How do we, as educators, implement grading practices which are just and equitable for all of our students?
Among the myriad issues facing educators today – designing lessons for new environments, connecting with students, fulfilling curriculum expectations – teachers are tasked with the critical responsibility of providing our students with feedback on their learning. Students, like teachers, are experiencing emotional turmoil, constant change, and unpredictable futures. The anxiety around grades is only elevated by these circumstances, particularly when the variables in learning environments mean students aren’t always on a level field in their abilities to participate in classes, complete assignments or engage in all opportunities to demonstrate their learning. Amongst the learners in even one teacher’s class, there may be those who have personal devices, steady bandwidth and a quiet home-learning environment; for others, family members share one device, bandwidth can’t support video-streaming, and distractions abound. On average, there is likely some combination of the advantages and hindrances, and it can vary daily. How then do we, as educators, not only mitigate this added stress but, more importantly, implement grading practices which are just and equitable for all of our students?
Faced with this question, many teachers feel that they are constrained by policies and protocols, or that they are incapable of leading a systemic change across a school. But there are elements of practice explicitly within the teacher’s control that can have a direct impact on student learning and their well-being:
Standards-based grading can provide teachers with clear, specific, and actionable information around a student’s learning. Consider the sample from two different gradebooks below:
The teacher with Gradebook B has the opportunity to refer to the gradebook and understand that a student, or group of students, is still emerging or partially proficient on a specific standard. Instruction can be focused on this standard at the next immediate opportunity. In contrast, the teacher with Gradebook A sees a student with a 76% on a recent assessment and, unless the teacher has an outstanding memory, it is unclear whether the student may have incorrectly answered questions around one of a variety of standards being measured. The teacher would have to retrieve the exact assessment to be sure. Further, students themselves can benefit from the specificity of such information, particularly as they develop into the older grades such as Middle School. Learners are capable of recognizing that they possess a solid, proficient understanding of one particular skill or concept within a standard, but that they need to focus their efforts on those specific areas which they have not mastered – yet.
Equally as important as communication with learners, the clarity offered by standards-based grading enables parents to develop not only an accurate understanding of their child’s learning progression, but to recognize specific areas of focus around which they have an opportunity to contribute support. Communicating the depth and detail of information included in a standards-based grading system is well-received when parents realize the connection to the long-term benefits for their child. Perhaps increasingly beneficial as students develop into older grades and the natural teacher-parent communication path diminishes, parents become empowered to have direct information about what is occurring in the classroom. And, particularly as parents may be increasingly-active participants in the remote learning experience, conversations amongst teacher, student and parent(s) or caregiver(s) become acutely focused around meaningful, actionable information rather than, “how many assignments is my child missing?”. Whether a parent may themselves be capable of providing direct support – there’s no underlying expectation to give your Senior assistance in Calculus, for example! – the support structure for the student becomes inherently more explicit and, as a result, more effective.
Above all else, remember that your purpose is to ensure that each of your students learn the skills and concepts that you teach, and recognize that you have likely have ample opportunity to control your classroom practices by which you provide students feedback, including grades. We cannot control a student’s learning environment when they are at home; we cannot control the external influences to students’ lives such as trauma, emotional stress, absence of support structures and other factors. Yet we can ensure they learn in an equitable, supportive environment and receive clear, specific information about their learning when we design grading practices with the explicit measure of learning as the goal. Given the upheaval across the entire globe, this presents a tremendous opportunity to create positive change and proactively create a new “normal” for our collective future.
Schimmer, T. (2014). Grading with a standards-based mindset. AMLE Magazine, (2)4, 10-13.
Greenstein, L. (2010). What teachers really need to know about formative assessment. ASCD, Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/110017/chapters/The-Fundamentals-of-Formative-Assessment.aspx
Lindsay Prendergast served as a Principal in the Dominican Republic for the past five years and now serves as a Professional Learning Consultant for NWEA and Certified Framework Specialist for the Danielson Group. She also enjoys consulting directly with schools implementing standards-based grading and reporting practices with her colleague Dr. Colin Brown. Lindsay is a 2020 ASCD Emerging Leader and, when not busy collaborating with fellow educators around grading practices, she can be found kiteboarding or hanging out with her husband and their spotted dog.
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Lindsay Prendergast