Scene: Fall 2019. End of the nine-week grading term is tomorrow. I am checking grades put into our grading software. 89.5 automatically rounds to a 90. 89.4 does not. I round up the 89.4 anyway.
I teach, and students learn.
Scene: Spring 2020. COVID-19 shuts down school to in-person learning. Our SBDM votes to give everyone a base grade of 59%. If students turn in one assignment, they pass the class.
I teach, and students learn.
Scene: Spring 2021. Hybrid schedule – SBDM removes the baseline 59%. Students struggle with the fluid schedule of in-person and virtual learning. Grades are lower than pre-COVID times. I wonder, along with many of my peers, if we can/should assign grades to work which is negatively affected by students’ homelife. I feel extremely frustrated trying to assign a letter grade which accurately reflects student learning and growth.
I teach, and students learn.
Scene: Fall 2021. I am accepted as a member of the Prichard Committee Teacher Fellows. I am tasked with researching and completing an action research project. I decide I need to dig into the #ungrading movement. What is the best way to assess student learning? Teaching through a pandemic boiled the problems I have with traditional grading to the surface. I have many questions:
- What do grades mean?
- Does the grade actually reflect the amount or depth of content covered?
- Are students being rewarded for “playing school” well?
- Do students want grading practices to change?
- How much authority to change my grading practices do I have when grades are tied to scholarship money? To school policy?
I am not the only stakeholder in this process. So I asked my students, in an ideal world, what would grading look like? They told me:
- I would like school to highlight what you’re good at and focus on teaching you more about that so your individual role in society would be something more unique than what it usually is
- I would rather it be on participation and small quizzes rather than big tests because they kind of freak me out.
- Certain things come into account while grading. Some people do really well in classwork and homework but not tests.
- I think that if test grade equaled only a little more points than a regular assignment that would make tests less stressful and it wouldn’t be absolutely detrimental to our grades. I don’t think a kid should fail based on if they did bad on a test as long as they can prove they are able to do the work.
- I feel like once we are all out of school, and are out in the world, we’re going to realize that there isn’t always one right answer and we have to cooperate with each other instead of getting one personal evaluation, so in an ideal world I don’t think we should be graded, it’s not preparing us for the real world.
- I believe the letter grading system makes the school system school much less helpful to everyone who is in it. The system makes it to where most people are much less interested in what is being taught and more interested in getting a good grade, and they don’t go together. Most will just cheat or listen just long enough to do the assignments, then forget the information they just “learned”. It doesn’t give any reason to go deeper than than the basic info given to get a good grade.
Scene: Fall 2022. My students and I collaborate and design an authentic, meaningful way to assess their learning. It will look different and evolve throughout the year but here are a couple guideposts that will be essential:
- Student Self-reflections 2-3 times throughout the year. These will probably become less structured as students get a handle on the new process.
- These self-reflections will be an open dialogue about their learning and what grade they think their learning represents.
- Student created rubrics, portfolios, grade contracts, process conferences are all ideas that students and I work through as we figure out how to best measure the learning happening in the classroom.
I teach, and students learn.
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