Standards-Based Grading and IB Standards and Practices November 24, 2014 Many of the slides and information in this PowerPoint come from the work of Rick Wormeli

Grading Quotes Activity Read the quotes Select one that is meaningful to you Keep that quote and pass the other As you receive more quotes, determine whether to keep the quote you chose previously or select a new meaningful quote You may only keep one quote at a time

Grading Quotes Activity (con’t) Take a moment to reflect upon why the quote is meaningful to you In groups: Introduce yourself, read your quote and share why it was meaningful

Premise A grade represents a valid and undiluted indicator of what a student knows and is able to do – mastery. With grades we document progress in students and our teaching, we provide feedback to students and their parents, and we make instructional decisions.

What is a grade? What does it reflect? Proficiency Understanding Improvement Progress Achievement Effort Compliance Hodgepodge OR Clear Standards

Identify the Principles Involved, THEN Gather the Solutions How do I grade with validity? Teachers must be ethical. They cannot knowingly falsify a score or grade. To be useful, grades must be accurate reports of evidence of students’ performance against standards. Any test format that does not create an accurate report of students’ degree of evidence of standards must be changed so that it does or replaced by one that does. Effective teachers are mindful of cultural and experiential bias in assessments and try to minimize their impact.

If teachers act upon these principles, what decisions/behaviors/policies should we see in their assessment and grading procedures?

Do we really do this?

[From Genessee ISD]

[Artist Unknown] [Artist Unknown

1 3 2 10 12 6 Student Dimension A Dimension B Total Score Unidimensionality – A single score on a test represents a single dimension or trait that has been assessed Student Dimension A Dimension B Total Score 1 2 10 12 3 6 “Classroom Assessment & Grading That Works,” Marzano Problem: Most tests use a single score to assess multiple dimensions and traits. The resulting score is often invalid and useless. -- Marzano, CAGTW

A Single Grade = An Amalgamation Teachers must combine evidence from a multitude of diverse sources This 1 grade rarely reflects a true picture of student’s proficiency Is impossible to interpret

Disaggregate. The more curriculum we pool into one symbol, the less valid is the symbol for reporting on any one standard.

All 4 of these students have a 70% average

Just because it’s mathematically easy to calculate doesn’t mean it’s pedagogically correct.

Time to Stop Averaging Society’s definition of normal or ”average” changes over time Averaging tells us how a student is doing in relation to others, but we are criterion-referenced in standards-based classrooms. Averaging was invented in statistics to get rid of the influence of any one sample error in experimental design, not how a student is doing in relation to learning goal. Mode and in some cases, median, have higher correlation with outside the classroom testing.

Measures of Central Tendency What we measure is the most consistent level of performance over time. Consistent levels of performance do not equate to a formula (i.e. Mean (Average), Median & Mode)

Comment from Grading Expert, Tom Schimmer: “Adults are rarely mean averaged and certainly, it is irrelevant to an adult that they used to not know how to do something. Yet for a student, these two factors are dominant in their school experience.” -- From, “Accurate Grading with a Standards-based Mindset” (Webinar, December 2013)

Grading Philosophy Statement (Your Personal Navigation Device) GPS Grading Philosophy Statement (Your Personal Navigation Device)

Checking Current Philosophy about Assessment and Grading 1. What does each mark or grade on your grading scale represent? 2. Does an A mean students have met or exceeded the standards or learner outcomes? 3. How does your philosophy about differentiation and grading vary from that of your colleagues? 4. What’s the difference between formative and summative assessments, and what role does each play in the report card grade? 5. If two students complete different tasks as part of the same unit of study and both earn an A on the assessment, are the grades equivalent?

Rick Wormeli’s Thoughts

0 or 50 (or 60)? 100-pt. Scale: 0, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100 -- 83% (C+) 60, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100 -- 93% (B+) When working with students, do we choose the most hurtful, unrecoverable end of the “F” range, or the most constructive, recoverable end of the “F” range?

Be Clear Students are not getting points for having done nothing. The student still gets an F. We’re simply equalizing the influence of the each grade in the overall grade and responding in a way that leads to learning.

Imagine the Reverse… A = 100 – 40 B = 39 – 30 C = 29 – 20 D = 19 – 10 F = 9 – 0 What if we reversed the proportional influences of the grades? That “A” would have a huge, yet undue, inflationary effect on the overall grade. Just as we wouldn’t want an “A” to have an inaccurate effect, we don’t want an “F” grade to have such an undue, deflationary, and inaccurate effect. Keeping zeroes on a 100-pt. scale is just as absurd as the scale seen here.

Consider the Correlation 100 90 80 70 60 4 3 2 1 A (0) on a 100-pt. scale is a (-6) on a 4-pt. scale. If a student does no work, he should get nothing, not something worse than nothing. How instructive is it to tell a student that he earned six times less than absolute failure? Choose to be instructive, not punitive. [Based on an idea by Doug Reeves, The Learning Leader, ASCD, 2006] 50 40 30 20 10 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6

Temperature Readings for Norfolk, VA: 85, 87, 88, 84, 0 (‘Forgot to take the reading) Average: 68.8 degrees This is inaccurate for what really happened, and therefore, unusable.

Take a 10 minute Break

Grading Text Activity Purpose: To collaboratively construct meaning Clarify Expand our thinking

Instructions Read the text While reading, highlight the following: Sentence Phrase Word You will share these three with the whole group

Take Aways In what ways could you use the final list of words? What ideas did not strike you as important in your private reading that feel much more important now after sharing out?

From Dr. Tom Guskey, “The Case Against Percentage Grades,” Education Leadership, September 2013: “Why not use a 50-point grading scale and designate ten levels of failure rather than the 100-point percentage grading scale with 60 levels of failure? After all, the choice of 100 is quite arbitrary.” “…[W]ith more levels [in a grading scale], more students are likely to be misclassified in terms of their performance on a particular assessment.” Case Against Zero

Clarification: When we’re talking about converting zeroes to 50s or higher, we’re referring to zeroes earned on major projects and assessments, not homework, as well as anything graded on a 100-point scale. It’s okay to give zeroes on homework or on small scales, such as a 4.0 scale. Zeroes recorded for homework assignments do not refer to final, accurate declarations of mastery, and those zeroes don’t have the undue influence on small grading scales.

Time to Change the Metaphor: Grades are NOT compensation. Grades are communication: They are an accurate report of what happened.

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset – Carol Dweck Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation – Daniel Pink

Fair Isn’t Always Equal

Define Mastery Agree on a commonly accepted definition of mastery with those around you.

What is Mastery? “Tim was so learned, that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant, that he bought a cow to ride on.” -Ben Franklin, 1750, Poor Richard’s Almanac

Working Definition of Mastery (Rick Wormeli) Students have mastered content when they demonstrate a thorough understanding as evidenced by doing something substantive with the content beyond merely echoing it. Anyone can repeat information; it’s the masterful student who can break content into its component pieces, explain it and alternative perspectives regarding it cogently to others, and use it purposefully in new situations.

The better question is not, “What is the standard The better question is not, “What is the standard?” The better question is, “What evidence will we tolerate?”

But we can do something to correct this! Grades are a fragile premise on which to base so much function and dysfunction in students’ lives. Grades are all to often: Subjective Inferential Relative But we can do something to correct this!

Exit Slip – For Lunch Six Word Memoir

How to use what we learned this morning and apply it in an IB setting Subject areas Rubrics Criteria

Marzano’s Four Point Scale

MYP Provides - Objective / Criteria Alignment Objectives and Their Strands: What we want students to demonstrate. Criteria: A measurement of how well students have achieved against the objective /strand. The Standards are Given to us in MYP!

Great differentiated assessment is never kept in the dark. “Students can hit any target they can see and which stands still for them.” -- Rick Stiggins, Educator and Assessment expert If a child ever asks, “Will this be on the test?” . . . We haven’t done our job.

· Analyze · Describe · Evaluate · Identify MYP Command Terms · Use · Demonstrate · Recognize · Describe · Evaluate · Formulate · Investigate · Reflect · Analyze · Describe · Evaluate · Identify · Interpret · Justify · Recognize · Synthesize · Think · Document What do they mean and how do they relate?

Assessment using the MYP command terms Criterion B: Investigating

“Best Fit” approach The criterion work like “buckets” that fill up as students reach different levels of achievement, from the lowest to the highest. We should use the “best-fit” approach.

With MYP Grading, Keep in Mind . . . -Command Terms -Assessing Each Strand -“Best Fit”

Determining a Grade All schools offering the MYP must use the published subject-specific criteria and achievement level descriptors to determine final internal grades. To arrive at a criterion levels total for each student, teachers will need to total the final achievement levels in each of the criteria. Subject groups must address all strands of all four assessment criteria at least twice in each year of the MYP

Example of summative assessments: How would you “mark” this student? Criteria Tasks Criterion A Criterion B Criterion C Criterion D Research project 6 5 Poster project 7 Timeline Oral presentation Test (not multiple choice) 8 Final achievement level Criteria Total /32 Final Subject Grade

/32 Final levels Criteria Tasks Criterion A Criterion B Criterion C Criterion D Research project 6 5 Posters project 7 Timeline Oral presentation Test (not multiple choice) 8 Final levels Criteria Total /32 Final Subject Grade Final Subject Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Boundaries 1 - 5 6 - 9 10 - 14 15 - 18 19 - 23 24 - 27 28 - 32

26/32 Final levels Criteria Tasks Criterion A Criterion B Criterion C Criterion D Research project 6 5 Poster project 7 Timeline Oral presentation Test (not multiple choice) 8 Final levels Criterion Levels Total 26/32 Final Subject Grade Final Subject Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Boundaries 1 - 5 6 - 9 10 - 14 15 - 18 19 - 23 24 - 27 28 - 32

Let’s look at some scores! Accuracy increases with sample size; use clear and consistent evidence over time. Let’s look at some scores! 2, 4, 4, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5 2, 4, 4, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6 2, 4, 4, 2, 4, 1, 5, 2

Cathlee Gallup

How do we do this?

Words of Wisdom from Dr. Haim Ginott I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether or not a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized. I am part of a team of educators creating a safe, caring and positive learning environment for students and teaching them in a manner that ensures success because all individuals are capable of learning.

Personal Reflection As a result of this session: One thing I will start doing … One thing I will continue doing … One thing I will stop doing …..

Contact Information Jason Rubel jrubel@bloomfield.org Heidi Kattula hkattula@bloomfield.org Cathlee Gallup cgallup@bloomfield.org