I’ve been sitting on this post for a very, very long time, perhaps because I hadn’t been entirely confident in my review of classroom assessment literature enough to make a claim about standards-based grading (SBG) that isn’t exactly positive. In short, the literature suggests that practices most likely to support learning are achieved by keeping graded summative assessments to a minimum.
SBG might not be doing this.
Continue readingBack-to-back posts because I was playing a board game this weekend and forgot to post that night! I have a really hard time being critical of this book, considering in many ways it helped launch my classroom assessment and grading research. Granted, the more I learn, the more asterisks I attach to ideas in Grading for Equity, which is tough for me to admit. I simultaneously recommend that all educators read this to understand basic concepts, like standards, while I also acknowledge that it’s still a grade-focused, and possibly grade-heavy approach. That is, standards-based grading (SBG) is a lot closer to traditional grading than many might think, and has the potential to result in even more grades, just in new packaging (e.g., “Needs Improvement,” and “Proficient”). Therefore, here are my thoughts after my first rereading of this book since really diving deep into classroom assessment and grading literature.
Continue readingIn cobbling together sources for my 2025 MTA Summer Conference presentation on “Getting More from Your Formative Assessments and Grading,” I searched my blog to link posts on books I consider foundational. Somehow, I never published the post I wrote after reading Zerwin’s “Point-less” years back. Her work deserves some attention…
Continue readingIf I were ever asked to coordinate a schoolwide grading system change again, I would take a cue from the authors of Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning (2013). In Chapter 6, this gem of a statement reads…
Continue reading“It is easy to achieve consensus on solutions that do not require teachers to make changes in their day-to-day practice, even when data show that such practices are consistently ineffective.” (pp. 140-141)
Given over 20 years of schools attempting to implement standards-based grading (SBG), Lee Ann Jung’s 2024 release, Assessing Students Not Standards, offers a refreshing alternative. Is it part of a post-SBG era? Maybe. There are a lot of SBG concepts that are universally good, and the message is clear from researchers and teachers: let’s keep those. But there’s more. We can rebuild SBG. We have the experience. We can make SBG better than it was. Better, stronger, faster.
Another message is getting clearer, too, and seems right at home with the ungrading movement. Jung states “we need to grade better, but we also need to grade less. A lot less” (p. 20). This is aligned with my own research on exploring 1) ways to reduce summative grading, and 2) find formative grading alternatives (i.e., so they remain formative). So, let’s get into some stuff in the book…
Continue readingMy recent review of assessment has continued, which now includes two major findings:
In other words, 1) any assessment that a teacher grades automatically becomes summative, even if they call it “formative” (I’m referring to these as false formatives), and perhaps more importantly, 2) grades get in the way of learning. These findings suggest that best way to support learning is by a) limiting grading to only true summative assessments given at the end of the grading period (e.g., quarter, trimester, semester, academic year), and b) using alternatives to grading formative assessments that otherwise effectively make them summative. Therefore, my next stage of reviewing literature focuses on reducing summative grading and exploring formative grading alternatives (i.e., so they remain formative). As for now, one of those practices *might* be retakes, which has been on my mind ever since I saw a tweet from @JoeFeldman. Given the findings above, which establish a theoretical framework to study grading, let’s take a look at how retakes are used now, and how they could be used in the future, if we even need them at all…
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This is my first contribution to a major publication for all teachers—not just those teaching Latin—since I officially began researching grading practices at UMass. I’ll get to what you’ll find from me in Starr’s book later, but I just received my copy and wanted to share some top reasons why you probably want this book…
Continue readingYears back, I wrote about how a standards-based model to learning and grading (SBG) fell short of the bar. This was true of a particular kind of SBG—the kind with 10-30 standards being tested and graded every single quarter, scheduling multiple reassessments for each one, and still using scores of 1-4 in a way that keeps focus on points (not learning). The good news is that not all models are like that. The bad news is that a LOT of them are, which in turn give standards and accompanying practices a bad name. Teachers end up hating SBG, and admin scrap plans for any schoolwide change.
To be clear, I’m more of a “burn it to the ground” kind of guy, advocating for little to no grading whatsoever, but I’ve also found that a basic understanding of standards is crucial to ungrading. In fact, I’m not sure you can do it without standards…
Continue readingI haven’t really seen grading presented as an ableist practice, but after attending a workshop at UMass, I can see how framing it that way illustrates the problems of grading in a thought-provoking way. Why ableist? Here’s an analogy: I’m certainly not *able* to contend with the top archers in the nation, but no one is forcing me to, either. It’s a choice. My lack of ability doesn’t close any doors. I just won’t win a medal. Yet elementary and secondary school is not an option for kids. Placing grading obstacles in the way of their learning and future learning is a bit like disallowing me to go to my local archery range until I were to place among the top athletes in the nation. So, consider these common characteristics of graded assignments as we unpack each one through an ableist perspective:
There are three broad categories of grading criteria that have the potential to unite all teachers in the effort to grade more equitably, effectively, and efficiently. Bold claim—I know—yet I’m confident there’s something for everyone. In fact, I’m dying to hear what could be missing, so leave a comment if you think of a fourth “p” or something that doesn’t fall under one of the others. Guskey’s three categories were lurking in a 1996 article (“Reporting On Student Learning…”). He opens with a quote that sounded like it could’ve been written by a contemporary scholar, yet on the next page reveals that it was from 1933! Confirming my own experience with reading studies dating back to the early 1900s, Guskey saw consistent findings 60 years before his article, which now is approaching 30 years old. We’re talking about nearly a century of consensus on some things. One of those things is that everything teachers grade can fall under the following three broad categories of criteria:
Product – Grading what students know and can do at a certain time
Process – Grading how students get there
Progress – Grading how much students gain
These categories support my use of—and advocation for—grading process, and I’ve had an interest in grading progress, or what I’ve been calling “growth.” I’ve avoided grading product entirely. Why? My experience has been that learner differences seem far too amplified in a second language class for us to grade language ability in that way. In addition, recent discussions about grading performance & competency (i.e., product) do suggest there’s litte reason to do so. Regardless, we don’t have to go ahead and nix grading product altogether, especially if that’s what most teachers need to hold onto to get on board. Therefore, let’s look into how grading any one, or all three categories of product, process, or progress could unite teachers in a common pursuit of equitable, effective, and efficient grading (or ungrading)…
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Magister P. 