1. Making Grades Meaningful – Building a Community of Practitioners
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
American Society for Engineering Education Conference & Exposition

2. Standards-based Grading (SBG) Research Team
Adam Carberry
Arizona State University
Sara Atwood
Elizabethtown College
Matt Siniawski
Loyola Marymount University
Heidi Diefes-Dux
Purdue University

3. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

4. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

5. Traditional, Score-based Grading
Student
Homework
Total
(%)
Quiz
Total (%)
Midterm
Exam (%)
Final
 Total
Course
Grade
John 78 80 77 83 B-
Bill 50 60 90 87 72 C-
Susan 70 75 C+
Felicia 85 95 B
Jane
100 93 A
What do these student course grades represent?
knowledge, effort, or ability?
some combination of all three?
none of the above?

6. Traditional, Score-based Grading
Such a system inherently fails to meet the conditions for sound assessment of student work and learning
So why do we use it?
long tradition and remains widely used and promoted internationally
no studies to understand, manage and improve, i.e., the essence of ignored and deplored

7. Call for Change
US Department of Education (2006) urged improvement and increased accountability to monitor student learning in higher education
Specific suggestions:
Make course objectives explicit to students beyond course syllabi, so that faculty can follow student development towards achieving them
Provide appropriate feedback to effectively increase student learning

8. Standards-based Grading (SBG)
assessment of student’s mastery of essential standards or learning outcomes for a course
Provides clear, meaningful, and personalized feedback
Directly connects students’ development toward specific objectives (or standards)
Provides fairness, transparency, and flexibility in the grading process
Promotes learning and encourages continuous improvement
Makes grades meaningful
Provides a highly effective tool for program assessment

9. Learning Objectives are the Starting Point of the SBG System
Assessment
Assignments
Include practice with feedback

10. Weighting of objectives
SBG Gradebook
(For each student/team)
Assignments
Learning
Objectives
Weighting of objectives
Course
grade
Weighting of assignments

11. SBG Gradebook Student: Jane Doe (02/15/2016) Project 1 Assignments
Design & Build
(DB)
Modeling (M)
Testing & Eval (TE)
Comm & Org (CO)
Teaming (T)
1: Design description 2 - 3
2: CAD model and 2D print
3: Mechanism model and calculations
4: Project report
Learning Objective Scores
2.0
2.5
3.0
Project Score
2.4
Project Grade A-
Progress Level:
3 - Strong development
2 - Demonstrates appropriate development
1 - Approaching appropriate development
0 - Needs practice and further development or not assessed
Objective Weighting: DB – 25%; M – 25%; TE – 20%; CO – 15%; T – 15%

12. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

13. SBG Participant Panel Mike Foster Beverly Kris Jaeger-Helton Blake
George Fox University
Beverly Kris Jaeger-Helton
Northeastern University
Blake
Hylton
Ohio Northern University
Debra Mascaro
University of Utah

14. Question 1
How long have you been using SBG and in what courses?

15. Question 2
What are some of the reasons why you are trying out standards-based grading?

16. Question 3
What have been some of your challenges with SBG? What have you done to overcome these challenges?

17. Question 4
Do you have any tips and recommendations for those interested in using SBG?

18. Question 5
How have you managed to integrate SBG into learning management systems (LMS)?

20. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

21. Break Time & Form Groups
Pick a course you want to work on
Form working groups (~5 minutes)
First year engineering courses
Project/Design courses
Content courses
Skills courses (Matlab, CAD, etc.)
Meet your group during the
next 5-10 minute break

22. Learning Objectives are the Starting Point of the SBG System
Assessment
Assignments
Include practice with feedback

23. Activity: Learning Objectives (10 minutes)
For your course, write 3-4 most fundamental learning objectives.
For 1 objective, write 2-3 sub-objectives.
Share with a partner and help each other improve the learning objectives.
Prioritize most relevant and critical
Justify quantitative targets for each
Identify Product Design Specifications …
Create and maintain CAD drawings
Fabricate a working Prototype

24. Use strong action verbs to identify observable behaviors

25. Activity: Assignments (10-15 minutes)
Plan the assignments designed to assess that learning objective.
Share with a partner and discuss approaches to the course activities.
Every day, in group
Practice problems
Help from instructor, TAs, and other students Feedback: real-time help + solutions, participation graded
Weekly, individual
20 minute quiz in class
Feedback: immediate explanation of solution by instructor, self-graded with rubric
Monthly, individual
Exam
Culmination of unit
Combines concepts Feedback: graded by instructor with rubric

26. Activity: Rubric (10-15 minutes)
For your learning objective, write a 3-5 level rubric listing expectations of performance at each level.
Share with a partner and help each other improve the rubrics.
Fully Achieved
Plot command used
Hold or equivalent is used
Time is independent variable
Both plots formatted correctly
Appropriate title
Appropriate axis commands and labels
Partially Achieved
1-2 errors from the fully achieved list
Underachieved
3-4 errors from the Fully Achieved list
No Evidence
More than 4 errors from the Fully Achieved list

27. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

28. Wrap-up
Web Resources
Website -

29. Wrap-up Web Resources Website - http://www.sbghub.lmu.build
SBG Hub Forum – create a Login to join

30. Wrap-up
Web Resources
YouTube Channel – Standards-based Grading

31. Wrap-up
Literature Resources
ASEE PRISM Article – Made to Measure

32. Wrap-up Literature Resources
Vaishnav, S. & Carberry, A. (2017). Student perspectives on standards-based grading used in engineering project-based courses. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX.
Diefes-Dux, H. A. (2016). Student reflections on standards-based graded. ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Erie, PA.
Carberry, A., Siniawski, M., Atwood, A., & Diefes-Dux, H. (2016). Best practices for using standards- based grading in engineering courses. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA.
Hylton, J. B., & Diefes-Dux, H. A. (2016). A standards-based assessment strategy for written exams. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA.
Marbouti, F., Diefes-Dux, H. A., & Madhaven, K. (2016). Models for early prediction of at-risk students in a course using standards-based grading. Computers & Education, 103, 1-15.
Marbouti, F. (2016). A standards-based grading model to predict students’ success in a first-year engineering course (Unpublished dissertation). Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Atwood, S., Siniawski, M., & Carberry, A. (2014). Using standards-based grading in engineering project courses. Design in Engineering Education Division (DEED) – American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, IN.
Carberry, A.R., Siniawski, M., & Dionisio, J. (2012). Standards-based grading: Preliminary studies to quantify changes in student affective and cognitive behaviors. ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Seattle, WA.
Siniawski, M., Carberry, A., & Dionisio, J. (2012). Standards-based grading: An alternative to score- based assessment. American Society for Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Section Conference, San Luis Obispo, CA.

33. Most Recent/Upcoming Work
ASEE 2017
Nathan Hicks & Heidi Diefes-Dux – Grader Consistency in using standards-based rubrics
REES 2017
Heidi Diefes-Dux – Student self-reported use of standards-based grading feedback and resources
Eunsil Lee, Adam Carberry, Sara Atwood, Heidi Diefes-Dux & Matt Siniawski – Faculty perceptions before and after implementation of standards-based grading

34. Overview of Workshop SBG 101 SBG Participant Panel
Roundtable Discussion & Design
Wrap-up
Q&A

36. SBG Website | http://www.sbghub.lmu.build
Sara Atwood
Adam Carberry
Heidi Diefes-Dux
Matthew Siniawski
Making Grades Meaningful - Standards-based Grading for Engineering Project Courses, Grant No. DUE
SBG Website |