My Current Ten Reflections on Grades/Grading

1) Grades have not changed much since the late 1700s (which, interestingly, coincides with the industrial revolution whose strength was the ability to produce consistent products, consistently)
2) There is a great deal of disagreement in what part of the student’s performance in the classroom is graded (i.e., do you grade participation, work completed, meeting deadlines)
3) The meaning of a letter grade (and where it falls in relation to pass/fail) differs among teachers, and certainly among parents and what they had when they were students
4) Quasi-non-grading methods (rubrics, numbers like 1-2-3-4, or statements like Proficient and Mastery are only subtle changes to a letter grade—students figure out how to translate these methods back into a letter grade). How can we use this?
5) Deciding when to grade can change the outcome of the student's letter grade.
6) Does everything deserve to be graded?
7) What are the options for not grading?
8) If you are interested in not using letter grades, what can you do within the school or district in which you work as you have to abide by their structure? Some schools have only narrative grades.
9) Is grading harmful? Counterproductive?
10) What are the implications of a student who fails the WASL, but does well in class OR fails class, but achieves high proficiency on the WASL? Does it invalidate the assessment or the classroom, or something else?

UPDATE: (2008.09.30) Here is an article on the cash incentive program used at Washington Middle School. Attendance and punctuality have improved, but grades have not. I guess if it means being in the right place at the right time, money will get you there. If it means working on your own time for however long it takes to get the learning, money is just not enough. It is over at The Core Knowledge Blog.

(2008.09.30) And again, another great post on the topic over at Flypaper.

as well as .... at the blog entitled, Thoughts About Education Policy.

Comments

Personally, i think there is something wrong with the grading system in the first place. Why people judging a kid's ability base on his/her performance at school or a specific activity? And these grade will follow these kids for life, affecting his future and may discourage kids who have low grades. I want a better system but well not like i can think of a better one.

Thanks for clarifying your assumption about teacher effort, Travis. It seems reasonable. I look forward to you discussing in a future post about political, religious, and psychotheraputic roots of implications of reasons not to grade students in traditional ways.

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I think the reality around grading is that when my students attend high school and college, they will have to deal with the traditional grading system. So, I have to ask myself, What is the purpose for grading? I think it is multifacted, provide students with feedback, prepare them for the inevitable (especially college - where magna cum lade means 'A's), and give my clientelle what they expect (primarily parents). I think the challenge is how to be precise in this process (this is where rubrics come into play). How to help students achieve proficiency (the lovely state tests). I don't think it is necessary to grade everything. I do think there are times when students can self-evalutate, with training, and teachers can spot check work. Grading for me is about always asking myself "What do I believe is critical for my students to know". That is what I have to grade with care.

Travis - Your point #10 is actually at the heart of a debate that is being had behind closed doors at my high school. Our beginning of the year inservice had a great deal of time dedicated to the question of what actually goes into a grade. The real question being - what does it mean to grade with standards based grading?

It's tough - your post is very thought provoking!

@Ariel Sacks, for me there is no direct comparison or implication that can be made from a classroom grade v. an assessment score. However, many people would say that they should match, and certainly people outside of the field of education would expect the two scores to match.

There is some overlap when a student is prepared. For me, for instance, a student who goes through my course and gets the writing techniques and the process, will do well on a state assessment simply because the assessment is so simple in comparison to the intricacies of knowledge in the course of the course.

What do you think? What do you others think?

Interesting discussion here. I'm especially wondering about your question #10, because I've seen educators look down on teachers whose grades don't match up with the students' test scores. But grades and test scores don't measure the same thing. So what should we be measuring in our quarterly grades? Is it better to measure against one (somewhat arbitrary) grade level standard or measure a students' progress against him or herself? I guess as Patricia is saying, we are not likely to be able to reform the way our cities and districts require us to grade, but given the flexibility we are given in how we calculate the grades, which way should it be? What about for ELL's? grade against the same standard, or grade progress? What about for ELL's who are not receiving services they need?

There's an interesting discussion going on over at "Thoughts About Education Policy" on grading as well:

http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008/09/grades-are-stupid.html

I think all the comments, taken together, illustrate that schools and teachers don't have a clear, common understanding of what grades are supposed to do: inform for the purpose of improvement? rank and sort kids? serve as motivation? (good luck with that one...)

Here's a question: If grades went away, tomorrow, forever--who would gain? and who would lose?

Great thoughts, Travis. Keep posting on this subject.

@Bob Heiny, your last question regarding how many teachers I think....

Well, I tend to surround myself, group up, and team with teachers similar to myself with regards to the philosophical aspects of education. We differ widely on practice or subject, but the theory and philosophy are similar. Given this, I think 100% of the teachers with whom I work closely see distinctions of grading.

To be even more transparent, my favorite author on the subject is Alfie Kohn (whose link is in the original post).

I like to think of grades not as "grades" but as a way to provide feedback to my learners. When I have better ways of doing this--conferences, narratives, rubrics, charts, video reflection, video annotation, skill comparison against a model--I use those first. The letter grade is last in my wishes and wants, but required by every district for which I work so the student gets at least one letter grade at the end. Prior to that, it is whatever best suits the activity, skill, student.

I tend to use the term "feedback" or "assessment" to get away from the grade issues.

I also believe in a difference between assessment FOR learning (learning what a student knows/does not know for future skill acquisition--preassessment) and assessment OF learning (learning what a student acquired for future reteaching or goals--post assessment).

I also believe that not everything needs to be assessed as much of what we do in my class is practice the skills that the students learn. After all, what better time to practice a skill than when the instructor is there for assistance and feedback?

I usually find out what a student (or students) needs, create a lesson to move the student closer to the goal, and practice and practice and practice, then take a progress check (but not grade) to find out how the student is progressing (and here is where many teachers do wrong, I do not use this for a grade in the grade book. It is an assessment to further my teaching of the student), then, when the student has shown that they are ready to demonstrate mastery of the skill, we assess OF learning.

This is the way that real life works: sports, painting houses, military, teaching your son how to walk, or teaching that other son to use the bathroom, or the other son how to ride a bike.

Speaking of which...let's take that last thought--riding a bike.

So I want to teach my son how to ride a bike, the worst possible way to do this is to give a pretest and put that grade in the book. Then I could show him how to ride a bike, of course on a larger bike with me riding it fast and him watching. Then I ask him to do it. He does okay for a first time, and I write the grade down in the book for how he is doing (he got a F, by the way). Then I give him 15 minutes to work on the skill by himself in a location where I am not. The next day, I give a pop-test and have him ride the bike for me; he does not do well; I put that grade in the book. This goes on for a few days and then, in the end, my son fails riding a bike, based on the grades in the book. However, he does possess the skill of learning to ride so has mastery despite me.

And this process of education is worse that leaving the child alone to figure it out himself. At least if you leave him alone, he has a chance to enjoy the process of learning.