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Empower teachers to give actionable feedback to learners and differentiate instruction. Empower students to own their learning and truly master all the skills and habits that promote success. And empower families to support the learning process in the most productive ways.

Together, you'll shift the conversation to be about learning ― not grades or completion. And then school will become a place where all students have the opportunity to succeed.

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Transform your grading process with our innovative standard-based grading software.

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https://www.jumpro.pe/

Jump Rope is a standards-based grade book which organizes grades based on the mastery of standards. This is a great resource to incorporate all O'Connor's guidelines into the classroom, especially Guideline 2. It provides resources on how to incorporate the grading system into classrooms. Teachers can use Common Core standards or write their own standards. One of the major issues of transitioning to a standards-based grading system is it is hard to do it as an individual teacher because our grade book system is dependent on the school district. The Jump Rope grade book is accessible to individual teachers for free so it creates an easier way to start using standards-based grading. The grade book will benefit teachers greatly as standards based grading can seem overwhelming and time consuming.

Another feature of the Jump Rope grade book is that it provides customizable reports on growth and mastery based on the chosen standards for the class. Jump Rope not only gives parents access, it allows reports to be emailed directly to parents. This is a way to create more communication with parents on how their child is doing in the classroom.

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Resource Link: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/grading-student-work/#consistency

Guidelines: 1-Learning Goals to Determine Grades, 7- Quality Assessments (clear targets/purpose)

This resource is from Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching.  The specific link that I have provided is mostly focused on making grading and assessment more meaningful to the student and educator (although the website does provide a plethora of additional information on the left toolbar with links).  This website can be a helpful tool when looking for ways to approach grading in a meaningful and communicative way that benefits teachers, students, and parents/guardians.  I particularly find this website to be enlightening and helpful as it acknowledges problems or struggles that educators have with grading and provides solutions/guidelines.

The resource also discusses ways to have grading be more consistent through development of clear criteria.  It provides sample criteria (the links no longer work due to a reformat of the website, but you can click on them and they will reroute you to where you can find them) from items such as essays/papers and class participation.

One area that I found useful as well is about making grading more efficient.  It suggests using different grading scales for different assignments.  For example, tests would be on a 100 point scale, but homework assignments might be on a check, check plus, minus type of scale.  These can be more efficient ways to grade as long as the scales are made clear to the students and effectively communicated.

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Lindsey Murray: The resource I found is an article from the Journal of Educational Leadership called Grading: Why You Should Trust Your Judgment by Thomas R. Guskey and Lee Ann Jung. More specifically you can find it in Volume 73, Number 7, April 2016 entitled: Looking at Student Work. You can view it online at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr16/vol73/num07/Grading@-Why-You-Should-Trust-Your-Judgment.aspx

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Lindsey Murray: The resource I found is an article from the Journal of Educational Leadership called Grading: Why You Should Trust Your Judgment by Thomas R. Guskey and Lee Ann Jung. More specifically you can find it in Volume 73, Number 7, April 2016 entitled: Looking at Student Work. You can view it online at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr16/vol73/num07/Grading@-Why-You-Should-Trust-Your-Judgment.aspx

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This article is consistent with O'Connor's 5th and 6th guidelines which state that grades should reflect students' most recent work and to use professional judgement when assigning grades. I chose to share this link because the article offers tables of students' 6 most recent grades on assessments and then discusses what summative grade should be assessed. The authors asked a group of teachers to assign final grades based on the scores in the tables, and over 90% of teachers came to the same conclusion for each student, assigning grades that reflect students' most recent work. The article goes on to incorporate median and mode, and shows how algorithms (what most of our gradebook systems use) assign different summative grades than teachers do using their professional judgement. This resource really helped me understand better how to follow O'Connor's 5th and 6th guidelines, and I hope others find it useful as well.

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Heather SouthcombDescription-The attached resource is actually a resource that was recently created by a teacher in my building to help communicate with parents about our district’s grading policy. It helps to indirectly address the problem with zeros as O’Conner (2007) discusses in Eight Guidelines for Grading as well as many other areas of concern when it comes to grading that O’Conner discusses. Guidelines-I actually can see this resource addressing all four major guidelines (accurate, consistent, meaningful and supportive of learning) as discussed in O’Conner’s (2007) Eight Guidelines for Grading. Keeping our parents informed and educated our grading policies can help to create a smooth home to school connection. Depending on how other's adapt this resource, each person can make sure that include specific guidelines that they feel are most important to address either in their classroom, school or district.Benefits-As many classmates posted this week in our discussion communicating with parents about grades can be a challenge. Many of our parents are “stuck in their ways” when it comes to grading and they don’t understand the shift that has taken place to make sure that we are grading based on standards rather than completion or organization. I am hoping that this teacher created document will be something that our district as a whole will see fit and begin to educate our parents a little more on what standards based grading looks like. This is obviously a work in progress but I thought sharing this resource may help others get started on how to communicate with parents. 

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Heather SouthcombDescription-The attached resource is actually a resource that was recently created by a teacher in my building to help communicate with parents about our district’s grading policy. It helps to indirectly address the problem with zeros as O’Conner (2007) discusses in Eight Guidelines for Grading as well as many other areas of concern when it comes to grading that O’Conner discusses. Guidelines-I actually can see this resource addressing all four major guidelines (accurate, consistent, meaningful and supportive of learning) as discussed in O’Conner’s (2007) Eight Guidelines for Grading. Keeping our parents informed and educated our grading policies can help to create a smooth home to school connection. Depending on how other's adapt this resource, each person can make sure that include specific guidelines that they feel are most important to address either in their classroom, school or district.Benefits-As many classmates posted this week in our discussion communicating with parents about grades can be a challenge. Many of our parents are “stuck in their ways” when it comes to grading and they don’t understand the shift that has taken place to make sure that we are grading based on standards rather than completion or organization. I am hoping that this teacher created document will be something that our district as a whole will see fit and begin to educate our parents a little more on what standards based grading looks like. This is obviously a work in progress but I thought sharing this resource may help others get started on how to communicate with parents. 

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Standards-based grading and reporting will improve education

This is an article that I found using Illinois State Alumni library.  In this resource, it addresses:
guideline 1: Base grades on, and provide grades for, the intended learning goals
guideline 3: Limit the student attributes included in grades to individual achievement
guideline 7: Use quality assessment, and properly record evidence of achievement

Guideline 1 is addressed in my posted article on page 65, stating "The purpose of grading is to describe how well students have achieved the learning objectives or goals established for a class or course of study."

Guideline 3 is addressed in the article on page 65, stating "After establishing explicit indicators of product, process, and progress learning, teachers then assign separate grades to each indicator. In this way, they keep grades for responsibility, learning skills, effort, work habits, or learning progress distinct from grades that represent students’ level of achievement or performance (Guskey, 2002; Stiggins, 2008)."

Guideline 7 is addressed in the article on page 67, stating "If assessments are graded and reported the right way, they can be a powerful tool for student learning. Classroom assessment practices that inform instruction will be invaluable as teachers work to implement the Common Core standards, which are meant to prepare all students for college and/or career."

This article is beneficial for my colleagues because it gives a lot of information about standards-based grading, which has been our topic for the last week.  What I liked about this article was that it addressed some of the guidelines from O'Connor's article.  The more that I have read about standards-based grading, the more I would like to make the switch from traditional grading.  I like how it is about achievement towards Common Core standards, rather than averages of many classroom activities.  I believe that this article gives very good information on how to implement standards-based grading into your classroom.

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Resource: https://www.tenmarks.com/

Description: This online resource is something I use in my classroom on a daily basis to have the students practice their math skills. It is completely standards based and assignments are assigned through the teacher account and individual for each student. Students performing below, at or above grade level can be given differentiated work based on standards. There is data provided for the teachers who then can continue to differentiate their instruction.

Guidelines:
2: Using standards based performance as a basis for grades. Teachers are able to take the data provided from tenmarks to give the students meaninful grades based on mastery of online assignments.

5: Keep records that can be updated easily. Teachers can use the immediate data provided as progress monitoring.

Benefits: This is a great FREE online resource that focuses completely on the standards. All grades for the students are based on mastery of the standards. Using the data provided allows teachers to differentiate their instruction in the classroom as well as the assignments they assign online. It is very interactive and lets the students earn stars which lets them buy time to play a fun interactive game. I highly recommend this resource!

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Jessica Matherlyhttp://www.colorincolorado.org/article/creating-effective-data-reporting-system-ellsThis article addresses effective data reporting for ELLs. It talks about looking at what you want them to know and how your are going to assess if they know it. Also it takes a look at how they are going to report the data. They are directly addressing consistency, meaningfulness, and being supportive of learning. If you do not have a significant population of ELLs in your school and the support staff that goes with them, it can be difficult to know how to best assess what students know and then how to use that data to inform your teaching. This article gives a great detailed example of what one school did to address these issues. Also, the site colorincolorando, is just a wealth of knowledge for topics regarding ELLs. 

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Jessica Matherlyhttp://www.colorincolorado.org/article/creating-effective-data-reporting-system-ellsThis article addresses effective data reporting for ELLs. It talks about looking at what you want them to know and how your are going to assess if they know it. Also it takes a look at how they are going to report the data. They are directly addressing consistency, meaningfulness, and being supportive of learning. If you do not have a significant population of ELLs in your school and the support staff that goes with them, it can be difficult to know how to best assess what students know and then how to use that data to inform your teaching. This article gives a great detailed example of what one school did to address these issues. Also, the site colorincolorando, is just a wealth of knowledge for topics regarding ELLs. 

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Resource: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Seven_Reasons_for_Standards-Based_Grading.aspx

Description:
This article gives 7 reasons for standards-based grading.

Guidline:
4: It addresses the reduction in meaningless paperwork by being selective on what is graded and what is practice
2: Using standards performance as a basis for grades

Benefits:  It is a good resource to introduce the idea and benefits like improving curriculum, showing what quality looks like, and reducing meaningless paperwork.  It helps educators see why standards based grading is important.

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Resource: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Level-of-Understanding-Posters-and-Rubric-2404158

Description:
This is a tool I use with my students to help them self-assess themselves. It also lets me see whether or not they truly understand the objective. It is a simple rating scale they use on their assignments or data binders. If they say they are at a level 4 of understand, I conference with the student and have them explain the objective or standard and give me an example of how to use it/solve the problem. Every time a student successfully completes that, they get a small reward from me. This really pushed my students this past year and I only used it the last half of the year. I can't wait to see how they do after introducing it earlier in the year.

Guideline:
This goes with Guideline 8, including students in the assessment process. It tells the students exactly what is expected at each level so they can self-assess themselves on a specific standard or objective.

Colleague Benefits:
This tool gets students involved in the learning process. Not only do they rate themselves, but they have to explain the objective and show an example of it. This helps their higher-order thinking and shows full understanding. It's a great tool to help students take responsibility and ownership of their learning.

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Resource: https://youtu.be/TM-3PFfIfvI

Description:
In this video by Rick Wormeli, titled: Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs, Mr. Wormeli explains why teachers  should allow students to complete work more than once till students show understanding.  He does also explain that this should be done as time and resources allow, making it clear that there are limitations.  However, as educators, we should be invested in our students being successful.

Guideline:
This connects to guideline 5: Keep records that can be updated easily

This video explains why students should be given multiple opportunities to show what they know and can do.  It explains why a good educator would allow students to  retake tests.

How colleagues will benefit:

Many teachers believe that it is not fair to give students a retest since it may mean students do not get consequences from not applying themselves the first time.  Wormeli goes into explaining why some teachers think this way and then gives reasons why this way of thinking is not what is best for students.  This is a great resources to convince teachers of the importance of do-overs.

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Resource:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QF9Q4gxVM
Description:
I found a video by Rick Wormli. This video is a fast an easy way to show colleagues the craziness of zeros.   How zeros skew the grading scale and do not give a true representation of what the student knows.  Also, Rick talks about how the zeros can build up and make it impossible for a student to pull their grades up making the student give up and not even attempt to learn.

Guildline:
This relates to the guideline 2 because it shows how A,B,C,D, F can easily correlate to at 4 point scale and make much more sense than the ambiguous A,B,C,D,F, where we don't really know what each grade means.

Colleague Benefits: This is of great benefit for colleagues to share with their principal or co-workers to assist in convincing them that Standard Based Grading is an important change that needs to be made. I've read that parents and others have fought against Standard Base Grading but it seems to me that using levels 1, 2, 3, 4 correlates much better with a 4.0 scale used in colleges and universities. The Standards Based Grading is so much more comprehensive and shows a truer representation of what students have mastered or began to learn.

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Nicole Walus-MSED620Z

Resource:

http://www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/assessments/25_s3_03_self_assessment.html

Description:

This website goes over self-assessment as well as peer assessment.  It asks you to look at the benefits of both as well as some of the challenges you might face in implementing this in your classroom.  As you move through the website, it provides a nice pie chart that helps teachers to set up self-assessment, while making sure that we know that the importance of self-assessment is two-fold: assesses the end product or outcomes of learning, but also the process of learning (how students are approaching it, strategies, strengths, improvement, etc.)  I also like that it states that self-assessment skills will help our students in their professional careers by teaching them to regulate their own performance.  There are also examples of self-assessment activities.

The Guideline:

This addresses Guideline 8: Discuss and Involve Students in Assessment Throughout the Teaching and Learning Process from O’Connor’s (2007) Eight Guidelines for Grading because it goes over the importance of student’s involvement in the assessment process through communicating their achievement and progress.  It helps to provide the teacher with resources so that they can begin student assessment in their class and help their students learn this process so they can be successful.

Colleague Benefit:

This website gives examples of self-assessment activities that can be incorporated into the classroom both for assessing the process of learning, or the metacognitive strategy and assessing the product of learning, such as assessing sample work, self-rating, etc.  It also has resources for peer assessment that engages students and provides them with the opportunity to not only give feedback, but also receive it in order to reflect on their own work.  It gives examples of this for teachers as well breaking it up into for competencies-cognitive, meta-cognitive, social, and affective.  They also make sure to state that these are things that are valued by employers and help prepare students for the future.

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Sarah Bathan

Know Students Better: A Visual Guide to Formative Assessment Tools

http://learninginhand.com/blog/know

Description:

The resource I provided is a list of digital formative assessment tools that teachers can use in the classroom to formatively assess their students in a timely manner, giving teachers a better and more accurate picture of what the students know and what they are ready to learn on any given day.

Guideline the Resource Addresses:

The guideline of O’Connor’s that the resource addresses is that grades should be “supportive of learning.” O’Connor argues that in order for grades to be supportive of learning, they must be informative. In his article, Reporting Student Learning, O’Connor states, “Most formative assessments provide descriptive feedback to students, followed by opportunities to revise in light of that feedback and be assessed and accredited anew” (2011). In order to address this guideline, formative assessment needs to be occurring continuously in the classroom. The difficulty, therefore, is the time-consuming nature of formative assessment. The resource I provided addresses this concern by introducing digital tools that can cut down on the time it takes to get a “snapshot” of student learning on a daily basis.

How Will Colleagues Benefit From the Resource:
Many school districts are moving toward a 1:1 technology model. As beneficial as this can be, it can also be overwhelming to teachers to sort through all of the digital tools that are out there and find ones that will work for them. The resource that I provided makes that task easier by providing a list of 15 digital formative assessment tools that have already been tested and approved by teachers. Once a tool or two from this list is chosen by a teacher, formative assessment can become much more efficient and less time consuming, benefiting both teachers and students in the grading process.

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“Putting Standards-Based Grading into Action”

http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2016/02/22/putting-standards-based-grading-into-action.html

The article I chose to share is called, “Putting Standards-Based Grading into Action,” by Stephanie Pinkin from www.edweek.org.  The author explains how standards-based grading (SBG as she abbreviates it) is ultimately a much more difficult and time-consuming method of grading for the teacher, but is far more accurate and fair for the student, and is therefore, a very necessary change in education.  She discusses how SBG allows her to more individually assess each student’s progress toward particular learning standards.  Because student progress is ever-changing, it is more accurately reflected through this grading method than by averaging a series of assignment and test scores.  Not only is the grading more flexible in representing what the student actually knows, it is also more current and prevents isolated scores to be set in stone making it difficult for students to make up the difference.

The Guideline:

This article meets O’Conner’s Eight Guidelines for Grading as it reiterates the idea of “grading in pencil” to allow grades to be changed and updated easily, to eliminate giving students a “zero,” to accept late work and allow resubmissions, and to measure student progress specifically toward intended learning outcomes.  In making these changes, the author has seen a shift in her conversations with both students and parents regarding grades.  They have instead focused more on the actual skills and concepts that still need to be mastered rather than trying to complete trivial tasks to increase their percentage in the class.

Colleagues:

Colleagues will benefit from this article as it gives a realistic perspective on standards-based grading.  The author is honest about the fact that this method is more complicated for the teacher, but worth every bit for the student, which is what matters.  She admits that before this change, “The numbers were simple, and a cumulative average was easy to calculate,” but “we have gone long enough assigning subjective and arbitrary numbers to student performance, and it is time that our communication of student progress reflects student learning, and student learning only” (Pinkin, 2016).

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Tim Conrath

Tools for Actively Engaging Students in Assessment Processes  by Harvey Silver

Describe your resource:

This is an article titled “Tools for Actively Engaging Students in Assessment Processes” by Harvey Silver. It is posted on the ASCD website. It talks about a shift in classroom assessment and gives a list of 5 different shifts. The article concentrates on the first shift which states it is a “Move from a teacher-directed assessment process to an assessment process in which students play an active role.” The article gives some steps in progressing from the teacher-directed to having the students involved in the process. I chose this article because when I read O”Connor’s 8th Guideline about involving the students in the process, I was unsure how this would look in the classroom. The article talks about backward learning and how the teacher needs to have the students in mind. Silver (2013) states that “Students clarify the task, identify goals, and develop a plan of action in their own words by responding to these prompts (typically within an organizer):

·         Assessment Task: At the end of this lesson or unit, what will I be asked to do or create?

·         Knowing Goals: What will I need to know and understand?

·         Doing Goals: What will I need to be able to do?

·         Action Plan: What is my plan for completing this task successfully? What steps will I take?

This makes the students active participants in their learning and assessments.

The Guideline:

This article explains O’Connor’s 8th Guideline which states “Discuss and Involve Students in Assessment Throughout the Teaching and Learning Process” (O’Connor, 2007). Silver (2013) states that “By using the Backwards Learning tool, teachers are doing much more than previewing the final task—they're actively engaging students in the assessment process and encouraging students to take responsibility for their own learning.”  Through the use of Backward Learning the students will learn to understand how the learning goals are closely related to their mastery of the content. They will also develop the skill of looking at the assigned tasks and set their own goals to complete it.

Colleagues will benefit from it:

I think that all teacher could benefit from this article because it gives us steps to use Backward Learning so that the student have a stake in their own learning. This gives the students ownership in their own learning path and creates greater retention of the concepts. The article also uses a book called Tools for Thoughtful Assessment as a source. This book was designed with the help and insight of hundreds of teachers who shared their own challenges.

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Is it becoming too hard to fail school?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-it-becoming-too-hard-to-fail-schools-are-shifting-toward-no-zero-grading-policies/2016/07/05/3c464f5e-3cb0-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.e939d55a293d

Describe your resource:

The resource I selected to share is an article called, “Is it becoming too hard to fail? Schools are shifting toward No-Zero grading policies,” from the Washington Post. It shares insight on schools eliminating the Zero form student’s failing scores. When I was searching for my resource to share, I did sort through many different perspectives on this policy.  It appears that there are concerns of grading being punitive, motivating and accurately representing student’s ability levels.  However; this article represents many of the views align with my personal values, the experience I have implementing this policy at my school and l O’Connor’s Eight Guidelines. This article expresses the importance of giving a student an opportunity to recover from a failing score.  “Proponents of the changes say the new grading systems are more fair and end up being more conducive to learning, encouraging students to catch up when they fall behind rather than just giving up,” (Moriah Balingit and Donna St. George, 2016)

The Guideline:

This article meets the requirements of standards-based grading consistent with O’Connor’s (2007) Eight Guidelines for Grading because it emphasizes that penalizing a student with the score of a zero prevents them from ever catching up.  “Recording a zero on a 100-point scale for a student's lack of work on an assessment not only falsifies the report of what he or she knows, but also immediately generates despair: Only a mammoth pile of perfect 100s can overcome the deficit and result in a passing D grade. So why bother?,” (Conner, 2011). Our job as educators is to teach our scholars and help them reach mastery in different content areas.  We try to support struggling learners to grasp as much of the standard as possible and sometimes, a student will demonstrate limited mastery.  In this case, we should be mindful that a zero will follow them throughout the year, not just on this standard.

Colleagues Will Benefit From It:

This article states many positive sides for implementing the No Zero policy.  It also shares a view from individuals that do not see the value of it.  “They say that artificially boosting student grades can mask failure and push students through who don’t know the material they need to know to actually succeed,” (Moriah Balingit and Donna St. George, 2016).  I think sharing both sides of the argument are important when change takes place.  Understanding this view allows educators to prepare a response to defend their choices around grading.  It also provides an opportunity for staff to communicate the positive results it brings for our students.

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Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_let_s_teach_for_mastery_not_test_scores

Description:
This is a Ted Talk video by Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy which produces online academic videos on a range of subjects. In the video, Khan points out the importance of teaching students for mastery and not just for a grade. He explains that by moving students along when they haven't completely mastered a unit is doing a disservice to them because there are now gaps in their learning. They cannot adequately go onto harder material when they lack a foundational concept from previous lessons. For me, this makes a lot of sense and is how we do a lot of our teaching in Kindergarten. A student cannot really grasp the concept of reading and sounding out words if they do not know the letter sounds. That is a foundational skill that they need. I will introduce new concepts to them and show them strategies for reading, but I also have to make sure that they are continuing to work on the other basic skills to continue progressing.

Guidelines:
I think this goes along with O'Connors guidelines because it reinforces the idea of grading based on standards and not on test scores. By grading with standards you can see exactly which areas students have mastered and which areas they are still developing in. O'Connor states that, "Learning goals show evidence of achievement beyond a simple summary of knowledge" (p. 131).

Colleagues:
My colleagues will view a compelling argument for why it's important to teach for mastery and not just rely on test scores. It will inspire you to look at how you use your grades and make sure your students don't go through class with gaps and they are reaching their full potential.

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Resource: https://www.nesacenter.org/uploaded/conferences/FTI/2009/spkr_handouts/OConnorKen1.pdf

Description: The resource I found was a power point that was created by Ken O'Connor himself! The power point goes through the process of  how to grade for learning, and it provides a lot information on how that grading is different from traditional grading. I really liked going through this power point from the article writer because O'Connor goes through all of the main points in simple terms. He provides a purpose for the reader and he displays what the reader will learn from him power point notes. He also breaks down the terms to support understanding by all.

Guideline: This article meets O'Connor's 2007 guidelines because he provides further reason as to why it is important to focus on standards instead of traditional grades. He provides purpose for standards based grading and he provides proof of why traditional grades end up leading down the wrong path. As educators, it is important to us to understand why standard grading is purposeful. If we don't know why we are doing something, and if we do not believe in it, we will not be successful in helping our students learn and grow.

Colleagues will Benefit from: My colleagues will get a well put together power point. This power point was easy to follow and understand. The power point taught me a lot and  it provided me with ideas as to how and why standards based grading is important.