Please take a sticker colored according to your discipline

1. Please take a sticker colored according to your discipline

2. Assessing What They KnowThe obsolescence of traditional grading in STEM Kathleen Krier, Ed. D. Neil O’Connell The 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education You can find all of the files for today’s session at http://www.21pstem.org/scaling_stem

3. Today’s Learning Outcomes • Understand techniques to integrate project-based learning, proficiency-based assessment, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and effective feedback in the classroom. • Describe the requirements of a recordkeeping system to capture all of the techniques listed above.

4. Grading What is the purpose of grades? What should grades convey? To whom? The purposes of grades are threefold and date back for at least 50 years: To rank or sort students, possibly for higher education recommendations. To report results as in communicating to parents and students. To contribute to learning by providing feedback and motivating students. - Brookhart, 2009

5. Traditional Grading Based on the number of points accumulated - OR - Based on an average of completed work

6. What’s wrong with traditional grading? “In courses where grades are based upon the accumulation of points, students may focus on collecting points rather than on learning and achieving the course objectives.” - Gordon, 2006 The nature of averages – grades “earned early on in a course are given equal weight with grades generated near the end” even though a student may have mastered all of the content by the end of the course. - Esty& Teppo, 1992

7. “…extra credit, late work, class participation and non-academic assignments (returning a signed progress report, for example) can influence a student’s score. These factors represent life skills which, while important, don’t necessarily reflect a student’s content knowledge.” - Gordon, 2006 “Traditional grades are difficult for students and parents to interpret because they combine a number of factors into one summary grade.” - Knaack, Kreuz, & Zawlocki, 2012 “Parents and students agreed that they did not always understand why students received certain grades and were not able to identify their students’ strengths and weaknesses. Parents were not confident in the teacher’s abilities to explain grades.” - Knaack, Kreuz, & Zawlocki, 2012

8. Proficiency-Based Assessment • Well-defined Learning Outcomes, tied to Standards, ensure that administrators, teachers, students, and parents understand the scope and specific goals of each course. • Proficiency-based Assessment clearly communicates students’ skills and knowledge in specific content areas. • Reassessmenttransforms the classroom to a student-centered learning environment that encourages students to remediate and master material they did not understand when it was first taught.

9. Learning Outcomes Statements, tied to standards, of what we want students to learn and be able to do. • Skills or concepts • Clearly defined for students, teachers and parents • Observable and measurable • Grade-level appropriate • Complex enough to allow for strategic thinking • Multiple opportunities for demonstration

10. Flow Chart of Proficiency-BasedAssessment and Reassessment Has the student demonstrated proficiency in the learning outcome? No Yes The student is not yet proficient. Has the student’s work demonstrated high performance? No Yes Remediate. The student is proficient. The student is high performance. Re-evaluate.

11. Today’s Interdisciplinary Project All of these documents are available online at http://www.21pstem.org/scaling_stem The description of the experiment is the first two pages of the first packet in your folder. The description of some activities that can be pulled into other disciplines is the second packet in your folder.

12. Proficiency Levels and Webb’s DOK

13. Rubric for Sample Project • First column: Learning Outcomes Same language that’s present in the Common Core and North Carolina state science standards. You may see other outcomes present in the project (our list isn’t exhaustive!) • Columns 2-4: Criteria for Not Yet Proficient, Proficient and High Performance The criteria are concrete ways that the student can demonstrate proficiency in that particular learning outcome in the context of this project.

14. Rubrics, Learning Outcomes and Depth of Knowledge Each person in a group should select a different learning outcome and come up with rubric criteria for demonstration of Not Yet Proficient, Proficient and High Performance.

15. Rubrics, Learning Outcomes and Depth of Knowledge Share out with your group. Everyone should leave their group with proficiency criteria for all of the learning outcomes in that discipline.

16. Move! • Share out with the members from other disciplines. When you leave this group, your entire rubric should be filled out.

17. Effective Feedback • Specific to the task itself Not a general comment like “good job.” • Recipe for action The comment should include feedback on something done well and on something that needs to improve and how to improve it. • Promotes student thinking • Given in a timely manner with opportunity to use the feedback

18. Feedback and Remediation Has the student demonstrated proficiency in the learning outcome? No Yes The student is not yet proficient. Has the student answered the high performance items correctly? No Yes Remediate. The student is proficient. The student is high performance. Re-evaluate.

19. Feedback The study evaluated 200 low and high ability 5th and 6th grade students across 16 classes in 4 schools. Students in each group were taught by the same teachers, with the same aims, pedagogy and classwork. The only difference was the type of feedback students were given: Scores only, comments only, or scores and comments. Their performance on a task from the Divergent Thinking Uses Test (Torrence and Templeton) was evaluated.

20. Creating Effective Feedback Using the student work sample provided, write feedback to the student that satisfies the four characteristics of effective feedback. When you’re done, put your feedback card into the envelope. Do not put your name on it.

21. Effective Feedback • Specific to the task itself Not a general comment like “good job.” • Recipe for action The comment should include feedback on something done well and on something that needs to improve and how to improve it. • Promotes student thinking • Given in a timely manner with opportunity to use the feedback

22. Creating Effective Feedback Pass the envelope, choosing a card that someone else wrote. On the back of the card you chose, write effective feedback to your colleague.

23. Effective Feedback • Specific to the task itself Not a general comment like “good job.” • Recipe for action The comment should include feedback on something done well and on something that needs to improve and how to improve it. • Promotes student thinking • Given in a timely manner with opportunity to use the feedback

24. Creating Effective Feedback As a group, look at all the cards. Construct a composite feedback statement for the student using the best elements of your four cards. Write that feedback on chart paper and post it on the wall. Group Discussion: • Compare and contrast the elements of each piece of feedback • What effect might these pieces of feedback have on the student?

25. 21PSTEM’s Progress Tracker • Integrates all four aspects of today’s session • Project-based Learning • Proficiency-based Assessment • Webb’s Depth of Knowledge • Quality Feedback

26. References • Brookhart, S. (2009). Grading (2nd ed.). New York: Merrill • Gordon, M. (2006). Are traditional grades a thing of the past? Education.com. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/magazine/article/traditional-grades/ • Using standards-based grading to address students’ strengths and weaknesses. Knaack, S., Kreuz, A., & Zawlocki, E. Eric ED531172