Interesting yet brief article detailing how one school is making the transition to standards based grading.
Several quotes from the article really stood out for me and made me ask some interesting questions that all teachers in our school should reflect upon.
Do we suffer from "grade fog"? -- ie do our grades communicate student learning or mastery of content or more than that. If it is more than that can our students and parents really know how well they are doing?
Do we grade for compliance?
What percentage of our grades reflect a student doing, saying, or acting a way we have asked or told them to do. Do we grade for completion of work or mastery demonstrated by the execution of that work?
Are grades flexible enough for a student to improve upon them as they are able to do so? If a student fails a test or doesn't score well do we allow them to retake the test. Yes, making a new test is a pain, but isn't the goal of the test for teachers to also help determine what and how much a student has learned. If the test does reveal that a student isn't learning as much as expected do we give the student a chance to continue learning and show their mastery at a later date?
If we allow the students do retake a test which grade do we use? The first one, the most current one, or an average of the two. I'm guessing most teachers would say an average of the two. Mathematically it makes sense....using a second test to raise the first. However, if we are using grades to show what a student has learning/mastered/achieved shouldn't we just use the second measure since it is closer to real time.
When a sprinter runs a race we don't average the various heats together. What matters is what they do in the final run. Shouldn't we extend the same courtesy to our students?
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