By: Jeff Heyck-Williams
What’s in a
grade? Why do we grade? What do
grades communicate?
These
questions may seem to have obvious answers, but they warrant consideration as
we realize that grading is a major way that schools communicate both how
individual students are doing and how our schools are doing at educating our
children.
The most
basic way that we answer the question of why we grade is to communicate the
progress and achievement of students within a class. But this begs the question of what, exactly, these grades are
communicating about progress and achievement.
Unfortunately,
traditional grades too often have been a bit vague at communicating the
achievement of students. At Two
Rivers we have intentionally designed a grading system that communicates the
complexity and depth of student learning.
We recognize that our system is different and therefore creates
dissonance with traditional notions of grading.
There are three
basic ways that traditional grading systems fail that we address through our grading system at Two Rivers:
1. Traditional grades compare students
to each other or to assignments.
Two Rivers’ grades compare students to standards.
2. Traditional grades are general and
one-dimensional. Two Rivers’
grades are specific and Two Rivers’ reports acknowledge the multiple dimensions
of learning.
3. Traditional grading
compartmentalizes learning. Two
Rivers’ grading recognizes that learning occurs along a
continuum.
TRADITIONAL
GRADES COMPARE STUDENTS TO EACH OTHER OR TO ASSIGNMENTS.
At their
worst, traditional grades are assigned by comparing students to one
another. This system of assigning
grades comes out of a misapplication of the famous bell curve. If grades are assigned in this way,
only the top 10% or so can receive an A because grades are assigned on the
curve. With a system of
comparative grading the majority of students receive C’s and inevitably some
students fail the class. This
system of assigning grades is flawed from the start because it assumes that
schools are in the business of ranking students versus teaching them. A teaching perspective would
necessitate the possibility that all students can achieve and thus receive the
highest marks possible in the class.
Slightly
better – though not by much -- are grading systems that evaluate students on
assignments. In this system of
assigning grades, tests count for a certain percentage, homework counts for a
different percentage, projects for a different percentage and so on. The problem with this system is that
schools aren’t just teaching kids to take tests or create projects. Rather, it is the content of the tests and skills
applied in the projects that we are trying to teach. An effective system of
grading should assess the knowledge and skills that we actually want kids to
develop, not the assignment.
TWO
RIVERS GRADES COMPARE STUDENT PERFORMANCE TO STANDARDS
At Two
Rivers, we have responded to this by developing a standards-based grading
system. This means that students
are not graded either in comparison to each other or on how well they did on a
given assignment, but rather on the degree to which they have mastered a given
standard. A single assignment may
require students to call upon content knowledge and skills from several
different standards. Thus, any given assignment -- whether a test, quiz, or project -- can potentially have
more than one grade associated with it.
Multiple grades would reflect the level of proficiency in each of those
standards. In this way, students
can look at their grades and know specifically what content and skills they
have mastered or still need to work on, information that a single grade for an
assignment cannot capture.
TRADITIONAL
GRADES ARE TOO GENERAL AND ONE-DIMENSIONAL
If your
experience around grading has been similar to mine, grading at its best has
always been an amalgamation of scores created by taking into account mastery of
content, development of skills, and the amount of effort and focus. Those scores are then boiled down to a
single letter grade for the class. Even with a syllabus that outlines weighting of assignments,
it is often difficult to understand how each of the component assignments led
to the final grade.
More
importantly a single letter grade can’t tell you much about what a student actually
knows and can do even. After all,
what does an “A” in physics mean?
An “A” does not tell you if a student understands quantum theory or if
they can balance an equation.
It also doesn’t tell you how much effort they had to put into their work
to earn the “A.”
Furthermore,
while some traditional reports clump multiple dimensions, such as effort,
skills, and content, into a single letter grade for a class, others effectively
boil all learning in that class down to a single dimension -- usually content
knowledge. This single grade from
a given class thus conveys only information on how well the student mastered a
given set of information.
However, as
I’ve have written before, we know that students need more than a set of content
knowledge to be successful in the 21st century economy. They also need what we term expert
thinking and complex communication skills. A single grade -- even a grade that takes into account
multiple dimensions of learning -- masks these dimensions by lumping process
skills, collaboration skills, and content knowledge into the same bucket.
TWO
RIVERS GRADES ARE SPECIFIC AND TWO RIVERS’ REPORTS ACKNOWLEDGE THE MULTIPLE
DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING
In contrast
to traditional grading systems, Two Rivers intentionally provide grades on
specific standards rather than giving omnibus grades for a given class. By focusing on specific standards, a
student and her family can know exactly what skills and knowledge she has
mastered and what skills and knowledge continue to need work. On our progress reports, we report on
strands that comprise a group of standards, once again giving students a more
specific understanding of the discrete areas on which they need to improve.
Our grading
system is also designed to provide information across multiple dimensions. The grades on given standards only
reflect how a student is performing in comparison to that standard and not their
level of engagement, participation, and collaboration in class.
Two Rivers
addresses these type of intrapersonal skills through our Scholarly Habits: I
work hard, I am responsible and independent, I am a team player, I care for my
community. Currently we
provide narrative reports on how students are achieving these Scholarly Habits,
separating them from assessment of whether or not a student understands a concept
taught in class. In this way we
acknowledge that there are multiple dimensions of learning that can be teased
out and reported on separately, and that each component builds on the other to
form a well-rounded learner.
Consequently
we don’t include homework as a component in determining grades for two major
reasons. First, independent work
completed outside of class is not a reliable measure of whether or not a
student has mastered content.
Second, homework completion is often a sign that a student has
integrated a combination of organization skills and motivation that have less
to do with understanding of a standard and more to do with what we would
describe as intrapersonal skills.
Ultimately,
reporting in this way provides us with the opportunity to acknowledge the
specific strengths and areas for growth of each individual student. Thus the student who needs to work on
developing understanding but has excellent study skills can be acknowledged for
the effort that he puts into his work while focusing on the area for his
growth. Similarly, the student who
has a strong conceptual understanding but struggles to work with peers can be
acknowledged for her understanding and focus on building her collaboration
skills.
TRADITIONAL
GRADING COMPARTMENTALIZES LEARNING
The last
way in which traditional grading systems fail is they operate under the
assumption that learning has a clear beginning, middle, and an end -- at which
point grades are reported. While
there inevitably is a beginning and an end to the school year and there must be
a point in which grades are reported, learning itself does not occur this
way. This assumption about a
beginning, middle, and an end compartmentalizes learning into discrete elements
of learning. However, compartmentalizing
learning in this way breaks up knowledge and skills into pieces that are often
unnatural.
One result
of compartmentalizing learning is that a student can’t achieve higher than an A
or 100%. This suggests that after
a student has earned the A they have nowhere to grow in the class. What this guarantees for a great many
of our students is that they come to class having already mastered the content
and effectively learn nothing more, though they achieve the A. It is a reality in our schools today as
always that there is a wide range of student ability in every class and some
students will master the given content faster than others. If our grading system doesn’t provide a
place to report on students who meet the challenge to move beyond the outlined
standards for a grade level or class then there is little incentive for the
teacher to provide experiences that provides that challenge or for the students
to strive to meet it.
TWO
RIVERS GRADING RECOGNIZES THAT LEARNING IS ON A CONTINUUM
Our scale
acknowledges that learning is on a continuum and that knowledge doesn’t end
with the mastery of a discrete standard.
Thus, a 3 in a given standard shows that students have met or are on target to meet the
standard by the end of the year; indicating that they are on grade level and
performing the skills and acquiring the concepts we would expect of a student
at that grade level. A 4 means they have exceeded the standard by no more than
one grade level, while a 5 indicates that they are performing in relation to a
given standard more than one grade level above their current grade.
Grading in
this way communicates that learning – and the grades associated with learning
-- is a continuous process and that students can not only master a concept but
can also continue to deepen their understanding and application of the concept.
While we
realize that our grading system challenges the assumptions of traditional
grading systems, we do so with the intent to fix what is broken about those
systems. While our system may not be perfect, it better captures the essence of
a community of learners that recognizes the necessity for authentic feedback to
learners so that they can become leaders of their own learning. By empowering our students with the
knowledge of what they need to
improve upon, we uncover for them the process of learning and provide a
foundation to make learning a life-long endeavor.
