Standards-based Grading

Dr. Megan WelshNeag School of Education

Connecticut Assessment Forum8/13/12

• Data from one suburban school district located in the Southwest (13 elementary schools)

• Focused on third and fifth grade (~4000 students over two years)

• Data collected included standards-based grades and state test scores, in two years, and interviews of approximately 40 teachers. Interviews focused largely on mathematics instruction and grading

The study

Discuss the promise and potential pitfalls of standards-based grading, drawing context from a study conducted in one district.

Goals Today

1. To communicate with parents about student achievement

2. To provide information to students about their performance

3. To track student progress over time

Why grade?

Feedback

Giving feedback:1. Ask clarifying questions

2. State what you value

3. Discuss how the performance/ behavior at hand is consistent or inconsistent with your values

Therefore, grading is all about values

What are your values?

Do you believe….

Grades should reflect achievement of intended learning outcomes—whether the school is using a conventional, subject-based report card or a report card that represents these intended learning outcomes as standards.

What are your values?

Do you believe….

The primary audiences for the message conveyed in grades are students and their parents; grading policies should aim to give them useful, timely, actionable information.

Teachers, administrators, and other educatorsare secondary audiences.

What are your values?

Do you believe….

Grades should reflect a particular student’s individual achievement. Group and cooperative skills are important, but they should be reflected elsewhere, not in an individual’s academic grade.

What are your values?

Do you believe….

Grading policies should be set up to support student motivation to learn. A student should never reach a place where there is no point doing any more work because failure is inevitable.

The promise….

Standards-based grading is intended to support these values, while also…

1. Improving alignment of curriculum and standards

2. Improving communication with parents3. Generating scores that can be directly

compared with state tests

Report cards that…

• Grade students according to performance level descriptors, usually in line with the state test (Advanced, Goal, Proficient, etc.)

• Grade according to specific strands or objectives found in state standards documents (or the Common Core State Standards)

Tend to be more widespread at the elementary level due to the specificity of objectives

What is standards-based grading?

Standards-based report cards, some examples

1. How to get buy in from teachers, principals and parents?

2. What professional development is needed?

3. How to monitor implementation of the new approach?

Some considerations in adopting a standards-based report card

1. What grading scale to use?2. Whether to grade on objectives, strands, or

content areas?3. Which objectives/strands/content areas to

select?4. Whether (and how) to adapt forms or

grading policies for English language learners and students with disabilities?

Some considerations in developing a standards-based report card

If you want to be able to compare report card grades to state test scores, then you should use the state test performance levels.

This is easier said than done…. Each teacher is likely to interpret the performance levels differently.

What grading scale to use?

Year 1No guidance on how to operationalize each performance level.

Year 290 and above=“Exceeds,” “80 and above=“Meets,” etc.

You can get guidance from the state….

http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/cedar/assessment/cmt/cmt_gen4_resources.htm

But what does it really mean to “Meet” the standard?

Performance Level

Geometry and Measurement Descriptors (Grade 3)

Below Basic Limited ability to…1. Solve problems involving time 2.Estimate lengths and areas 3. Measure lengths and identify appropriate measurement units for a given situation 4.Identify, classify and draw 2-dimensional shapes

Basic 1. Adequately solve problems involving time 2. Marginally estimate lengths and areas 3. Marginally measure lengths and identify appropriate measurement units for a given situation 4. Competently identify, classify and draw 2-dimensional shapes

Proficient 1. Competently solve problems involving time 2. Marginally estimate lengths and areas 3. Marginally measure lengths and identify appropriate measurement units for a given situation 4. Competently identify, classify and draw 2-dimensional shapes

Who is the primary audience?

Teachers if grading on specific objectives, they must teach and assess those objectives

Parents how much information can they reasonably digest?

Whether to grade on objectives, strands, or content areas?

What is MOST important?

1. Endurance: Skills that will stay with students for a long time

2. Leverage: Skills that are applicable to many academic disciplines (e.g., nonfiction writing, reading tables and charts)

3. Readiness for the next level of instruction: Skills that students must have for success in the next grade/course

Which objectives/strands/content areas to select?

1. Ask whether the standard is an appropriate expectation without adaptations.

2. If the standard is not appropriate, determine what type of adaptation the standard needs.

3. If the standard needs modification, determine the appropriate standard.

4. Base grades on the modified standard, not the grade-level standard.

5. Communicate the meaning of the grade.

Adaptations for English language learners and students with disabilities?

Organizing for grading….1. Grade book: specify the skills associated with each score

2. What kinds of scores to record in the grade book and how will they be converted to performance levels?

3. Assessments: can focus on one skill at a time, or encompass multiple skills.

If multiple skills are assessed, teachers must generate skill-specific scores

Some considerations in generating a standards-based grade

Decide what kinds of achievement grades reflect

Product: what students know and are able to do at a particular point in time

Process: students' behaviors in reaching their current level of achievement and proficiency

Progress: how much students improve or gain from their learning experiences

Some considerations in generating a standards-based grade

Grades reflect student achievement at one point in time.

Some decisions:

- Should grades reflect performance in relation to end of year expectations, or in relation to expectations at the time the grade is recorded?

- When a unit is completed and skill assessed in September, should the end-of-year grade be based on September performance or be reassessed?

Product

Grades reflect student work habits.

Some decisions:

- How to incorporate incomplete work in grades?

- How to incorporate homework in grades?

- What to do if a student works very diligently, but does not perform well.

Process

Grades reflect amount of improvement made over the school year.

Progress

Student 9/1 9/8 9/15 9/22 9/29 10/6 10/13 10/20 MeanWayne, Bruce 70 73 75 78 85 90 90 95 82

Prince, Diana 81 81 83 81 83 83 82 82 82

Kyle, Selina 95 90 90 85 78 75 73 70 82

To evaluation of one approach

From design considerations….

Gathered data in one district, which experienced a headline similar to the one shown previously. The study:

1. Evaluated the degree of consistency between grades and test scores

2. Identified grading practices that yielded greater consistency

3. Determined how much of the difference between grades and test scores could be attributed to subject, teacher, and year

4. Asked teachers about their experiences with the method

The study

In its 3rd year of standards-based grading during interviews

District grading policy

Year 1Reported by strand or objective, depending on grade level

Asked teachers to take students’ “pattern of progress” into consideration in generating grades

Required teachers to decide for themselves how to operationalize each performance level

Extensive professional development on grading, including the importance of grading effort separately

Years 2/3Reported by strand and content area, with strands graded on a -. √, + basis

Asked teachers to grade based on achievement level at the end of the marking period

Required teachers to convert percent correct to performance levels (>89%=A)

Limited professional development, some to address changes to reporting system. Many teachers seemed unaware of changes in policy.

The Study

1. Evaluated the degree of consistency between grades and test scores

State test

Falls Far Below Approaches Meets Exceeds

Grades

Falls Far BelowJohnny Sally

BruceCraig James

Approaches Kate Janice Jessica Darren

Meets Glen HuihuiMia Tess

Hunter

Kevin Becky

Will

Exceeds Holly Dan

Phoebe Ruth

Wayne

Lesley

Victoria

Three ways to think about consistency:

1. Do grades and test scores match exactly.

2. Is the list of students rank-ordered by grade similar to the list rank-ordered by test score?

3. How large is the difference between grades and test scores?

The Study

1. Evaluated the degree of consistency between grades and test scores

ReadingMathematicsWriting

The Study

2. Identified grading practices that predict consistencyGrading practice The extent to which the teacher….Performance-focused Graded on attainment of standards instead of effortOverall achievement Focused on overall achievement rather than student progressFrequently assessed Regularly collected assessment data for grading purposesMultiple approaches Used assessments that encompass different aspects of a skillLinked assessments to objectives

Identified the performance objectives addressed on assessments and maintained objective-based records

Clear grading method Could explain a method of converting assessment scores to gradesCreated assessments Created their own assessments linked to the academic standards.Assessed most objectives Made an effort to assess most objectives in the state standardsStandards-focused Focused on assessing standards more than curriculum attainment

The Study

2. Identified grading practices that predict consistency

- Teachers who adopted standards-based grading practices tended to assign the exact same performance level as the state test

- Teachers who adopted standards-based grading practices tended to grade lower than the test in mathematics and higher than the test in writing

However, these relationships are weak to moderate

-

- We found no relationship between grading practices and consistency of rank-order

- We found no relationship between grading practices and grading rigor in reading

The Study

3. Sources of variation in convergence rates

Exact match Rank-order Test – grade difference

The Study

4. Teacher experiences with standards-based grades

Many teachers faithfully implemented standards-based grading and were supportive

However, a few concerns arose……

Concern #1

Lack of alignment between the curriculum and the standards- All 3rd grade teachers reported that the mathematics

text was not aligned with state standards

- The district put considerable pressure on teachers to follow the text without supplementing it

Standards-based grading

District-adopted curriculum

Interpretability

Teachers and parents initially found the system confusing. This made the newspapers.

Concern #2

WA districts address common concern with standards-based grading

FeasibilityOrganizing for grading was tough.

Concern #3

9/1 Quiz 9/1 Quiz 9/1 QuizSally 8/10 GM1. length/area 9/10 GM2. time 7/10 GM3. measuringJoe 9/10 GM1. length/area 8/10 GM2. time 8/10 GM3. measuringStacy 10/10 GM1. length/area 10/10 GM2. time 9/10 GM3. measuringJim 7/10 GM1. length/area 7/10 GM2. time 9/10 GM3. measuring

9/1 Quiz GM1 9/1 Quiz GM2 9/1 Quiz GM3Sally 8/10 9/10 7/10Joe 9/10 8/10 8/10Stacy 10/10 10/10 9/10Jim 7/10 7/10 9/10

OR

Solve word problems

Write numbers as words

Concern #4

Changing messages/expectations as the report card format changed

1. Design a grading system consistent with your district’s values…

-What skills to include?-What grading scale to use?-Usefulness as a communication tool with whom?-Whether to grade on process, progress, or

product?-How to communicate about student behaviors?-How to grade students with special needs?

Recommendations

2. Communicate about those values-With district employees-With the community-With parents

3. Use those values as context for why you are adopting standards-based grades

Recommendations

4. Develop a report card form and a grading policy, with input from teachers, administrators, parents, and community members

5. Pilot the report card in a small number of schools and gather feedback from teachers, parents and students about it

6. List to the feedback. Use it to revise the grading policies/report card format

Recommendations

7. Market the final version of the report card to parents, community members, and district employees. Communicate the reason for adopting the new grading system, again couched in district values

8. Train educators how to use the report card:• organizing for grading• grading method (process, product, progress)• operationalizing the report card scale (e.g., What does

“Goal” look like)?• grading students with special needs

Recommendations

9. Train them again…. Train them every year……

10. Evaluate the grading system. Share results with teachers, parents, community members and administrators.

11. Explain how you (and they) should use the results to make changes

Recommendations

Do you have any questions or comments?

Dr. Megan WelshNeag School of EducationDepartment of Educational Psychology249 Glenbrook Rd. Unit 2064Storrs, CT 06269(860) 486-6125

megan.welsh@uconn.edu

Thank you!

Some good references