This past year I was asked to lead a workshop on the topic of Assessment FOR Learning for a school division's teachers.
Teachers, tired from a long and full day of teaching/wrestling with children, filed into an auditorium for the "wonderful opportunity" of hearing me speak for about an hour and a half on the topic of formative assessment.
The topic of grading came up - as it always does when talking about assessment - and a teacher asked a question about how she could get students to do work if grades weren't used as compensation. It's hard to answer that question very completely in a short workshop, and frankly that really wasn't the point of the workshop. The workshop's focus was on using assessment as a learning tool. Grading is a related topic, though.
I invited the questioner to email me so that we could have a more detailed discussion. She did just that. Here was her email:
I don't feel like you really answered my friend's question about what to do with students who habitually turn in work late or not at all, if grades can't be used for enforcement. You said you had lots of solutions for that, and I'd love to hear them. I follow you that grades should reflect learning, UNTIL you say that we can't deduct points for work not submitted. I don't have any idea how I'd get them to ever complete work at all if that were the case. You mentioned using a day to make the slackers catch up while the rest of the class did something else. If I started that, I will guarantee you that the kids would very quickly learn that there would be such a day, and NO ONE would complete work until the "catch-up day." That's also not to mention the mountain of work that would create for the teacher, who would have to constantly grade make-up work. Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
This - or something like it - is a commonly asked question by teachers as they begin to explore the ramifications of formative assessment practices. Below, in bold, is my response. It's rather lengthy, but it's hard to answer a question like this in a few words.
I'd love any feedback. Got any ideas for things I should have added?
Dear ___________________,
I don't feel like you really answered my friend's question about what to do with students who habitually turn in work late or not at all, if grades can't be used for enforcement. You said you had lots of solutions for that, and I'd love to hear them.
I follow you that grades should reflect learning,
UNTIL you say that we can't deduct points for work not submitted.
- As stated earlier, this isn't how we teach our own children responsibility. Why would it work any differently in the classroom?
- The fact that teachers across the country have been using this method for decades and yet the problem never seems to get better seems to be all the evidence we should need for determining that this practice does not teach responsibility.
- If the grade is supposed to reflect knowledge, then we know we are falsifying the final grade if we allow late points, zeros, and the like to be averaged in.
- It's hard to justify knowingly falsifying a grade. It really hurts our credibility when someone challenges the grade we assign. We can say, "it's what they earned," but we know it's not really true. It's what we decided to assign since we determined the rules, the points, the time frame, etc.
I don't have any idea how I'd get them to ever complete work at all if that were the case. You mentioned using a day to make the slackers catch up while the rest of the class did something else. If I started that, I will guarantee you that the kids would very quickly learn that there would be such a day, and NO ONE would complete work until the "catch-up day." That's also not to mention the mountain of work that would create for the teacher, who would have to constantly grade make-up work.
- Do deducted points and zeros - which definitely do provide parents and students with accurate feedback on how well a student is doing or what they have/haven't done - HAVE to count into an average at the end? In other words, can you act as a detective looking for evidence as to what a child has mastered and then use all evidence gathered to determine how best to denote that level of mastery? A student does or doesn't do X,Y,Z. When it's all said and done, you could review all the evidence and then decide what helps you determine each individual student's level of mastery. For some students, what they did on homework might really help you see what they know - maybe even better than the test does. For others, the test might be the best indicator and the homework really doesn't tell you much.
- Are you assigning points to assignments in the best possible manner? For example, if a test was worth 10,000 points while homework was worth 10 the issue of mastery (IF the test was the best indicator of mastery) would take care of itself. I know that sounds crazy to suggest because we're so used to assignments not counting more than 100 points, but I think we can get outside the box a little. Why do assignments not go over 100? Who says that's the ceiling? Let's make things worth whatever they need to be worth to result in a grade that represents mastery.
- Can weighting help? Perhaps a category of formative assessments or practice assignments could be weighted a small percentage. Daily assignments, homework, classwork - or whatever appropriate - could be added to this category, while assignments that better measure mastery could go into a summative category that had a very large percentage.
- Can retakes and retests be built into the very fabric of the course instead of being something "extra" required of the teacher? I know many teachers who assess on topic A, and then 2 weeks later assess it again, and then 4 weeks later assess it again, and then 8 weeks later assess it again. This isn't "extra" - it's a vital part of the learning process. Too often teachers teach something and then later in the year when they review it seems as though the students remember nothing. People don't learn by covering something once and then months later - or longer - reviewing it. We learn by repetition. The beauty of the built-in retake/retest method is it allows you to let current progress outweigh or replace past scores AND it leads to better learning.
- Stop and think about the work we're asking students to complete. Why are we asking them to complete it? IF it's practice (and I realize not all of it is), AND they don't do it, doesn't it stand to reason that they won't do as well on the test or summative assessment? If so, why would that be any less of a deterrent than taking off points on the practice assignments? Does that make sense? If we're trying to use points as a motivator, then why not use the points on the summative assessment as the motivator? Then if someone wants to retake that you can say, "Sure, but first you have to go back and do all the practice." Of course, if you have a built-in retake process you can say, "Do such and such to practice and you'll have a retake coming up next week."
- Could there be other rewards besides points? If so, then you could perhaps find a better way to get students to do the work you want them to do. I don't know your grade level or type of student, so it's hard to suggest a specific, but I have found something like a Blow Pop or candy bar often motivates students as much as points.
- I know you said a make up day of some sort wouldn't work - but are you positive? If the work is that important, then making them do it might warrant altering your schedule. After all, if doing the work will cause them to learn better then you'll be rewarded for doing so by increasing the learning of your students. Of course, if the work doesn't help them learn then it's probably not worth it - and if the work doesn't help them learn, then it might not have been worth assigning.
- Can technology help you? Could using Interactive Achievement, Moodle, Quia, IXL or some other electronic assessment tool make more frequent assessment a more successful and less stressful practice for you?
Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Comments
Thanks, Curtis. Good suggestion. Here's a link to Working on the Work.
Also, here's link to 15 Fixes for Broken Grades - a wonderful resource written a contributing member of this site, Ken O'Connor.
You might also refer this teacher to some of Phil Schlechty's work on creating engaging work for students. Working on the Work would be a great place to start. It outlines specific actionable steps to help teachers create engaging classroom activities that lead students to a better understanding of course standards.
Thanks, Ken. I think a lot of teachers are victims to the institutional inertia of the educational system. We just do to our students what was done to us. No one really complains because it's really all we know. It's fun, though, to see so many educators moving into more pedagogically sound ways of looking at assessment.
Steve Kitchen - I think we should explore modifying our report cards to allow for more appropriate reporting of behavior/effort/etc.
Well said Scott. You said it all very clearly. It is so sad that the teacher felt that the only way to get students to engage was if she used a hammer.
You are correct, this is a topic in itself.....The grade should reflect learning of he content area. Many years ago, the student got two grades in a subject area, one was for achievement, which was used to reflect the level of mastery of the content area, the other was effort, which showed how much work they put into it. Some students could get an high mark in achievement , but a low mark in effort, for things such as, not not turning in work, turning work in late, not taking part in class discussion, not being prepared for class, ( you get the idea). When parents saw a poor effort grade, it tend to take precedence over the higher achievement grade. The majority of parents want to see effort form their child. Using two grades for each course took care of the dilemma of grading the content area and the work put into get that that grade.