Proficiency Grading

Ken O’Connor, A Repair Kit for Grading—15 Fixes for Broken Grades

Under the old grading system an “A” would mean you have reached that standard, but how did you get there? Did you ace the test or did you hand in extra credit to make your “B” turn into an “A”? Did your math teacher and algebra teacher have the same level of consistency in what a level of achievement with a particular letter grade actually represents? Grades should be artifacts of learning, and students need to receive grades that reflect what they have actually learned.

Ken O’Connor book A Repair Kit for Grading, addresses how educators interested in examining and improving grading practices should ask the following questions. 

 “How confident am I with the grades students get in my classroom, and are they consistent, accurate, and meaningful that support learning?”

“How confident am I that the grades I assign students accurately reflect my school’s or district’s published performance standards and desired learning outcomes?”

The primary goal of a standards-based system is for all students to “meet standards.” In addition, educators must consistently evaluate their achievement using similar criteria and for grades to support learning, they must involve students in the grading process. A Repair Kit for Grading is organized into four categories that can make significant contributions to improved achievement, create positive attitudes about learning, and give teachers and administrators ways to make the repairs. 

ü  Fixes for Practices That Distort Achievement:

Include only achievement, provide support for the learner, seek evidence of achievement, determine actual level of achievement, reports absences separately, and uses only individual achievement evidence.

ü  Fixes for Low-Quality or Poorly Organized Evidence:

Organize and report evidence by the standards/learning goals, provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations, compare each student’s performance to preset standards, and rely only on quality assessments.

ü  Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculation:

Consider other measures of central tendency, use professional judgment and alternative reassessing to determine real achievement.

ü  Fixes to Support Learning:

Uses summative evidence, emphasizes recent achievements, and involves students in key roles in assessment and grading practices that promote achievement.

Ken O’Connor’s comprehensive Learning Team Study Guide for A Repair Kit for Grading—15 Fixes for Broken Grades is available online from ETS Assessment Training Institute at http://mymassp.com/files/ARK-StudyGuide.pdf

Focus

Mike Schmoker, FOCUS—Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning

Dr. Mike Schmoker, is passionate about school reform. “The argument of this book is simple: If we choose to take just a few well-known, straightforward actions, in every subject area, we can make swift, dramatic improvements in schools.” He encourages us to put aside the initiatives and address what is essential for student achievement and FOCUS On:

What We Teach:

A reasonably coherent curriculum that is actually taught with “essential standards in sufficient intellectual depth, with adequate time for deep reading, writing, and talking.” In 2003 Robert Marzano’s research summarized; “Curriculum may be the single largest factor that determines how many students in school will learn.” All students deserve and need a combination of adequate amounts of essential subject-area content, concepts, and topics using habits of intellectual thinking and interactive skills with authentic literacy.

How We Teach:

To ensure all students are learning, sound lessons must be taught using the same basic formula Madeline Hunter taught us years ago, but few implement consistently. Effective lessons must include a clear learning objective referred to before, during, and after instruction with specific feedback to the student on their progress towards the learning target. A teacher must model the thinking of the skill or strategy being taught. (I DO.) These “think a louds” are not funneling the learning, but demonstrating the skill or strategy being taught. Then throughout the learning the teacher provides guided practice at brief intervals to allow students to practice or apply what is being taught either independently (WE DO), or in a group setting (YA’LL DO) and finally, checking for understanding with formative assessments to guide the learning. (YOU DO.)

Authentic Literacy

This is integral to both the “what” and the “how” we teach. It is the “spine: that “holds everything together” in all subject areas (Phillips & Wong, 20101 p.41). What is needed is purposeful reading and writing in every discipline. Reading changes everything. A student needs multiple exposures to a variety of text that allows them to evaluate characters, lessons, and themes so they can learn to argue and interpret, including close reading in literature, social studies, and text.   

Elevating the Essentials by:

The implementation of the FOCUS elements must be ongoing in every team meeting and every profession development session in every school and district meeting. They must be collaboratively created by a team of teachers “working together in a true professional learning community where curriculum and lessons are continuously developed, tested, and refined on the basis of assessment results.” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006; Schmoker, 2006).

“This time, let’s not just talk about it. Let’s all of us actually do it. Right now.” (Schmoker)

Choosing to be Great

Jim Collins & Morten Hansen, Great by Choice--Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

“Jim Collins’ Great by Choice study shows that whether we prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more upon on what we do, than on what the world does to us.” We all make mistakes, but we can also self-correct, survive, and build greatness. I used Jim Collins’ nine years of research on why some companies flourish in uncertainty and others do not to guide my thinking on how to create a leading teaching and learning system for all students and staff.

Collins clarified that successful leaders are not bold risk takers, but observers of what is working and figuring out why it works and build upon these proven foundations. It reminded me of the work of Douglas Reeves, a noted expert on education and school reform and author of the Leadership and Learning Antecedents of Excellence Matric. Reeves work builds clarity on how good results with clear understanding of the reasons why it work is “Leading” rather than “Lucky.” Even poor results with a clear understanding of the reason is a “Learning” opportunity rather than a “Losing” prospect.

Collins work helps define how leaders can influence growth and achievement with fantastic discipline, productive paranoia, and empirical creativity. This true self-discipline requires having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no matter how difficult. During times of change or uncertainty they look to engage directly with the evidence and rely upon observations to determine how to best proceed with the genius of the AND, not the OR. The leaders of enduring great systems are comfortable with paradox, having the ability to embrace two opposing ideas in the mind as the same time and still retain the ability to function well.

They found extensive evidence of having both:

Discipline and Creative,

Imperial Validation and Bold Moves,

Prudence and Big Hairy Audacious Goals,

Paranoid and Courageous,

Furiously Ambitious and NOT Ego Centric,

Performance Standards with No Excuses and Never Going Too Far,

to become “Great by Choice.”

Consistent PLC’s

Richard DuFour & Michael Fullan, Cultures Built to Last--Systemic PLCs at Work

There are many challenges facing education today, and adequate funding to do what needs to be done is the topic most often discussed. Frustrating as this debate has become, I would propose it is also a very exciting time for educators to be the recipients of best practices supported by research. Focusing on what works for our students allows us to narrow our emphasis and to actively collaborate with intent to create the system of achievement for each of our students. Having more students grow, reach, or exceed their outcome goals is a humbling experience. You are providing them with the experience of success now and in their future.

The cultural shift from “what to teach” to “what should students know and be able to do” is a journey requiring change which can be more than difficult. Richard DuFour is the leading authority of Professional Learning Communities. His most recent book Cultures Built to Last, Systemic PLCs at Work supports schools to create a system where they can experience significant gains in student achievement by embracing this student learning focus. “Professional Learning Communities can play a central role in dramatically improving the overall performance of schools, the engagement of students, and the sense of efficacy and the job satisfaction of educators.”

DuFour’s thoughtful reflections in his book Cultures Built to Last aids educators to recognize there are three big ideas that serve as the core of what it means to have a systematic Professional Learning Community in your school. This isn’t a program, but a process where all educators generate a relentless focus on high levels of learning for all students, in a collaborative culture, with a collective effort, to improve practice, and drive continuous improvement. It can be exhausting and yet exhilarating to support and enhance achievement for all of our students. It is exciting to be a part of a team of educators who are embracing change for success now and in the future.

What is Your Mindset?

Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success--How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential

Of all the books I have read in the past five years, this is the one book I keep returning to. It has changed my thinking in many aspects of parenting, teaching, and now as a principal. The exciting news is this important way of approaching learning is now often integrated into many aspects of teacher professional development. Today I had the opportunity to drop in on a Math Studio session and teachers were learning how to apply this thinking with students while teaching math. The Instructional routines, The Habits of Mind and Habits of Interaction are embedded with opportunities of developing the "mindset" of how effort matters.

What is the mindset? Dweck explains, "If you have the fixed mindset, you believe that your talents and abilities are set in stone–either you have them or you don’t. You must prove yourself over and over, trying to look smart and talented at all costs. This is the path of stagnation. If you have a growth mindset, however, you know that talents can be developed and that great abilities are built over time. This is the path of opportunity–and success."

A few years after the book was published Dweck applied more thoughts with reference to education. "Teachers who strive to design challenging, meaningful learning tasks may find that their students respond differently depending on the student's assumption about intelligence. Students with a growth mindset may tackle such work with excitement, whereas students with a fixed mindset may feel threatened by learning tasks that require them to stretch and take risk."  

So what can we do as parents and teachers to support our children's growth towards their success? Dweck summarized it in the article, Even Geniuses Work Hard as follows:

•  Don't praise ability, praise effort.
•  Fast learning is not always the deepest and best learning.
• Teach the growth mindset, it's o.k. to struggle.
• Have each child set growth goals to increase a skill or learning strategies.
• Make every child stretch--don't let kids coast or be known as "smart".
• Have students monitor and chart their progress towards their goals.
•  Support students to develop an understanding their effort towards their goals makes a difference
•  Your feedback should be specific towards their effort--no more "Good job!" or "You’re smart!"
• Grade for growth and effort.

There was a saying the 1960's that went: Becoming is better than being. Dweck helps us remember; "The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be." 

Kimberly Miles, Lead Learner

Pink Motivation

Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us 

“Find what drives us.”  

I am always thinking about our students. What a diverse group of amazing kids. Their joys and challenges are played out in a wide spectrum of life and nothing surprises me more when I sit back  and watch them figure it out, or not. On the playground, lunchroom, morning line-up, or in the classroom they are constantly learning something. Whether it be how to share their "coat hook" in kindergarten with a new "friend", or how to agree to disagree during partner pair share discussions in math. Their mouths and minds are constantly on the go.

I picked up Pink's book Drive  to learn more about motivation and what does indeed drive us"? Some would argue it is a business book and the content is geared  more toward employees and their production in the work place. Their is some truth to that, but Pink frequently references applications for teaching and learning. His insights are often reflective on how educators can create the systems needed to motivate our students to be responsible for their own learning. I don't want to summarize the whole book, although their is an amazing recap on the web. Here is the link http://www.marshallcf.com/assets/book_reviews//Drive.pdf

Pink was asked to summarized the book in 140 characters. It audio format he stated, "Carrots and sticks are so last century. Drives says for 21st century work we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery, and purpose." It got me thinking on the importance of collaboratively building a system where students are aware of their learning targets, have a strong foundation of the importance of a growth mindset, and to develop the determination and fortitude on why it matters.