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Reflection

Today, I finished my report cards for this last trimester. As I was working on them, I began reflecting on the practice of grading and posting grades. Pedagogically, I have come to believe grades are nothing more than labels we put on children and they are counter-productive to curious joyful learning. This year I have taken steps to minimize the presence of grades in my classroom and develop ways to give both students and parents more meaningful and actionable feedback. 

This week, I will reflect specifically on the steps I have taken to minimize the presence of grades in my classroom. Next week, I will reflect further on how grades label children and how those labels impact their identity and self-efficacy.

Reflection to Practice

When I began teaching, I utilized a traditional grading system, which I have come to view has the most harmful. I graded specific assignments and tests, then averaged scores for a grade. If a student did not complete the work, they received a zero in the gradebook. (I am embarrassed to admit that this was my grading practice for my first few years as a teacher.)

After learning more about assessment for learning (Chappuis, 2009), versus assessment of learning, and after reading several books on grading by Marzano; I made my first major shift in grading practices. No student received a zero in my gradebook, the lowest score I entered was 50%. A student could rebound from a 50% when averaging grades, but they could never recover if they got a score lower than 50% in my gradebook. I also began providing more feedback when returning student work and my goal was to provide grades/feedback within one day (a lofty goal, that admittedly I did not always accomplish).

As I continued to digest what I had learned in Marzano’s books, I started moving to a more standards-based grading system utilizing a 4-point scale. I put the target standard(s) on the assignments/tests. One of the biggest shifts I made, was I no longer average grades, students received the latest grade that demonstrated their best learning. I also let kids revise their work on assignments and tests. I believed if students were “punished” for earlier mistakes in the learning process by averaging grades, then learning in my classroom was not a safe risk-free environment. And, it is not learning, if we begin the process with mastery. Averaging grades and summative, or high-stakes, tests discouraged the process of learning.  

This year, I created a standards-based guide for each trimester. I gave this to the students and their parents, so both had more detailed information about where the grade came from and specific areas of focus for improvement. Data folders were created for the each of the kids to graph their scores. 

Next year, I hope to better utilize learning progressions within my grading system to help students and their parents know where they are within their personal learning journey and what the next steps are for growth. I am wondering how I might “grade” the process more than the outcome to help improve growth. But I worry how this will impact the kids in terms of maintaining a sense of urgency to grow as a learning, particularly for kids who struggle, and/or produce quality work. I also hope to provide parents with some specific activities to do at home—real world activities—like baking to learn fractions. 

I do not believe in grades, but unfortunately the grading system is not going away. So, I need to figure out how to make the grading system work better for the me and the kids I serve. I would love to hear other ideas of how to help improve growth and the quality of work by manipulating the grading system to the kids’ advantage. 

Chappuis, J. (2009). Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. Glenview, IL: Pearson.

Marzano, R. J. (2006) Classroom Assessment & Grading that Work. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Stamina

Reflection

There are two and a half weeks of school left this year. It is a crazy busy time of year. It is the time of year I always wonder—will I have the stamina to make it to the end? This got me thinking about the concept of stamina in reading. Many people define “stamina” in reading has a child’s ability to read over a prolonged period of time, typically 30-45 minutes of sustained independent reading. But I would argue that the definition of stamina should also consider the types of text a child reads in addition to the length of time. In a world of instant feedback and short bursts of text, students have difficulty maintaining comprehension over a longer piece of text. 

Reflection to Practice

To address this issue of building reader stamina across longer pieces of text, my mind is synthesizing the work of several literacy experts. DIY Literacy: Teaching Tools for Differentiation, Rigor, and Independence by Kate Roberts and Maggie Beattie Roberts; Understanding Texts & Readers: Responsive Comprehension Instruction with Leveled Text andA Teacher’s Guide to Reading Conferences: The Classroom Essentials Seriesby Jennifer Serravallo. Next year, I want to focus on using micro-progessions to teach readers about text complexity during reading/small group conferences. By synthesizing and applying the work of these literacy experts, I hope to help kids redefine the idea of a just right book—a book they choose because the text is a good match for the reading goal they set. By understanding what makes a text complex, students can use that knowledge to better comprehend what they are reading and effectively participate in discussion groups.

The ABCs of Summer Learning

This week’s blog post is a follow-up to last week’s commentary. I have continued to struggle with an end of the year tradition—"The ABC Countdown.” Particularly with the fact that the countdown seems to emphasize getting out of school to begin the summer, instead of emphasizing ways in which we can continue be curious joyful learners over the summer as well as during the school year. I also struggle with the loss of valuable instructional time once the countdown begins.

Instead of just reflecting on why I struggle with the tradition and possible options for change next year, I decided to do something about it now while it is fresh in my mind. This week, I am attaching a link to my Google Drive where readers will find the working draft of my new end of the year countdown—"The ABCs of Summer Learning.” Feel free to steal any or all of the resource.

“The ABCs of Summer Learning” will include a list of summer learning opportunities to continue to be curious joyful lifelong learners over the summer. Hopefully, it will help students make authentic connections between what we do in school and how it can be applied in the “real world” outside of school. My thinking is, I will contribute some of the ideas for a few of the letters, the whole class can add some options, and this is a great research activity for some of my early finishers in class (the kids who finish an assignment early and are looking for something meaningful to do). 

To add an additional level of rigor to this activity, I am going to model the countdown after a book recommended by Dr. Steven Layne during a workshop of his I attend in the fall—Q is for Duck: An Alphabet Guessing Gameby Michael Folsom. As the title suggests, what is unique about this alphabet book, the person creating the alphabet page must know the attributes of a topic and be able to explain them in order to create the alphabet page.

I am excited to try this activity in the hopes of creating a new tradition that promotes not only summer learning, but lifelong learning. Hopefully, you will find the activity helpful as well. Any additional ideas and/or feedback is welcome. 

The ABCs of Summer Learning - Working Draft