Don’t Touch My Bucket Of Points! - Grading Student Learning
By Doug Lillydahl, Communication Arts
As part of the exploration of making learning accessible and visible to teachers and students here at SHS the Freshman Accelerated English Team has developed a grading model that we think emphasizes the right things to students-- but which challenges students to think about their achievement differently. Namely, students can’t rely on a bucket of points stashed safely away in their lockers, and they must understand how to reliably perform and improve the skills that are most valuable to success.
The big difference? The FAE model uses the last three performances of each given learning target to create a projected (and ultimately final) grade.
There has been some friction with parents and students around this concept, and it has been heightened a bit because this is different than the model they encounter in a few other classes here at SHS. “It doesn’t count until the end? That stresses me out!” and “What stops a student from just sandbagging until the final 3 assessments?” are two familiar challenges that are raised. As our teachers have adjusted to addressing these questions, they have increasingly avoided confirming “Yep, it is the last three that count.” Without context and teacher over-communication of the rationale, the potential power of the arrangement is eroded away.
So, what is the context and rationale that supports this method? To begin, the skills that students are to display are cross-cutting literacy skills for comprehending complex language, producing credible responses that fit an audience and purpose, and otherwise participating in the dialogues of the world.
Such basic skills are highlighted and then refined over the course of the year-- with growing expectations for achievement.
Students need to understand and “own” their personal long-term growth for these targets-- it wouldn’t make sense to allow a students to know by the end of 10 weeks of less challenging demands that their points bucket nearly ensures an “A.” We care about the end of journey achievement.
So why not just use the final assessment? This was something we experimented with last year, and we found that it did raise the stakes on one final assessment too much. Three has allowed us to distribute the “pressure” around the opportunities while still holding the expectation that this is about reliable, stable learning, not the “luck” of one strong/weak assessment on a good/bad day. On the other hand, the very few students who have tried to simply “turn it on at the end” have lost the chance to check on and improve their learning.
Do our students feel more permission to experiment and take risks at the start of semester -- and thereby learn more early on? Students should feel freer to experiment and stretch knowing that the earlier assessments are merely projections of their learning. By the end, a timely and accurate picture of a student’s aptitude for the target will exist. So, we hope to encourage that risk-taking growth, but spreading that attitude is certainly a growth goal for our FAE team.
While this is a shift for “point bucket” strategists or students who only have faith in their accumulation of points and not in their own skill abilities, it is one that feels right as a director and teacher. As we become more consistent in our responses to student and parent concerns, and students recognize the rationale behind these decisions, another cultural tool to support students in deep learning will strengthen.
The big difference? The FAE model uses the last three performances of each given learning target to create a projected (and ultimately final) grade.
There has been some friction with parents and students around this concept, and it has been heightened a bit because this is different than the model they encounter in a few other classes here at SHS. “It doesn’t count until the end? That stresses me out!” and “What stops a student from just sandbagging until the final 3 assessments?” are two familiar challenges that are raised. As our teachers have adjusted to addressing these questions, they have increasingly avoided confirming “Yep, it is the last three that count.” Without context and teacher over-communication of the rationale, the potential power of the arrangement is eroded away.
So, what is the context and rationale that supports this method? To begin, the skills that students are to display are cross-cutting literacy skills for comprehending complex language, producing credible responses that fit an audience and purpose, and otherwise participating in the dialogues of the world.
Such basic skills are highlighted and then refined over the course of the year-- with growing expectations for achievement.
Students need to understand and “own” their personal long-term growth for these targets-- it wouldn’t make sense to allow a students to know by the end of 10 weeks of less challenging demands that their points bucket nearly ensures an “A.” We care about the end of journey achievement.
So why not just use the final assessment? This was something we experimented with last year, and we found that it did raise the stakes on one final assessment too much. Three has allowed us to distribute the “pressure” around the opportunities while still holding the expectation that this is about reliable, stable learning, not the “luck” of one strong/weak assessment on a good/bad day. On the other hand, the very few students who have tried to simply “turn it on at the end” have lost the chance to check on and improve their learning.
Do our students feel more permission to experiment and take risks at the start of semester -- and thereby learn more early on? Students should feel freer to experiment and stretch knowing that the earlier assessments are merely projections of their learning. By the end, a timely and accurate picture of a student’s aptitude for the target will exist. So, we hope to encourage that risk-taking growth, but spreading that attitude is certainly a growth goal for our FAE team.
While this is a shift for “point bucket” strategists or students who only have faith in their accumulation of points and not in their own skill abilities, it is one that feels right as a director and teacher. As we become more consistent in our responses to student and parent concerns, and students recognize the rationale behind these decisions, another cultural tool to support students in deep learning will strengthen.