Rethinking Grading…Again

A few years ago, while doing research for my dissertation, I came across an article entitled, “Redos and Retakes Done Right” by Rick Wormeli.  This was circa 2012, and our school was working to modify our grading practices.  There were students who were failing everything, and our leadership team was working to determine what we could do to fix the problem.  Because it was as ongoing issue, I decided to do my dissertation on grading practices in middle school classrooms.  I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for at the time, but the results, articles, cases studies, etc. that I found made me rethink the way I graded my students.

First, I was able to see that giving them a zero for not doing work would just give them an opportunity to not complete the work.  Some of them didn’t care about getting a zero anyway, and as long as they didn’t have to do the work, they were fine.  The difficult part was I wasn’t able to see if the students has mastered the standards we were covering.  All the zero told me was that the student decided not to do the work; it told me nothing about the student’s understanding of the work.  That year, I also had an opportunity to go to a conference in Atlanta to see Mr. Wormeli discuss standards-based grading and ways to hold students accountable.  After the two day session, I was convinced, and I’d even started redesigning the way I would incorporate grades.  That was five years ago.

Fast forward five years, and we still have issues with grading.  At our school, we did a book study of Myron Dweck’s book, Grading Smarter, and the book helped to relieve many of the issues we had.  In addition, we incorporated an assessment plan and we changed the gradebooks in Infinite Campus to reflect standards-based grades.  We already were using Mastery Connect, so the practices that we wanted all teachers to incorporate were aligned with other policies we were using in the school.  Teachers were excited.  Students were excited, and we were finally teaching students for mastery versus teaching for compliance.

During one of our admin team meetings this year, we revisited grade books again, and we were able to see that we needed to incorporate this training for our teachers again.  Our principal, Dr. Taylor, led the training, and we’d worked collectively to develop an Academic Check In program with ideas that Ms. Douglas brought back from one of her professional learning sessions.  The academic check in would hold students accountable, and the compliance checks for effective grading practices would hold teachers accountable.  Weeks prior, I’d done a training for teachers on the Gradual Release of Responsibility, which was aligned with all that we were putting back out to our teachers.   Our admin team knew that we were headed in the right direction because everything that we trained teachers on were research-based, effective strategies.

We’ve made some progress, and our leadership team has already worked to set priorities for the upcoming year.  Our admin team has also has some conversation about things we need to change for the upcoming year and ways to ensure every child is successful at our school….not some children, but all of them.  We continue to learn from one another, and with the right people, I know we will continue to make great strides.  The grading piece is just one of the expectations we will work to enhance for the rest of this year and next year.  It can’t be compromised, and it’s essential that teachers implement their grading practices fairly and consistently to ensure that students at Carver Road Middle are successful.

Dr. Gardner

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