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Moving to standard based grading when we have no curriculum. 

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Moving to standard based grading when we have no curriculum. 

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For Social Studies next year we are moving to standard based grading, but we do not have a curriculum, set learning targets, common assessments or any current reading materials. The current materials is from 2010 that has been shared by previous teachers.

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If a student meets expectations after two pieces of evidence, is this sufficient? Or does this suggest that perhaps the rigor needs to be increased?

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When creating the rubric, based on the performance descriptors, should I be outlining how students can not only meet expectations, but also exceed? Or should I wait until a student has met expectations multiple times before introducing differentiated assignments with a rubric that demonstrates how to exceed the standard? (I am torn because I feel like not outlining the expectation early doesn't feel like I'm pushing the students to their potential off the bat, but merely being responsive. But I also don't want to push the envelope and demoralize a student who isn't getting to "Exceeding")

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Research Supporting Proficiency-Based Learning: Grading + Reporting

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Research Supporting Proficiency-Based Learning: Grading + Reporting

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When educators talk about "proficiency-based learning," they are referring to a variety of diverse instructional practices-many of which have been used by the world's best schools and teachers for decades-and to organizational structures that support or facilitate the application of those practices in schools. Proficiency-based learning may take different forms from school to school-there is no universal model or approach-and educators may use some or all of the beliefs and practices of proficiency-based learning identified by the Great Schools Partnership.

On this page, we have provided a selection of statements and references that support and describe one foundational feature of proficiency-based learning systems, Grading and Reporting. In a few cases, we have also included additional explanation to help readers better understand the statements or the studies from which they were excerpted. The list is not intended to be either comprehensive or authoritative-our goal is merely to give school leaders and educators a brief, accessible introduction to available research.

"Although grades have served as a common and important measure for assessing students, grades have lacked a uniform or standard meaning. According to a wide array of research, secondary teachers relied on a variety of factors to determine students' grades (Brookhart, 1993; Cross & Frary, 1999; Guskey, 2009; McMillan, 2001; Stiggins, Frisbie, & Griswold, 1989). For example, teachers utilized assessment of processes such as effort, behavior, class participation, homework completion, ability level, and growth (Brookhart, 1993; Cross & Frary, 1999; Guskey, 2009). Cizek, Fitzgerald, and Rachor (1996) observed, 'It seems that classroom assessment practices may be a weak link in the drive toward improving American education' (p. 162). From both the importance and subjectivity of grades emerged a movement in secondary education to grade students solely on achievement in key academic standards within a curriculum (Guskey, 2009; Marzano, 2010)." -Pollio, M. & Hochbein, C. (2015, November). The association between standards-based grading and standardized test scores as an element of a high school reform model. Teachers College Record, 117(11).

"Decades of research point to indisputable evidence that grading penalties are far less effective than feedback and personalized learning. Responsive teaching has always reacted to the needs of learners over the agendas of teachers: it is less about delivering a grade than about delivering timely, accurate, and specific feedback (Reeves, 2010)." -Duek, M. (2014). Grading smarter, not harder: Assessment strategies that motivate kids and help them learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

"Unfortunately, many educators have fallen into the trap of believing that punitive grading should be the chief consequence for poor decisions and negative behaviors. These teachers continue to argue that grading as punishment works, despite over 100 years of overwhelming research that suggests it does not (Guskey, 2011; Reeves, 2010). Just because a student does her homework doesn't mean that she did so to avoid a grading penalty. As Guskey's (2011) extensive research shows, students do not perform better when they know that 'it counts.'" -Duek, M. (2014). Grading smarter, not harder: Assessment strategies that motivate kids and help them learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

"In order for students to move ahead to more difficult standards when they achieve proficiency with current standards (as in an authentic standards-based grading system), educators need to assign grades that clearly communicate students' current levels of performance for the standards they are working on. To achieve this type of feedback, grades must be based solely on students' current levels of performance with specific standards. Unfortunately, many grading practices currently used in the United States base grades on an assortment of additional factors beyond academic performance, such as a student's level of effort, innate aptitude, rule compliance, attendance, social behaviors, attitudes, or other nonachievement measures (Friedman & Frisbie, 2000; Ornstein, 1995). Including these measures in students' grades creates systems in which 'grades are so imprecise that they are almost meaningless' (Marzano, 2000, p. 1). Genuine standards-based grading practices separate what students know and can do from how they behave and other nonachievement measures. Thus, while there are many ways that schools can improve student achievement, changing grading practices may be the most expedient way to address multiple issues at once." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"Douglas Reeves (2008) stated, 'If you wanted to make just one change that would immediately reduce student failure rates, then the most effective place to start would be challenging prevailing grading practices.' The most effective grading practices provide accurate, specific, and timely feedback designed to improve student performance (Marzano, 2000, 2007; O'Connor, 2007). Rick Wormeli (2006) explained what a grade ought to be: A grade is supposed to provide an accurate, undiluted indicator of a student's mastery of learning standards. That's it. It is not meant to be a part of a reward, motivation, or behavioral contract system. If the grade is distorted by weaving in a student's personal behavior, character, and work habits, it cannot be used to successfully provide feedback, document progress, or inform our instructional decisions regarding that student-the three primary reasons we grade. Unfortunately, many grades do not fit this description." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"More than a third of all teachers believe that grades can serve as a meaningful pun- ishment, despite extensive evidence showing this is not the case (Canady & Hotchkiss, 1989). David Conley (2000) found little relationship between the grade a teacher gave and whether or not a student was proficient. Multiple studies have shown that teachers who teach the same subject or course at the same grade level within the same school often consider drastically different criteria in assigning grades to students' performance (Cizek, Fitzgerald, & Rachor, 1995; McMillan, Myran, & Workman, 2002). Reeves (2008) stated: Three commonly used grading policies . . . are so ineffective they can be labeled as toxic. First is the use of zeroes for missing work. . . . Second is the practice of using the average of all scores throughout the semester. . . . Third is the use of the 'semester killer'-the single project, test, lab, paper, or other assignment that will make or break students." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"These practices create inconsistencies in assigning grades that would likely never be tolerated in other venues, such as sports or medicine. Reeves (2008) added, 'The same school leaders and community members who would be indignant if sports referees were inconsistent in their rulings continue to tolerate inconsistencies that have devastating effects on student achievement.' Thomas Guskey (2011) compared the current practice of combining multiple measures into overall omnibus grades to combining unrelated health measures into a single score: If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person's physical condition, we would consider it laughable. How could the combination of such diverse measures yield anything meaningful? Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students' achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behavior into a single grade that's recorded on a report card-and no one questions it." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"Andy Fleenor, Sarah Lamb, Jennifer Anton, Todd Stinson, and Tony Donen (2011) described grades as a game and explained that, sometimes, the best grades simply go to the students who do the most work: Quantity should not trump quality. Grades should be based on what students know and can do, rather than on how much work they can (and will) complete. Students should receive regular and specific feedback about what they know and don't know. Offering regular, specific feedback and grading that are based on learning and not behavior will have an immediate positive impact on your school. It will redefine students' role in the learning process, completely alter communication patterns with students and parents, and ultimately will improve performance top to bottom. As Fleenor and his colleagues pointed out, resolving grading-system problems can have positive impacts throughout an educational system." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"Grades should provide feedback to students, document their progress, and help teach- ers make decisions about what instruction a student needs next (Wormeli, 2006). When grades fulfill these goals, the effects on a school or district can be significant. Reeves (2011) found that effective grading policies reduced student failures, leading to a cascade of unexpected benefits: reduced discipline problems, increased college credits, more elective courses, improved teacher morale, fewer hours of board of education time diverted to suspensions and expulsions, and added revenues for the entire system based on a higher number of students continually enrolled in school." -Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader's guide to standards-based grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

"There are certainly many things that inspired teachers do not do; they do not use grading as punishment; they do not conflate behavioral and academic performance; they do not elevate quiet compliance over academic work; they do not excessively use worksheets; they do not have low expectations and keep defending low-quality learning as 'doing your best'; they do not evaluate their impact by compliance, covering the curriculum, or conceiving explanations as to why they have little or no impact on their students; and they do not prefer perfection in homework over risk-taking that involves mistakes." -Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. London: Routledge. (NOTE: Visible Learning for Teachers is based on more than 900 meta-analyses, representing well over 50,000 research articles, 150,000 effect sizes, and 240 million students.)

"In choosing an appropriate reporting form based on purpose, educators must seek a balance between detail and practicality. A standards-based report card should present a comprehensive picture of students' academic strengths and challenges. It also might include space to record students' self evaluations, depending on the defined purpose. But regardless of the form, a standards-based report card should be compact and understandable and should not require inordinate time for teachers to prepare or for parents to interpret (Linn & Gronlund, 2000).... [R]eport cards consisting of multiple pages with long lists of skills and multiple categories of information are not only terribly time consuming for teachers to complete, they typically overwhelm parents with information they do not know how to use. More often than not, such report cards simply overwhelm parents." -Guskey, T., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Developing standards-based report cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

"A practical solution to the problems associated with these different learning goals, and one used by increasing numbers of teachers and schools as they develop standards-based report cards, is to report separate grades or marks to each. In this way, the habits, efforts, or learning progress are kept distinct from those representing assessments of achievement and performance (Guskey, 2002b, 2006c; Stiggins, 2008b). The intent is to provide a more accurate and more comprehensive picture of what students accomplish in school." -Guskey, T., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Developing standards-based report cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

"While teachers and schools in the United States are just beginning to catch on to the idea of separate grades for product, process, and progress goals, many Canadian educators have used the practice for years (Bailey & McTighe, 1996). Each marking periods, they assign as 'achievement' grade to students based on their performance on projects, assessments, compositions, and other demonstrations of learning. This achievement grade represents the teacher's judgment of students' levels of performance or accomplishment relative to explicit product goals or standards established for the subject area of course. Decisions about promotion, as well as calculations of grade point averages and class ranks at the high school level, are based solely on these achievement or product grades." -Guskey, T., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Developing standards-based report cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

"Pulling out the nonacademic factors from grades based on product goals also will likely improve the relationship between grades and the scores students attain on large-scale assessments (Conley, 2000; D'Agostino & Welsh, 2007; Welsh & D'Agostino, 2009; Willingham, Pollack, & Lewis, 2002)." -Guskey, T., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Developing standards-based report cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

"Because of concerns about student motivation, self-esteem, and the social consequences of grading and reporting, most teachers base their grading procedures on some combination of [product, process, and progress] learning goals (Brookhart, 1993; Frary, Cross & Weber, 1993; Friedman and Manley, 1992; Nava & Loyd, 1992; Stiggins, Frisbie & Griswold, 1989). In many cases, they combine elements of product, process, and progress into a single grade or mark. Evidence indicates that teachers also vary the goals they consider from student to students, taking into account individual circumstances (Burstuck et al., 1996; Natriello, Riehl & Pallas, 1994; Truong & Friedman, 1996). Although they do this in an effort to be fair, the result is a 'hodgepodge grade' that includes components of achievement, effort, and improvement (Brookhart, 1991; Cross & Frary, 1996). Interpreting the grade or report card thus becomes extraordinarily difficult, not only for parents but also for administrators, community members, and even the students themselves (Friedman & Frisbie, 1995; Waltman & Frisbie, 1994)." -Guskey, T., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Developing standards-based report cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

"If you wanted to make just one change that would immediately reduce student failure rates, then the most effective place to start would be challenging prevailing grading practices. How can I be so sure? Try this experiment in your next faculty meeting. Ask your colleagues to calculate the final grade for a student who receives the following 10 grades during a semester: C, C, MA (Missing Assignment), D, C, B, MA, MA, B, A. I have done this experiment with thousands of teachers and administrators in the United States, Canada, and Argentina. Every time-bar none-I get the same results: The final grades range from F to A and include everything in between. As this experiment demonstrates, the difference between failure and the honor roll often depends on the grading policies of the teacher. To reduce the failure rate, schools don't need a new curriculum, a new principal, new teachers, or new technology. They just need a better grading system." -Reeves, Douglas B. (2008, February). Leading to change: Effective grading practices. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 85-87.

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Research Supporting Proficiency-Based Learning: Grading + Reporting | Great Schools Partnership

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When educators talk about “proficiency-based learning,” they are referring to a variety of diverse instructional practices—many of which have been used by the world’s best schools and teachers for decades—and to organizational structures that support or facilitate the application of those practices…

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Many grading reform efforts fail because reform leaders make the same classic mistakes (Guskey, 2020). Two important lessons learned from these mistakes can guide others in avoiding these errors and drastically improving the chances for success.

Many leaders begin grading and reporting reforms by revising the report card. They modify the report card's content and structure and change how report card grades are determined. Some leaders simply adopt the " standards-based grading " option within their computerized grading program and then launch efforts to inform students, teachers, parents and families, school leaders, and board members of the changes they plan to implement.

What these leaders fail to recognize, however, is that stakeholders' initial concerns are not so much about what is changing but why it needs to change. Stakeholders don't see the grading- or reporting-related problems that reformers may consider obvious. They don't understand, for example, the reporting complications associated with percentage grades, plus and minus grades, class rank, the use of a single grade to describe students' performance, or the misguided use of mathematical algorithms to calculate grades (Guskey, 2015). These stakeholders experienced all these aspects of grading when they were in school. They see little reason to change something that they know and believe has always worked well.

To be successful, explanations of reform initiatives must always start with why rather than what. In challenging percentage grades, for example, reformers must begin by explaining how difficult teachers find it to reliably apply a grading scale that includes 101 discrete levels of performance, two-thirds of which denote levels of failure (Guskey & Brookhart, 2019; Guskey, 2013). Discussions of class rank should begin with descriptions of the impact this process has on students and how, in many instances, it actually hurts students' chances of admission to highly selective colleges and universities (Boccella, 2016).

In explaining the shift to multiple grades, reformers should describe how combining aspects of achievement, behavior, responsibility, and effort into a single grade makes the grade impossible to interpret and diminishes the value of grades in efforts to help students improve (Guskey, 2018). To move away from the use of mathematical algorithms in determining students' grades, educators must show parents examples of how these mindless calculations often falsely depict what students have learned and are able to do (Guskey & Jung, 2016; Rose, 2016).

Stakeholders in the grading and reporting process are generally reasonable people who sincerely want what is best for students. They trust these practices because they see nothing wrong with them. Providing these different stakeholder groups with a sound rationale for change, a thorough explanation of why the change is important, and specific evidence to support the change can drastically improve their openness to and acceptance of reforms.

Lesson #2: Have New Traditions Ready to Replace Old Ones

Traditions have an important role in every society. They are the way we transmit customs, beliefs, or ways of acting from one generation to the next. All our traditions have some origin in the past, and they provide a sense of stability and consistency as we move forward in time. But maintaining traditions that have long outlived their purpose and usefulness can also stifle progress.

Many current grading policies and practices are based more on tradition than on evidence of effectiveness. Changing the way we grade and report student learning means challenging these traditions with the knowledge and confidence that we can do better. But challenging time-honored traditions also means disrupting the security those traditions provide. It means pushing people away from something they find comfortable and familiar and toward a place of uncertainty and anxiety.

Some reform leaders and consultants try to do this through confrontation. They describe these long-held traditions in grading as evil and indefensible. But confrontation rarely succeeds. Instead, it causes discussions of change to degenerate into battles of opposing opinions that divert attention and diminish reform efforts. Evidence indicates that to debate another's opinions often serves only to deepen the other's attachment to those opinions (Maeli, 2016).

To succeed in reform efforts, leaders must be sensitive to the loss of security, the intense anxiety, and the extreme discomfort that accompany abandoning established traditions. They must clearly understand the historical importance of these traditions and why they have been maintained despite the lack of substantiating evidence. Most important, leaders must be ready to offer new, evidence-based traditions to take their place.

Consider, for example, changing the traditions of calculating class rank and selecting the class valedictorian (Guskey, 2014). Many high schools rank graduating students according to their cumulative grade point average, or GPA, believing that selective colleges and universities require this information as part of the application process. But while that might have been true in the past, that requirement is not nearly as prevalent today.

A survey by Eric Hoover (2012) found that only 19 percent of colleges and universities say class rank has considerable importance in the application process, and today that percentage has dropped even further (O'Brien, 2014). Most admissions officers actually express serious skepticism about the meaningfulness of class rank (McKibben, 2017). Schools maintain the practice of calculating class rank primarily because it is a long-held tradition.

Using class rank to select the class valedictorian is particularly ironic because the term valedictorian has nothing to do with academic achievement. It comes from the Latin vale dicere, which means "to say farewell." It is the individual selected from the graduating class to deliver a farewell address at the commencement ceremony called a valedictory.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with recognizing excellent academic performance. All educators champion the idea of acknowledging students' outstanding scholastic achievements. Educators also want to provide students with incentives to work hard and do their very best. But ranking students based on their cumulative GPA and using that ranking to determine the class valedictorian pits students against each other to attain that singular distinction. The process often results in aggressive and sometimes bitter competition among high-achieving students to be that top-ranked individual. Gaining the honor requires not simply becoming a high achiever; it requires outdoing everyone else in the class. And sometimes the difference among these top-achieving students is as little as one-hundred-thousandth of a percent in their weighted grade point average.

To successfully challenge this tradition and change the system, we need to have another system to take its place. The criterion-based Latin system most colleges and universities use to honor high-achieving students, for example, is a useful alternative to the competitive ranking system. At these institutions, students graduate cum laude (with honor), magna cum laude (with great honor), and summa cum laude (with highest honor). Schools award such status based on students' cumulative GPAs, typically 3.50-3.74 for cum laude, 3.75-3.99 for magna cum laude, and 4.0 for summa cum laude.

In turn, we could adopt the procedures that colleges and universities use for selecting the student commencement speaker or valedictorian (Guskey, 2011). Depending on the institution, high-achieving college or university graduates might vote to determine who will represent them as valedictorian at the commencement ceremony. In some cases, the entire graduating class nominates and then votes for the person who best represents the class ideals. Sometimes, the faculty appoints the valedictorian based on a merit system that takes into account not only grades but also involvement in meaningful service projects and extracurricular activities. At some institutions, students compete in an essay contest to give the valedictory speech, while at other schools, a committee composed of students and faculty nominates students for the honor.

Would a system like this work at the high school level? It has at Wilson High School in Reading, Pennsylvania, where they made this change after hearing from past valedictorians that they felt victimized by the competition to maintain the highest GPA. Some students reported that it made high school a repressive, unpleasant experience. Under the changed policy, Wilson rewards students for academic achievement, measured against rigorous standards of excellence, instead of comparing them to their peers (Heesen, 2013). Both parents and students at Wilson High School have had an overwhelmingly positive response to the change. In describing the change, one high-achieving Wilson student said, "I feel that the new system puts the focus on your education instead of competing for a name" (Heesen, 2013). And who delivers the valedictory at the graduation ceremony? A committee made up of faculty members chooses that student, and any senior can audition. Redmond High School in Redmond, Oregon, has implemented a similar program (Tribune, 2013).

These schools succeeded in challenging long-held traditions because they focused on why issues first. They addressed stakeholders' concerns and then implemented evidence-based alternatives that were better for students. They replaced traditions that had long outlived their usefulness with new traditions that proved better for everyone involved. They were purposeful, systematic, informed, and strategic.
References
Boccella, K. (2016, October 30). More top high schools drop out of class-rank system. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved from: http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20161030_More_top_high_schools_drop_out_of_class-rank_system.html.

Guskey, T. R. (2011). Five obstacles to grading reform. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 16-21.

Guskey, T. R. (2013). The case against percentage grades. Educational Leadership, 71(1), 68-72.

Guskey, T. R. (2014). Class rank weights down true learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(6), 15-19.

Guskey, T. R. (2015). On your mark: Challenging the conventions of grading and reporting. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Guskey, T. R. (2018, February 4). Multiple grades: The first step to improving grading and reporting. Education Week Blog. Retrieved from: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/leadership_360/2018/02/multiple_grades_the_first_step_to_improving_grading_and_reporting.html.

Guskey, T. R. (2020). Get set, go! Creating successful grading and reporting systems. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Guskey, T. R., & Brookhart, S. M. (Eds.). (2019). What we know about grading: What works, what doesn't, and what's next? Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Guskey, T. R., & Jung, L. A. (2016). Grading: Why you should trust your professional judgment. Educational Leadership, 73(7), 50-55.

Heesen, B. A. (2013, May 20). Wilson to drop valedictorian distinction; Latin honors system will include more seniors. Reading Eagle. Retrieved from: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=478846.

Hoover, E. (2012, December 7). High-school class rank, a slippery metric, loses its appeal for colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 56(15), A1, A5.

Maeli, J. (2016, March 28). The backfire effect: The more your beliefs are challenged the stronger they become. [Web log post]. Available at: http://thepoliticalinformer.com/the-backfire-effect.

McKibben, S. (2017). Stepping out of rank. Education Update, 59(9), 2-3, 6.

O'Brien, A. (2014, March 26). Rethinking class ranking. Edutopia Education Trends: George Lucas Educational Foundation. Available at: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/rethinking-class-ranking-anne-obrien.

Rose, T. (2016). The end of average. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Tribune. (2013, June 5). School has 29 valedictorians? Is that too many? [Video file]. Accessed at https://news.yahoo.com/video/school-29-valedictorians-too-many-121029330.html on December 6, 2018.

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Classic Mistakes in Grading Reform, and How to Avoid Them

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Many grading reform efforts fail because reform leaders make the same classic mistakes (Guskey, 2020). Two important lessons learned from these mistakes can guide others in avoiding these errors and drastically improving the chances for success. Many leaders begin grading and reporting reforms by revising the report card.

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Results from Fields Stevenson SBG Needs Assessment

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Results from Fields Stevenson SBG Needs Assessment

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Standards Based Grading Professional Development Needs Assessment for Field-Stevenson Intermediate S

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FPSD91 SBG  Reference Guide for Teachers

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FPSD91 SBG  Reference Guide for Teachers

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Practical Strategies for Assessing Student Work

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Practical Strategies for Assessing Student Work

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Learn effective strategies to assess student work under standards-based grading. This post introduces various methods to evaluate student performance accurately and fairly.

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contributed by Saga Briggs

The ultimate goal of teaching is understanding.

But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. We hope students will understand, if not now then before test time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we've done our job.

The problem is, we often rely on these tests to measure understanding and then we move on. There isn't always time to address weaknesses and misunderstandings after the tests have been graded, and the time to help students learn through strategies to ask great questions is gone.

Below are 22 simple assessment strategies and tips to help you become more frequent in your teaching, planning, and curriculum design.

Book TeachThought Professional Development for training on assessment practices that grow teachers
22 Simple Assessment Strategies & Tips You Can Use Every Day 1. An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking
Avoid yes/no questions and phrases like "Does this make sense?" In response to these questions, students usually answer 'yes.' So, of course, it's surprising when several students later admit that they're lost.

To help students grasp ideas in class, ask open-ended questions that require students that get students writing/talking. They can reveal more than you would've thought to ask directly.
2. Ask students to reflect
During the last five minutes of class ask students to reflect on the lesson and write down what they've learned. Then, ask them to consider how they would apply this concept or skill in a practical setting. Exit ticketsmake this easy to administer and review student answers.
3. Use quizzes
Give a short quiz at the end of class to check for comprehension.
4. Ask students to summarize
Have students summarize or paraphrase important concepts and lessons. This can be done orally, visually, or otherwise.
5. Hand signals
Hand signals can be used to rate or indicate students' understanding of content. Students can show anywhere from five fingers to signal maximum understanding to one finger to signal minimal understanding. This strategy requires engagement by all students and allows the teacher to check for understanding within a large group.
6. Response cards
Index cards, signs, whiteboards, magnetic boards, or other items are simultaneously held up by all students in class to indicate their response to a question or problem presented by the teacher. Using response devices, the teacher can easily note the responses of individual students while teaching the whole group.
7. Four corners
A quick and easy snapshot of student understanding, Four Corners provides an opportunity for student movement while permitting the teacher to monitor and assess understanding.

The teacher poses a question or makes a statement. Students then move to the appropriate corner of the classroom to indicate their response to the prompt. For example, the corner choices might include "I strongly agree," "I strongly disagree," "I agree somewhat," and "I'm not sure."
8. Think-pair-share
Students take a few minutes to think about the question or prompt. Next, they pair with a designated partner to compare thoughts before sharing with the whole class.
9. Choral reading
Students mark text to identify a particular concept and chime in, reading the marked text aloud in unison with the teacher. This strategy helps students develop fluency; differentiate between the reading of statements and questions; and practice phrasing, pacing, and reading dialogue.
10. One question quiz
Ask a single focused question with a specific goal that can be answered within a minute or two. You can quickly scan the written responses to assess student understanding.
11. Socratic seminar
Students ask questions of one another about an essential question, topic, or selected text. The questions initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional questions. Students learn to formulate questions that address issues to facilitate their own discussion and arrive at a new understanding.
12. 3-2-1
Students consider what they have learned by responding to the following prompt at the end of the lesson: 3) things they learned from your lesson; 2) things they want to know more about; and 1) questions they have. The prompt stimulates student reflection on the lesson and helps to process the learning.
13. Ticket out the door
Students write in response to a specific prompt for a short period of time. Teachers collect their responses as a "ticket out the door" to check for students' understanding of a concept taught. This exercise quickly generates multiple ideas that could be turned into longer pieces of writing at a later time.
14. Journal reflections
Students write their reflections on a lesson, such as what they learned, what caused them difficulty, strategies they found helpful, or other lesson-related topics. Students can reflect on and process lessons. By reading student work-especially -types of learning journals that help students think-teachers can identify class and individual misconceptions and successes. (See also
15. Formative pencil-paper assessment
Students respond individually to short, pencil-paper formative assessments of skills and knowledge taught in the lesson. Teachers may elect to have students self-correct. The teacher collects assessment results to monitor individual student progress and to inform future instruction.

Both student and teacher can quickly assess whether the student acquired the intended knowledge and skills. This is a formative assessment, so a grade is not the intended purpose.
16. Misconception check
Present students with common or predictable misconceptions about a concept you're covering. Ask them whether they agree or disagree and to explain why.
17. Analogy prompt
Teaching with analogies can be powerful. Periodically, present students with an analogy prompt: "the concept being covered is like ____ because ____."
18. Practice frequency
Check for understanding at least three times a lesson, minimum.
19. Use variety
Teachers should use enough different individual and whole group techniques to check understanding that they accurately know what all students know. More than likely, this means during a single class the same technique should not be repeated.
20. Make it useful
The true test is whether or not you can adjust your course or continue as planned based on the information received in each check. Do you need to stop and start over? Pull a few students aside for three minutes to re-teach? Or move on?
21. Peer instruction
Perhaps the most accurate way to check for understanding is to have one student try to teach another student what she's learned. If she can do that successfully, it's clear she understood your lesson.
22. "Separate what you do and don't understand"
Whether making a t-chart, drawing a concept map, or using some other means, have the students not simply list what they think they know, but what they don't know as well. This won't be as simple as it sounds-we're usually not aware of what we don't know.

They'll also often know more or less than they can identify themselves, which makes this strategy a bit crude. But that's okay-the goal isn't for them to be precise and complete in their self-evaluation the goal is for you to gain insight as to what they do and don't know.

And seeing what they can even begin to articulate on their own is an excellent starting point here.
This post was written by Saga Briggins and was first published by on opencolleges.edu.au; 20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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22 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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contributed by Saga Briggs The ultimate goal of teaching is understanding. But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time.

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Tweet any suggestions to add to this list at @RickWormeli2, or email Rick at rick@rickwormeli.onmicrosoft.com.

For articles authored by Rick and more multimedia, check the links below.

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Assessments & Grading

A teacher attempts implementing re-takes and asks, "What was I getting into? Would I be inundated with work? Would the kids just slack off on the first try at an assignment? Would it even make a difference?" Here's what happened on the blog, The Art and Science of Teaching.

Ken O'Connor, Lee Ann Jung and Douglas Reeves posit that a better grading system would produce grades that are FAST (fair, accurate, specific, timely).

Network website for Assessment FOR Learning, with blogs, forums, videos and hot topic articles on assessment practices. *

Tom Schimmer, one of the great thinkers for leaders and practitioners when it comes to standards or outcomes based assessment and grading, authors this blog.

Shannon Shult-Standards-Based Grading

Douglas Reeves-Effective Grading Practices

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Web series based around his book, Elements of Grading

Highlighting Mistakes-A Grading Strategy ​

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Education Leadership

Larry Ferlazzo responds to a question on balancing district mandates and
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Differentiation

David Cutler interviews Rick Wormeli on doing what's fair in the differentiated classroom, hosting by Spin Education.

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Veritasium asks, "How do you investigate hypotheses? Do you seek to confirm your theory - looking for white swans? Or do you try to find black swans? I was startled at how hard it was for people to investigate number sets that didn't follow their hypotheses, even when their method wasn't getting them anywhere."

Getting Started on Differentiated Instruction ​

Carol Tomlinson provides an explanation on getting started with differentiate instruction.

Assessments, Grading and Mastery Learning: Healthy Practices for All Learners

Lee Ann Jung offers this half-hour differentiated assessment and
grading module.

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RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Tweet any suggestions to add to this list at @RickWormeli2, or email Rick at rick@rickwormeli.onmicrosoft.com. For articles authored by Rick and more multimedia, check the links below. ​ ​ ​ ​ Note: * indicates a website that requires a sign-in to gain access to the material (no cost necessary).

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B.A. (Hon), 1965; Dip. Ed. 1966, University of Melbourne; M.Ed., 1973, University of Toronto

Ken has been an independent consultant from 1996 to the present. He has been a staff development presenter and facilitator on assessment, grading and reporting in 47 states and 10 Canadian provinces and two territoryies and 35 countries outside North America. He has presented at many conferences in Canada and the U.S.A., including the Pearson/ATI Summer Institute, (1996 and 1998 to 2016), Pearson/ATI Grading Conferences (2006 to 2017), NSDC Annual Conference (2002), ASCD Annual Conferences (1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2018), NASSP Annual Conference (2001), ASCD Teaching and Learning Conferences in Nashville, in October, 1998, in Tampa in October, 2000, and in New Orleans in October, 2002, the iNacol/Aurora Institute Symposium in Palm Springs in October 2019, and the ASCD Educational Leadership Conference in National Harbor, MD in November 2019. He also was a keynote presenter at the EARCOS Teachers Conference in Bangkok in March 2003 and October 2015 and an institute presenter at AISA conferences in October 2005 and October 2007 and at the NESA Fall Conference in Bahrain in November 2006, the NESA Teachers Conference in Bangkok in April 2007, the NESA Leadership Institute in Kathmandu in October 2011, the NESA Teachers Conference in Athens in March 2012 the NESA Winter Training Institutes in Muscat, Oman in January 2014, and Chennai, India in January 2019 and the NESA Fall Leadership Institutes in Istanbul in October 2014 and Bahrain in November 2017. Ken presented a two-day pre-conference Institute at the ECIS Conference in Amsterdam in November 2013. He has also presented at a number of Solution Tree conferences including the Assessment Summits in Atlanta in October 2007 and 2008 and in Schaumberg in April 2012, and at the all Canadian Assessment Now Conference in Victoria, BC in November 2014. He was a member of the ASCD Faculty and the ASCD Understanding by Design cadre. He is a founding member of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network.

His twenty-three year teaching career included experience as a geography teacher and department head at L'Amoreaux C.I. and Maplewood High School in Scarborough, Ontario (1976-90) and teaching at four other schools in Toronto and Melbourne, Australia (Grade 7-12) starting in 1967.

Ken was a Curriculum Coordinator responsible for Student Assessment and Evaluation and Geography for the Scarborough Board of Education (and then the Toronto District School Board) from March 1990 to June 1999. He also worked (half time) as a consultant on Secondary Assessment at the Ontario Ministry of Education from November 1998 to December 1999.

Ken is a sports fanatic. His lifelong sport is (field) hockey; he has been involved in administration, playing, coaching (his teams won two provincial high school championships and three of his players went on to represent Canada in the Olympics), and umpiring, including umpiring men's matches at the 1984 Olympic Games and the 1990 World Cup. More recently he has become a very keen golfer and he also enjoys playing pickleball outdoors in the winter in Florida and indoors in Toronto for the rest of the year.

Ken lives in Scarborough (Toronto) with his wife Marilyn for most of the year and in The Villages in Florida in the winter. He has two children, Jeremy (who is married to Charlene) and Bronwyn (who is married to Rob Mason), and three grandchildren, Jeremy and Charlene's twins, Elliot and Vivian born in 2007 and Bronwyn and Rob's daughter, Emmeline, born on New Year's Eve 2016.

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B.A. (Hon), 1965; Dip. Ed. 1966, University of Melbourne; M.Ed., 1973, University of Toronto Ken has been an independent consultant from 1996 to the present. He has been a staff development presenter and facilitator on assessment, grading and reporting in 47 states and 10 Canadian provinces and two territoryies and 35 countries outside North America.

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Videos — Plan Teach Assess | Damian Cooper

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Forest Park SD91_Standards Based Grading

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Implementing Standards-Based Grading in Your Classroom

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Implementing Standards-Based Grading in Your Classroom

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Ready to make the shift? This post outlines key steps and considerations for implementing standards-based grading in your classroom, helping you transition smoothly to this effective grading system.

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When the teachers and administrators at a middle school determined that A-F grades didn't align with their goals, they began a years-long shift in how they assess student learning.

When New York City implemented standards-based grading in April 2020, it was an indicator of a sea change in the evaluation of student learning. Indeed, a growing number of schools across the country are implementing standards-based learning (SBL) practices that align with the values and needs of a dynamic and changing world.

At Hall Middle School in Larkspur, California, we have also retired the traditional A-F grading system in favor of standards-based learning practices, a process that took several years.

Here are some strategies and mindsets that helped guide our journey.

Begin by Asking Questions

We started with a single question back in fall 2017: How do our current grading practices at Hall Middle align with our district's values and student learning outcomes?

The ensuing conversation was surprisingly brief. We came to a quick consensus that our points-based A-F system did not square with what we clearly defined as successful learning for all students. We wanted our students to be more interested in how they could improve their understanding of concepts rather than how they could raise their grades.

That first question led to a second one: If our grading practices aren't in alignment with our values, why do we continue to use A-F?

As a school and district, we were investing enormous time and energy in developing relevant curricula and culturally responsive pedagogies, only to resort to 19th-century grading practices that were essentially transactional in nature. Instead of prompting additional curiosity for continued learning, A-F grades were sending our students the wrong message-"earning, not learning."

Learning is complex, and our feedback practices should be, too. Once we had this collective awareness and sense of possibility, we began a slow and patient journey to create a new language of learning-a process that continues to this day.

Get Comfortable With Discomfort, and Slowly Build Consensus

Change is emotional work, and it can be uncomfortable. Leaders looking to support grand conversations about building the future of their institution need to anticipate that these thought exercises will make some members of the faculty and community uncomfortable. It's important to remember that discomfort can be a positive sign that there is a substantive conversation taking place.

Leaders set the tone of an organization-and its pace. We borrowed an idea from Michael Fullan, an authority on educational reform and author of Leading in a Culture of Change-the concept of "slow knowing." This is as much a process as it is a mindset that leaders can demonstrate to help the people in an organization experience a meaningful stake and role in the work at hand. It communicates that their ideas matter, and that the organization will have the patience and discipline to nurture that idea to fruition over time, not in a frantic rush to implement.

There are lots of good ideas in education that die slow (or quick) deaths-not because of their lack of merit, but because of the way they are introduced. We can have all the research and conviction behind us in dismantling points-based grading practices; however, as is the case with any holistic shift in practice, our conviction alone isn't what encourages support from all parties affected by the change.

For all the positive examples of schools experiencing successful transitions to SBL, there are still horror stories about quickly patched-together implementation plans, usually done without any meaningful input from teachers and stakeholders, that die spectacular deaths-often salting the earth for years to come, with respect to this kind of change.

Multiple temperature check votes before our final binding vote in 2018

The decision to spend 2018-19 developing the foundation for schoolwide implementation in 2019-20

A soft pilot using our online gradebook in spring 2019

Teams reaching agreement on essential standards

Deciding on the number of proficiency levels (we opted for three: Emerging, Approaching, Proficient)

Designing our new report card

The process was painstaking but well justified by the results.

At our school, every important decision involved multiple rounds of conversation, feedback, and surveys from teachers. This included the following:

Invite and Reflect on Input Publicly

Our year zero of implementing standards-based learning practices was 2019-20. We understood that we were like newborns in that every day presented new information and situations that were unfamiliar, and we made a key decision after the first report card to craft a parent survey to understand their experience and solicit their ideas and input.

We not only asked for feedback but also published the results and presented them, along with staff feedback, at a board meeting in January 2020.

Inviting input means that people have the opportunity to express not only criticism but also support; often those are the voices that go unheard. It can be tempting to avoid avenues for community input; in doing so, leaders may succeed temporarily in not hearing the critical voices, but they also will fail to surface the many people who are quietly enthusiastic about change.

Keep Students' Well-Being at the Center

In traditional grading systems, more students than not are motivated by fear-fear of losing points, fear of getting less than an A, fear of their parents' and teachers' disappointment or anger. But fear does not make a kid learn more-it just makes him or her stress more. There is nothing wrong with striving to succeed in an academic setting, but it's important to recognize that with high academic achievement come high stress and high pressure to perform. The result, all too often, is a hit to students' mental and emotional well-being.

The mental health and wellness of students should be of paramount importance to educators; in fact, there is nothing more important for us than to reduce stress and anxiety that our students feel. Decades of research tells us that standards-based learning practices help accomplish this.

Big change is hard and takes time; the State of California first recommended standards-based learning in 2001, almost a full generation ago. But with more examples like that offered by our school, and a commitment to a deliberate, inclusive process, we know that others can successfully follow suit.

We'd like to thank Dr. Toni Brown and Dr. Julie Alexander-principal and sixth-grade teacher at Hall Middle, respectively-for their contributions to this article and to the process of implementing SBL.

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4 Strategies for Implementing Standards-Based Learning

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When the teachers and administrators at a middle school determined that A-F grades didn't align with their goals, they began a years-long shift in how they assess student learning.