STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING

Standards Referenced Grading Dianne J.E. Kraus Wilkes University

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING The Proposal

What is the overwhelming need within our school and district now that the new common core standards (CCS) have been determined for the Mathematics and the English curriculum? As a science teacher, I am holding my breath until the CCS for science is delivered to be rewritten effectively into target goals with well designed artful purpose for the upcoming school year. In the past we have formed our SAC committees and leadership teams to decipher the code, to write the scope and sequence for the district which is largely ignored or forgotten by most teachers. Evaluators look for the learning goals to be posted each day or scribbled on the corner of the board in language yet to be understood by students. Mostly these are erased at the first convenient moment when the administrator leaves the room like a nuisance scorned. Common language between educators is one goal of our professional learning communities at Dundee Crown, but we have not used the standards to design or align our grading system. What is our purpose in writing the learning goals and how can we embrace this opportunity to improve our current practice? One answer would be to empower teachers with a system that is student-centered and standards-referenced for designing instruction, getting instructional feedback, encouraging student tracking of progress and implement grading that is aligned to the new common core standards. As a district it is important to share the same vision and to share common classroom practices and expectations. According to our new assistant superintendent, we must evaluate performance and collect data on student achievement in order to improve yearly student performance. We can improve performance, compare data and provide effective instruction by implementing a standards-referenced grading system.

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING The beginning point for this process is clearly written learning goals based on the CCS and the use of progressive clearly stated rubrics that can be used by all teachers in the district to align their instruction for all students. The learning goals can then be organized into reporting

topics and strands that can be reported separately if funding is available for a new format on report cards. This reporting system gives more information on student progress than the standard letter grade, and allows for a breakdown in knowledge and life skills. (Marzano, 2010) Based on the learning goals for each topic, each teacher would provide summative scores for each reporting unit, that are combined and averaged using only the final grades for each target learning goal, and that are based on the current district grading scale. Weighted averages and conjunctive approaches can be used for summative scores, but are best agreed upon by teams of teachers in order that grade reporting is synonymous across each content area. Conjunctive approaches allow teachers to assign a letter grade at a higher level based on student mastery of content that is lower than the target goal due to material that has not been covered on the rubric. (Marzano, 2010) In order to assist teachers and to ease the implementation of this approach, we have five teachers on our faculty from different content areas that are prepared to facilitate a workshop for our teachers on the standards-referenced system and on tracking student progress. This would be done at no cost to the district and would be held on Kane County Professional Development Day with no loss to instructional time and no cost for substitute teachers. The advantages of using the standards-referenced system allows students to track their own progress towards the learning goals in order to understand what they are required to achieve and how they are going to achieve their goal. They are allowed differentiation in their instruction so that they are challenged but not overwhelmed. Students can generate their own

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING assessment plans to demonstrate mastery of their goals, take ownership of their learning and realize greater pride and motivation for their educational experience. Based on the data

collected by the RtI team at Dundee Crown, student progress tracking based on standards is strongly correlated to improved student performance and supports the use of standardsreferenced grading. The students would benefit from a grading system that is based on clearly referenced standards, aligned formative and summative assessments, consistent learning goals established for use by all teachers, and common assessments based on five point scoring rubrics. Grades would also be reported based on learning, and not based on averaged formative assessments. Furthermore, when using a standards-referenced system, teachers have a clear understanding and direction for their instructional goals and can plan formative assessments for instructional feedback based on the target learning goals. Also, well written learning goals avoid the problems of mixing different types of knowledge and skills. In order to assist the transition to this system, members of our faculty could mentor other teachers in using the target learning goals to structure classroom instruction and to design assessments that are aligned to the rubrics. Weaknesses in instruction can be identified and addressed by teams of teachers working together to improve instructional effectiveness. The teachers will benefit from consistent grading practices, instructional feedback, data-driven decisions that will increase student achievement and improved district performance on standardized testing. As members of our community, parents will benefit from standards-referenced grading by having a consistent grading system that is based on learning goals and measures student learning. Parents can also participate in reviewing progress with their children and helping their children to set goals for themselves by tracking student progress at home.

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING Beyond the classroom, the data obtained for summative scores on measurement topics can be used to evaluate student achievement for PLCs, schools and district performance markers. The data system currently being used, which is the infinite campus system can be easily adapted for the high school without any great cost since the standard-referenced system is already being employed by the elementary and middle schools. The common core standards are offering a golden opportunity for our district to update

our grading system and to align our instructional goals and objectives. The standards-referenced system will allow us to educate all of our students and to allow students to chart their own future. More importantly, we will have the interconnected goals between the members of our learning community that are required to move the district forward, to improve accountability, and to improve the education of our youth as we move further into the 21st century. List of Questions 1. What is the difference between a standard referenced system and a standards based system? 2. How would the faculty accept the idea in order to implement this system? 3. Who would be the target audience of the workshop on Kane County Day and who would the facilitators be? 4. How would you enable vertical alignment between the middle schools and the high schools? 5. How are the learning goals written and how does this differ from the system currently being used by the district? 6. What other strategies would be embedded into the workshop? How would the message be delivered?

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING 7. Will this help the design of the common assessments on late starts and have you started working on the target goals with your PLC? What is their response? 8. What do you need in infinite campus for the high school marking to use this system? Summary and Reflection of the Meeting I met with several people regarding the proposal of the standards referenced system and the workshop that I am proposing for Kane County Day, including our RtI coordinator, the

coordinator for the AVID program, and the Divisional for Science. All of my colleagues felt that this is a timely issue and that we should pursue the idea as a team. All agreed to assist with the development and delivery of the workshop and will take the message to other administrators and to the leadership team. As we are under restructuring, all of these people have been learning Marzano strategies and were familiar with standards-based grading and student tracking of progress. We all offer our own expertise from different perspectives through workshops, certifications, classroom experiences and formal courses on the design of the target learning goals and how to design the instructional practice and tracking of goals using the Marzano design strategies. As a result, I received overwhelming support for my proposal but the seed is only planted and will require a long time to grow. I would not change my approach to meeting with my colleagues because we have been working together for a long time and have grown to respect one another. We are part of a learning community that encourages teacher leadership so we feel very comfortable with each other and we build on each others ideas in an environment of support and inquiry. In order to present this proposal to administrators, teachers, students, and parents in our community we would need to start small and to collect data on the system. I would start with our workshop as planned because all of the members of my PLC plan to attend. In my PLC we can

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING set up the standards referenced system within our content area and conduct an action research project in order to collect data. If the results are as we expect them to be then this data and our set-up can be shared with our school faculty and administration. It would be possible to deliver an overview using a video of students and teachers in the classroom to highlight the overall use of instruction based on the learning goals and showing students tracking their own progress.

Once we have the support of the school faculty and administrators it will be easy to share this with our district office. If the Superintendent supports the idea he will discuss the implementation with the district leadership. Regarding informing parents, I will naturally communicate my plans for my classroom on parent nights and in my syllabus, but if the district decides to implement standards-referenced grading they would advise parents through social media websites, newsletter, and in the student handbook. I think that this process will start with a few teachers implementing this in their classrooms, and others will follow based on the results of student achievement. Whether or not the administrators will have the courage to break away from an antiquated system such as the 100-point scale will be a test of time. I question whether or not the teachers will easily give up their grading freedom to embrace a system that will create a common language between our classrooms. Some people fear change and we need to give them plenty of time to consider and support the change in order for them to take such a leap outside of their comfort zone. We all share a desire to help students improve so the change will come if there is an improvement in student performance, a supportive school administration, and a few teachers who are willing to act as teacher leaders.

STANDARDS REFERENCED GRADING References Marzano, R.J. (2010) Formative assessment & standards based grading. Bloomington, IN:MRL.