Middle Level Grading

1. Board of Education Meeting June 23, 2011 Middle Level Grading

2. How did we get here? Belief and Principle statements Timeline/History Consortiums Book Studies (building and admin) Leadership team/Ad hoc group input

3. General Belief Statements About Learning Principles of Learning • All students can learn. • Students learn at different rates and in different ways. • Students can learn from making errors and taking risks. • Students can create and understand goals.

4. Timeline/History 2008-2010 Started attending Marzano grading consortiums Discussions at the Leadership Team level General Middle Level plan was created 2009 – scoring guide development 2010-2011 Consortiums From leadership team feedback, building leadership expressed a need to create a more detailed plan Current Middle Level Plan was created

5. Who? Middle level involvement • Multiple consortium teams from each middle level building (total of 65 teachers) • Feedback from leadership teams of each middle level building (total of 33 teachers) • Content Teams • Building administrators • Academic services

6. Building Involvement in creation of Middle Level Plan

7. Concerns • Grades mean different things • Grades are aggregated – feedback is not specific or standards-based • Assessments/Assignments may not have reflected learning goals • Grades do not motivate learning, but grades may motivate work completion • Variability in and between Middle Schools

8. What do we want grades to be? • Accurate • Meaningful • Consistent • Support learning

9. Key resources consulted • Consortium • Other Current Research (O’Connor, Marzano, Popham, Stiggins, Guskey, Black & Wiliam, etc.) Book Studies

10. What some of the research says… As it relates to accuracy and grades meaning different things: “A grade should give as clear a measure as possible of the best a student can do. Too often, grades reflect an unknown mixture of multiple factors.” Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006

11. Further research As grading relates to motivation and using of grades as punishment: “No studies support the use of low grades or marks as punishments. Instead of prompting greater effort, low grades more often cause students to withdraw from learning.” - Guskey & Bailey, 2001 Developing grading and reporting systems for student learning.

12. Other academic research As to grading by specific learning goal: “…reported that providing students with specific information about their standing in terms of particular objectives increased their achievement by 37 percentile points.” John Hattie (reviewed 7,827 studies on learning and instruction)

13. Further research As it relates to teachers improving skill at using classroom assessment: If a teacher increases from the 50thto 84th percentile in her skill at using classroom assessment, it is predicted that student achievement would improve by 13 percentile points. • Black & Wiliam, 1998 Synthesis of more than 250 studies

14. Key Strategies Separate Academic v. Non-Academic Standards-Based: Focus on Learning Goal (not student based and measures learning) Practical Implications: Role of HW/Independent practice Handling late work and zeros Reassessment

15. Separate Academic & Non-Academic

16. Learning Goal Focus

17. Monitoring student status toward learning goals

18. Monitoring student status toward learning goals

19. Formative assessment in the classroom – student involvement

20. Practical Implications • Homework and Practice • Late work • Zeros • Reassessment

21. Middle Level Grading Purposes • Report achievement distinctly to communicate more clearly about learning • Focus instruction on key rigorous learning goals • Provide feedback to students based on learning goals • Build assessments based on standards and with greater rigor • Support differentiated timelines for learning • Make assessment more formative

22. QUESTIONS? Board of Education Meeting June 23, 2011 Middle Level Grading