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Revolution in Educational Assessment

  • Jeff McCandless
  • Jul 10, 2018
  • 4 min read

Every few years there is a new educational trend. At one point - in recent history - I felt that the wheel didn't need to be reinvented for education. My understanding has evolved in the past year.

Although education continues its evolutionary march into the 21st century, there are some aspects that stubbornly cling to antiquated methods. One such area of education is assessment. The latest trend in grading and assessment is called "Standards-Based Grading". As a system of assessment, it gets its roots from standardized testing put in place by President George W. Bush. However, the standardized testing program focused mainly on the individual student assessment as a reflection of the school as a whole. Schools that were not able to meet a preset score index (often too arbitrary to be meaningful) lost federal funding and had its leadership replaced. Although there were many flaws inherent to that practice, it started a new discussion about student assessment, tracking performance across a school's demographics, and often gave valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of each school's educational programs.

Fast forward into 2018, and that concept of standardized testing has shifted focus from the macro (whole school) to the micro (individual student). Standards-based grading (SBG) focuses on student achievement of specific standards. The goal is to assess what a student knows and can demonstrate in the context of the academic standards for the curriculum of each course. This requires that a grade reflect nothing else other than the performance level of each standard that is assessed.

My previous philosophy, like that of many of my colleagues, has been to grade holistically. The basis of holistic grading is to reflect in a student's grade the expectations of the teacher. For example, late work results in deducted points because the student missed the deadline. Or if a student has behavior issues, participation points are deducted, and the overall grade is reduced. SBG separates behavior from academic achievement.

I decided at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year that I was going to commit to using SBG in own practice. Having been set in my ways after 14 years of teaching, it was a difficult transition. The biggest issue for me was allowing late work without deducting points. At first, I thought that I would inundated with late work, and that it would negatively affect my ability to provide meaningful feedback for my students. My findings, however, were surprisingly positive. First of all, I noticed that my students were far less stressed during class. They were looser, more engaged, and more optimistic.

SBG requires an equal grading system. In traditional grading scales, 0-59% is a fail. Using the traditional grading scale, a few assignments with a score of 0 can easily dig a pit out of which a typical student will not be able to escape. If you couple the traditional grading scale with the practice of giving a student 0 points for late work or if elements are missing from the assignment, and an average student can easily receive a below average grade. In fact, an excellent student who has had a hard time in a class can end up failing altogether. Using SBG means that there are no 0 scores. Since the lowest score is a 50%, a student that has a hard time with a particular class can still pass the class successfully. Consider the idea that turning in late work is a behavior, not a measure of academic achievement. Behaviors are not factored into the standards of achievement because behavior is not an academic topic.

Another important factor in SBG is allowing students to retake tests or redo assignments. Although this was perhaps the most difficult adjustment for me personally, I found it to be something that greatly benefitted my students. My preconceived notion regarding this practice was that students would take advantage of that policy. They could do a benchmark and then redo a benchmark again and again throughout the year, always striving to do better and earn a better grade. I eventually asked myself why this is a bad thing. If a student bombs a test, turns in an assignment late, or otherwise earns a low score, and they are not allowed an opportunity to improve their performance, they have stopped learning whatever skills and information they needed to demonstrate. However, if they are allowed to retry, the learning process continues, and they benefit from the experience. When I examined why I had been so against this, I discovered that I didn't like having to spend the time in regrading assignments, tests, projects, etc. Essentially I was refusing the students those opportunities to save myself some time and make my life easier. Of course, I had convinced myself that I was trying to demand of the students a higher set of expectations for themselves. In fact, I would give the "The real world doesn't work that way" speech each year. But think about it: driver's license exams, bar exams for attorneys, college applications, SATs, the list goes on. The real truth is that I was being lazy and using "real world expectations" to justify denying my students the opportunity to improve their demonstration of their learning.

The bottom line is that education is a system like any other - it will change over time. It's best to not get too attached to a certain way of doing things. As a teacher, being inflexible means that your ideas will eventually become irrelevant. It's best to take what you can from new techniques and strategies and adapt them to fit your professional practice.


 
 
 

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