pace. In addition, a grade report shows strengths and weaknesses, not just if the student did his/her homework or not.

•“It should be clear that single-letter grading (or single percent reporting) is incompatible with the meaning of standards-based education” - Melograno, Grading and Report Cards for Standards Based Education

•“The use of columns [grade bins] in a grade book to represent standards instead of assignments, tests, and activities is a major shift in thinking for teachers” - Marzano and Kendall, A Comprehensive Guide to Designing Standards-Based Districts, Schools and Classrooms

Remember these?

Which one tells you more about the student’s understanding of the benchmarks?

Traditional Grade ReportStandards Based Grade

Report

Susan Brookhart, Grading and Learning: Practices that Support Student Achievement

Key Components Re-Visited• grade by benchmark, not by assessment types (HW, Quizzes, Tests,

Projects)

• multiple assessments of same benchmark - don’t necessarily count 1st attempt. Retest throughout the entire year to ensure long-term knowledge attainment.

• not everything assigned must be “graded”. Formative assessments are critical.

• grades are used to inform learning and instruction - data informs instruction and student attainment of benchmark informs assessment

• assessments are aligned directly to benchmarks and graded by benchmark (not single grade)

• scores need to get back to students in a timely manner to allow learning from mistakes as well as to allow time for remediation and re-assessment

• the ONLY things that are assessed are those things that demonstrate benchmark proficiency

• extra credit, bonus points, group work, puzzles, word searches, etc have no place in standards based grading. Grade inflation helps nobody.