Tagged: standards-based grading

Initiating a Change in Grading Practices

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This is the third of four blog posts about facilitating healthy grading conversations in schools (read posts one and two here). The series is intended to help educators navigate the challenging and sometimes turbulent waters of changing any traditional practice—but especially grading practices—where tradition, the court of public opinion, and the potential for failure at the expense of students’ future opportunities hurl immediate deterrents in the way.

Initiating changes in grading practices requires action research—there’s really no way around that. Read more

What If Policy Focused on Learning Instead of Grading and Reporting?

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Lately I have had cause to review a variety of grading policies from various districts. Clearly, I realize that the focus of a grading policy is obviously grading, but I can’t help but think that they unintentionally take the focus off of learning. Read more

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Standards-Based Grading: A Million Little Things

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Currently, one of my favorite television shows is A Million Little Things on ABC. It’s a show about a group of adult friends who, under unexpected circumstances, come together to support each other through an incredibly difficult time; the range of experiences is intense and the solutions often layered and complicated by their own personal stories. That said, the premise of the show (for this conversation) is not as relevant as the show’s tagline. Read more

Standards-Based Grading the Right Way

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My son began his high school career this fall and has had what I would consider a successful transition. He didn’t get used to his new surroundings, teachers, or student population overnight, but with time, he has grown comfortable and really enjoys the new setting. Not everything has gone perfectly, but he has responded when obstacles have arisen. Before school started we talked about what he would need to do this year to find the success he desired; we discussed what would be similar and different between his junior high and high school experiences. He wanted to get it right. But we also had to talk about the unknown, the things that he just wouldn’t know about until he got there, what he wouldn’t understand until he lived it. As uncomfortable as that may have been, this is transition and learning. For teachers, a change in grading practices can run parallel to this experience. Read more

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It’s Okay NOT to Reassess

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It’s okay NOT to reassess everything all of the time; there, I said it. Now, before I explain more thoroughly let me say that I am fully aware that this post may not make me the most popular kid at the assessment table and that I’m almost certain that the standards-based purity police will be out in full force; doesn’t matter because what I’m about to say needs to be said. Read more

Beware Normative Tendencies in the Classroom

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Ask any group of teachers if they grade on the curve and you will receive an almost universal, resounding no! Now, I believe teachers when they say they don’t grade on the curve; however, what has become apparent in recent years is that shedding some of our traditional habits—our normative grading tendencies—is easier said than done. Even those who have moved to a more standards-based approach to grading can, if not mindful, fall back into habits misaligned with a modern assessment system. Read more

SPARK Testing so students learn!

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This guest post is written by Kara Hageman, a PhD student in Educational Psychology at the University of Iowa and former high school science teacher. She blogs at www.spiralingassessment.com. Kara can be reached via email at kara-hageman@uiowa.edu or via Twitter @hageman97

A poem is learned by heart and then not again repeated. We will suppose that after a half year it has been forgotten: no effort of recollection is able to call it back again into consciousness (Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885, p. 8).
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