The Blessing and Curse of Using Standards Based Grading

Reflecting on my implementation of standards based grading, the blessing is the conversations with students about their understanding.  The curse is the lack of responsibility the students take in keeping track of the standards they do and do not understand.

At the end of class on Friday, one of my students approached me with a question: "Mrs. Beck, can you help me, I worked really hard on a project for one of my classes, I spent many hours outside of class, and put everything I had into it, and I failed.  What can I do to fix it?"  This student was desperate, he did not want to fail a major project.  He came to me because in my class this failure would be a learning opportunity that he would be able to fix.  As I searched for some encouragement and hope for this student, I knew that if I had not implemented standards based grading this conversation would not be taking place.  What words of wisdom could I give this student as he searched for advice as to how to advocate for himself?  I realized I had blessed and cursed this student with standards based grading.

As I was catching up with the #sbar (standards based grading) hashtag on twitter this morning I came across some great blog posts that really hit home with some areas I am struggling with in my process of implementing standards based grading.  

My biggest struggle is getting my students more involved in the process.  I am working towards the time when students will walk up to me and say something like, "Mrs. Beck, I need some help with these standards, and I need to prove I understand these standards."  Right now, many of my students are coming to me to ask what standards they have 1's or 2's in.  Although this is frustrating, I also know that this is part of my journey of implementing standards based grading.  Enter the first blog post I read today:

Brian Bennett - Changing Teaching by Changing Grading

After reading Brian's post, I have the following plan for increasing student participation in the standards based grading process.

• I can statements for each of the essential math standards for our unit on quadratics for each student
• Self assessment grades (similar to status of the class) three times a week from each student based on the I can statements
• Opportunities for the students to show proof of understanding in multiple ways each week
• Using Brian's 5 point scoring system for self assessment so that the students really consider where they are in the learning continuum.

One change I have made this year is to have students correct their own assessments.  In the past I would correct them and then after handing them back, have the students reflect and write about what they understood and what they need work on.  It was a struggle until this year when we began correcting the tests together.  When we go over the various ways to solve the problems together, the students see the errors of their ways and their reflection is more meaningful.  And because of standards based grading there is not a need to try and change their answers (or cheat), because the students know they can always show proof of understanding at a later time.  I am looking forward to using Brian's guide to increase my students' participation in the #sbar process.

My next area is that of communicating more effectively with parents.  I had a parent email me this week asking for help with her son and that she did not understand what the 2- for his grade meant.  I teach in a district that is known for the high test scores on standardized tests.  The parents are also very comfortable with the grading system and rankings that are in place.  Implementing standards based grading can be a challenge in this community.  So, I really appreciated Terie's blog post.  I will be working hard the rest of this year and each following year to communicate with my parents more effectively in regards to standards based grading.

Terie Engelbrecht - Communicating Standards Based Grading to Parents

Finally, Stacy's post hit home for me in many ways.  She reminded me that kids want to succeed and that as teachers we need to make sure we are teaching our grade level standards!  As a parent I can really relate to her post!

Stacy Piacentini - That's Someone's Child

When I started #sbar, I had blind faith, I closed my eyes and jumped because I believed it was what was best for my teaching and my students' learning.  I also knew that because I was trying something new it would be a learning process.  I have been making adjustments as I progress.  It has been a giant science experiment, lots of tweaking and tinkering and re-calculating.  Even though I am a beginner, I feel supported by the #sbar folks on twitter who are on the path with me.

Is It the Place or the Relationships?

This past week while on winter break, I visited a place that was significant in my formative years from infancy through college.  As I anticipated the visit, my heart changed, a calmness spread and I could not help but smile.  When my family and I arrived and stepped off the plane, I was overcome by the familiar even though I had not visited this place for fifteen years.  The smells, the sights, the streets, I remembered it all as I piloted the rental car without any maps (of course my phone with Google maps was there if needed).  As I navigated my way to drive by childhood landmarks my eyes teared up as memories showered down on me.  I suddenly realized that it was not the place that held the significance, it was the relationships I had built there that caused the feelings I was experiencing.  Some of the relationships were with people and some of the relationships were with the environment, but the relationship was the key.  As the week progressed my relationship with the place changed.  When I arrived my heart was melancholy thinking of the people who have passed and the fact that aging has occurred.  As the week progressed the calmness came back as did the smile on my face.  There were new relationships forged and when I left I wasn't longing for the past as I had when I arrived.

Of course this made me think of school and my classroom - even on vacation (I know, pathetic!)  I have written in other posts about the importance of building relationships with kids in our classes.  I began thinking about the kiddos that struggle and/or are willful non-performers.  Which caused me to immediately jump to these kiddos as adults.  When they become parents, how are their attitudes towards school going to affect their children?

A few weeks ago I attended a Classroom 2.0 Live Saturday webinar that featured Joe Mazza a principal who is known for parent involvement.  Since listening to him and following him on twitter, I have been thinking about parent participation and getting parents on my side.  This week made me think about the parents who avoid school as a place because of the relationships they had while in school.

I have complained about parents not showing up for conferences, yet did I stop to think about why these parents may be avoiding coming back to school.  Just as my place had extremely positive memories flooding in, school for some has very negative feelings tied to it.  If a parent has these negative memories, could those feelings be passed on to their child who is in your class and struggling?  How do we get these parents to not let the place of school interfere with building new, positive relationships with the adults who educate their children?  If I think about it, these parents are usually contacted by school in regards to their child getting in some sort of trouble which perpetuates the negative relationship with school as a place.  How do we change that?

Just as struggling students need an advocate, school phobic parents need advocates who can build a positive relationship and help them to see school as a partner rather than an adversary.  I know I need to change my interactions with these parents and look for positive interactions.  How do we pull these parents in when they are masters of avoidance?  I will be pondering all of this for a while!  I would love ideas and suggestions!

Softy the Discipline Queen

Recently I have been struggling with discipline with my 6 year old son who is in kindergarten.  It is interesting because I have been known as the teacher who has a highly functioning classroom with regards to discipline.  In fact I have often been "punished" for my ability to turn unruly students into working students.  I say that I have been "punished" because there have been times when students have been moved into my class mid-year for a behavior adjustment because their teacher was unable to "work" with the student.  I felt it was a punishment because I would be given students who were unsuccessful with other teachers half way through the school year which would turn my classroom upside down for a while.  However, I should see this turn of events as a blessing instead of a punishment because the students that were sent to me received a second chance at success.  My administrators told me it was a compliment.  I still do not quite see it that way.

Anyhow, as I reflect on my past practices, I am ashamed of my actions when it comes to disciplining my students.  Luckily for me, my philosophy has always been to build a relationship with my students.  This has enabled them to forgive my unforgivable discipline practices from the beginning of the school year.  So even though I  have used coercive tactics to supposedly "control" student behavior, the students still respected me because I made a point to respect them.  I have to admit that I am not proud of my behavior in the name of discipline.  Fortunately I have always been the type of teacher who has to problem solve and talk out situations with her students.  So when I went overboard, I would almost immediately have a pow wow with the student to problem solve the situation and come to an agreement together.

So how have things changed in my classroom, and what does it have to do with my 6 year old son's behavior?  Here are my discipline beliefs:

• I believe that all students want to be successful and "behave" in class
• I believe that "behave" means different things to different students
• I believe that some students come into my classroom unable to "behave" for a variety of reasons
• I believe it is my responsibility as an educator to collaboratively problem solve with my students if they are having a problem "behaving" in class.
• I believe that behavior is not a grade and if a student struggles to conform it should not reflect on their grade if he/she can prove understanding in a content area.
• I believe that a student not "behaving" in my classroom is not personal, it is something that is out of my control as an educator.  It is my job to take time to build relationships and respectfully understand that there is most likely a plethora of things that could be going on in my student's life outside of the classroom.
• I believe that it takes effort and time to cooperatively problem solve to build relationships with students and that it is much easier to write a referral or "punish" a student
• I believe that referrals and punishment do not in any way improve the behavior of a student.
• I believe that natural consequences for a behavior do provide a teachable moment for students and have the ability to change the students behavior
• I believe it is important to remove the behavior from the student

I could go on but you get the point.  I have struggled this year because it seems as though I have gone soft.  I like to think of myself as enlightened.  I look upon my students differently for a variety of reasons, one being I am the mother of a six year old who has decided to be a willful non-performer and classroom disrupter.  As my husband and I contemplate taking every Lego and Star Wars toy away, I realize we need to cooperatively problem solve with my son just as I do in my classroom. 

So, the softy (my new name for myself) gives lunch money to kids who forgot their lunch, so that when they come to my class 6th period they can concentrate on math and not the fact that they are hungry.  The softy also squats down when a student is acting up and asks the kiddo what is going on and allows him/her to take a walk around the field to clear his/her head.  The softy lets students listen to their iPods as they work on math in class.  It is difficult because when my colleagues walk in and question what they see in my class, I start to question my jellyfishness, but I recover quickly.  They notice that I am letting the students break the "school rules" without noticing the engagement of my students with the math activities they are working on.  

So, I need to lighten up on my son - he is a great kid who is testing the boundaries of his teacher which shows intelligence and gumption.  I will leave it up to his teacher to give him natural consequences and he will get the picture and make adjustments.  As for me, I have a very loud critic in my head who questions everything I do.  I have decided to put duct tape on her voice and continue to embrace my new friend Softy.

Below is a nice post by Josh Stumpenhorst @stumpteacher
School Fails Boys

Update: What Grades Mean in My Classroom

Last week I posted my beliefs about what grades mean in my classroom.  On Monday I made my beliefs public to the math department at my school.  As I shared each belief and explained how I was implementing it in my math classroom I was flooded with so many feelings.

My first feeling was fear.  Although I have been at my current school for 8 years and have a wonderful rapport with my fellow teachers, the grading debate in our school is a hot topic with many sides and emotions embedded.  I was fearful that after sharing my beliefs I would lose respect from my colleagues.  As I began to share my beliefs, the seven other math teachers listened intently and respectfully and the fear quickly turned to relief. 

The feeling of relief was a result of letting my colleagues in on what is going on in my classroom as far as implementing standards based grading.  I have been breaking agreements that our department made about grades and although my administrators were well aware of what I was doing I still felt like I was cheating and lying.  Part of the reason I had decided to "come clean" with my department was a result of parent comments to my fellow math teachers which caused them to wonder about what was going on in my classroom.  I was relieved to get my grading policy off my chest by sharing my beliefs.  I was also relieved at the response, my colleagues listened intently and we began a meaningful discussion about grading.  

The next feeling I felt was appreciation.  As we discussed and questioned, I realized we are all in very different places in our beliefs about grading.  However, as a department, we could appreciate where each individual was on the continuum of what grading meant in their classroom.  An example was a comment a fellow math teacher made to a parent about my grading based on standards and her grading based on completion.  Knowing that she is okay with where I am and also okay with where she is allows for appreciation.  It is also the foundation for the next step of moving more teachers towards standards based grading.

Again I am going to mention the  ASCD Article by Susan Brookhart.  She states,

"All opinions need to be heard, and people's right to hold them should be affirmed.  Educators will be much more receptive to new ideas - even those that challenge their own opinions - that come from colleagues who understand where they stand and why."

This is so key in the grading discussion!

The final feeling I am experiencing is acceptance.  The standards based grading conversation is so tough.  I admire my administrators for taking it on.  I accept the fact that it is a journey and it will be a long one.  I realize that as a staff we need to take baby steps.  As someone who is fully vested in helping facilitate the change, I need to be patient, listen to concerns and share resources.  I need to accept the fact that I am still learning and stumbling in my implementation and that I need to seek out help and advice.

For those of you working to implement standards based grading, JUMP and share with your colleagues.  Get a copy of the November issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership on Effective Grading Polices.

Stay the Course!  As difficult as it is to work to implement standards based grading, it has completely changed the conversations and attitudes and learning in my classroom.

I'll keep you updated with our ongoing conversations and the struggles I encounter as I learn to implement standards based grading.

What is the Purpose of Grades in my Classroom?

My first semester of the new school year will be over in eight days.  I have whole heartedly began my journey into using standards based grading this year.  At the halfway point, I want to share some beliefs, insights, and struggles that I have acquired the past few months.

First, I want to begin with my beliefs on the purpose of grades in my classroom:

• I believe that grades are about what students learn not what they earn ASCD Article by Susan Brookhart
• I believe grades do not motivate or provide incentives for students to do well
• I believe one single grade given on a test with multiple learning standards is not an accurate measure of student knowledge and understanding.
• I believe that students should not be punished for taking longer to learn essential skills or standards
• I believe the students should be asking: "What does advanced look like on this standard?"
• I believe students should get credit for showing thinking and understanding in any way that makes sense to them as long as they can explain their thinking and procedures
• I believe students should get full credit even if they did not learn the standard "on time" 
• I believe that Summative Assessments are also Formative because the students know anything they do not score proficient on, they still have to show proof of understanding.
• I believe any work I assign to my students must be tied to a standard

How has my classroom environment changed based on my beliefs?

• My classroom atmosphere encourages thinking and problem solving rather than rule following because students have to understand the process they are using to solve math problems
• Students work and persevere on problems rather than giving up and waiting  for a fellow classmate or the teacher to give them the answer (#1 rule in my classroom - no one will give an answer, we agree to ask questions to guide thinking and learning).
• The students know that proof of understanding requires deeper knowledge and the ability to explain their process/thinking.  So when they don't understand something, they tell me rather than hiding it
• They do more work to show their understanding
• My students know their strengths and weaknesses and  find relief in the fact that I will work with them to improve and show understanding

I feel like I am in my infancy in the standards based grading journey.  I am experimenting with grade book formats and a variety of resistance from my colleagues, parents, and the students who have become comfortable taking the F.  At this point I feel as though I have made a break through with the kiddos that are used to taking the F.  They have learned that failing is not an option and that they have to prove understanding.  I also love the conversations that occur around standards based grading:

"how is advanced different from proficient on this standard"
"what do I need to do to prove understanding of this standard"
"I don't understand this concept/standard"

I am struggling in a few areas:

• providing timely feedback often is challenging
• my grade book and how it informs students and parents
• strong resistance from my colleagues (hence this post to share with them)
• training middle school students who are entrenched in the "old way" of grading to work to prove understanding

What I know for sure:

• my classes have changed for the better of all students
• I have so much work and growth in this area
• I will use my Twitter PLN and especially #sbar for resources, support and learning

I can't believe my school year is almost half over... YIKES!!

Why Is My Classroom So Loud?:

The other day in the staff room during lunch I mentioned how chatty one of my students is during class.  His other three core teachers (science, social science, and language arts) all looked at me in shock. Are you kidding, that kid does not say a word in my class.  I was just as shocked at their response because he is a confident, and vocal member of my second period Algebra 1 class.  Now you are thinking he is a math geek if he is in 8th grade Algebra 1.  Not so fast, he is in my Algebra 1 support class that is 2 periods.  He is an at risk Algebra 1 student so he gets an extra period of support to make sure he is successful.  My colleagues comments gave me pause as I contemplated the atmosphere in my classroom, why are my students so loud and talkative in my classes?

While contemplating if the level of conversation in my classroom, I started observing my students to acquire insight as to what is going on and this is what I discovered:

• I have worked hard to create a safe environment for my students and when they walk into our classroom  I sense a sigh of relief.  The students are not afraid of making mistakes, of being wrong, of not knowing.  So, when they enter, they want to tell me things about their day, what is going on in their lives and they are relaxed and relieved to be in our classroom.
• They see me being myself (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and that is a model and invitation for them to do the same.  I want to know my kiddos and they have to feel comfortable and trust me.  We laugh at my weaknesses and celebrate my strengths which in turn allows them to do the same with each other.
• I am implementing standards based grading (I am at the infancy level) which has given students a confidence level I have not seen in my 20 years of teaching.  They understand that they have to prove knowledge of standards and instead of asking what to do to get an A, they ask "what do I need to do to show advanced or proficient on a standard?"  What an incredible shift in conversation in the classroom!
• The students are persevering on problems that they would have given up on and proudly stating: "I did it the long way because that is what made sense for me."  
• The students freely admit, "I don't know what to do or understand what is going on", knowing that I will not tell them the answer, but will ask guiding questions to help them make meaning and build their understanding.  I love when a student comes to me and says: "I know you will not tell me anything, but could you ask me some questions to help me move forward?"

So, as I contemplate the loudness of my classroom, instead of thinking that I am failing at discipline, I need to look at the reasons for the increased level of conversation.  The students are comfortable, relaxed, and confident.  Isn't that what any teacher would want happening in their classroom?

It's Time To Break the Rules

The other morning my son and I had to leave for school when it was still dark because I had a morning staff meeting.  As we drove he asked me a question, "Mom, do I usually go to school at night?"  He is in kindergarten and he still equates darkness with night time.  What shocked me was the next thing out of his mouth, "Mom, the sun will rise over there" he pointed to the east, then he continued, "I know that because when I look that way (to the west) it is very dark, and when I look that way (to the east) the sky is turning blue and the clouds are pink."  As a middle school math and science teacher I was amazed and alarmed at the same time.  My almost six year old son was hypothesizing, thinking, and being a scientist and that amazed me.  What alarmed me was thinking about my middle school students and how they are obedient rule followers who no longer trust the thinking, hypothesizing scientist and/or mathematician who lives within.

I have had a week off for Thanksgiving and it has enabled me to get my head in the right place for my students. I have been able to follow my twitter PLN.  Monday I watched Angela Maiers Purposeful Play Keynote for the upcoming K12 Online Conference.  As I watched I wrote down the 10 Sandbox Rules and I observed my 5 year old son demonstrate the rules all throughout our week off.  I sat back, kept my mouth shut, did not interfere and realized, these rules are innately there, the kids know them, follow them, and when they step out of line, they are called on them.  You really have to check out Angela's video to discover the 10 Sandbox Rules!

So, what does this have to do with middle school mathematics?  My kiddos have been taught to abandon the Sandbox Rules and blindly follow rules that make no sense to them.  Interestingly, I have transformed from a rule follower to a rule breaker and I am encouraging my students to do the same.  Utilizing standards based grading has enabled me to do this.  This is my first year of implementation so it is VERY MESSY (which is sandbox rule #2).  The students and I are muddling through together defining standards and discussing what proof of understanding looks like.

We came to a place a couple of weeks ago that I had not expected.  We were discussing a math standard and the difference between advanced and proficient scores.  We began debating mathematical understanding in algebra.  My students brought up that my requirement was for them to prove understanding, yet I was punishing them for not blindly following a rule (Rule # 6 take it to the community when you need help).   I have always encouraged my students to solve problems in ways that make sense to them and to make sure that they explain their way so that I understand their process.  Yet on an assessment, I was not honoring the various methods of solving the problem.

 It was an eye opening experience.  My students were doing what Skyler did on our early morning drive: think, hypothesize, and prove their understanding of a math problem which is what I have been working on having them do since day one of the school year.  Outside pressures had momentarily gotten the best of me and thankfully my students pulled me back to the reality of how our classroom works.  We are going to break the rules and still learn all of our standards.  How awesome is that?

I am so looking forward to the upcoming K12 Online Conference on Purposeful Play!