How and what a teacher grades says a lot about what a teacher or a team of teachers values. Consider two teachers: teacher x and teacher y.
Teacher X and Teacher Y both work in a public school district whose teaching contract specifies a minimum of nine grades per quarter for high school students. Both teach ninth grade English.
A look at a student's grade report in Teacher X's class shows four vocabulary assignments categorized as homework, three vocabulary quizzes, a bell work grade and a worksheet grade. Nine grades total.
This feels like a complicated word problem, doesn't it?
Here's a trick question to take your thinking on a tangent: what do these grades say, if anything, about feedback students might be getting?
- What is the student learning? How can you tell?
- What does the teacher value? How can you tell?
- What's missing? What makes you think that?
A look at a grade report for a student Teacher Y's class reveals grades in categories: homework, classwork, projects and tests. There are eight homework grades all titled journal, only two are not exempt from the final grade (so they are not averaged into the final score). There are two tests one named TKAM and another TSB. There are eighteen grades in the classwork category: four vocabulary practices, five quick writes, four discussion grades, and five independent reading grades. One of each type (vocabulary, writing, discussion and reading) appears to count toward the final grade. An essay is noted under projects as is a book trailer (both count).
- What is the student learning? How can you tell?
- What does the teacher value? How can you tell?
- What's missing? What makes you think that?
This feels like a complicated word problem, doesn't it?
Here's a trick question to take your thinking on a tangent: what do these grades say, if anything, about feedback students might be getting?
Whew!
Teachers should not independently control or create how the grade book is set up for any given course. I have come to believe that these decisions must be made by course-alike teachers working together in PLC groups (or the like). Grade books from course to course should match. Your A and my A for the same course, let's say English 9, should mean the same thing. When individual teachers make individual decisions about assignments and grading policies our As don't often mean the same things.
Make sense, doesn't it?
I'd love to hear your thinking around grades and grade books (or grade book programs). Who decides at your school or in your district? How do your teacher teams calibrate or insure alignment when it comes to assignments, assessments and grades (evaluation)?
Teachers should not independently control or create how the grade book is set up for any given course. I have come to believe that these decisions must be made by course-alike teachers working together in PLC groups (or the like). Grade books from course to course should match. Your A and my A for the same course, let's say English 9, should mean the same thing. When individual teachers make individual decisions about assignments and grading policies our As don't often mean the same things.
Make sense, doesn't it?
This is so interesting! How does one negotiate that if you are on a team with teachers who don't share your values? What if others want to have a grade book with multiple choice tests about reading and writing skills and you'd like to grade authentically with pieces of writing and reading notebook pages.
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying. I agree in theory, but in practice it's not easy at all!
So true, Michelle! The conversations can be tough when not everyone has the same philosophy or is not willing to compromise. Also, I think it's helpful if the school sets policy (which my new school does).
DeleteYes - all about what is being valued by the teacher, team, or school district. Love the question about what the grades are saying about the feedback students are receiving! This post was very interesting to me, and later today I will return to reread it. Thoughtful! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking a lot about grades and assessment lately because I am reading Reimagining Writing Assessment by Maja Wilson with a group of teachers - you would love the conversations, by the way! It has really pushed my thinking as does this post. I have one teaching partner and we both have the same grades, but I know this is not true in our high school. I find Michelle's comments interesting too - what if you don't share the same practices? What happens then? So much to think about.
ReplyDeleteI loved discussing Wilson's Rethinking Rubrics on the English Companion Ning (years ago); I'm sure I'd like her new book too. Though I have come to appreciate how learning progressions (and scales) can be just one (of many) tools I use to help students see next steps for working on sophistication in writing. My current school is the closest I have come to aligning grades across a course, but it stems from policy and teachers comply. At my former school, though we were encouraged to align grades and grading policies, it never happened, so the variance from teacher to teacher was definitely present and discussed (by administrators, students and parents). I wonder how Wilson's voice on this issue of grading would compare to Tom Schimmer's? Thanks for adding to my thinking Leigh Anne!
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