Welcome to The New High Show on Education. I'm Pamela Clark, founder and director of The New Heights Educational Group. And I'm here with David Smith, the founder of Silicon Valley High School, who has helped us get these podcasts produced and delivered to you. Yes, Pamela.
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So I hope you enjoy the show. In this week's episode, we will discuss educational reform on mission. You're watching, coming to you live with the Williams Office. If you're sitting around thinking about life and trying to come back to me tonight, so check it out.
Welcome back. You're on the air with Buffy Williams and we have been listening to The New High Show on Education. We have been discussing the show's purpose of our mission. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
This is your host, Buffy Williams, and you're listening to The New Heights Educational Group, The New Heights Show on Education. Tonight's topic is K-12 Grading System. On last week's show, we discussed my intentions for the show and the emerging trend of flipped classrooms. On tonight's episode, we are discussing K-12 and the Grading System.
Join in the discussion with us by calling 917-948-7542 or put your comments in the chat or use the hashtag on social media, NHEG. For as always, you can post your comments on Twitter at Buffy underscore Awaken, forum speaker, Instagram, or YouTube. Remember, my fellow New Heights host, Erica Hansen, show airs on Thursdays at 2 o'clock PM Mountain Standard Time, 1 o'clock PM Pacific Standard Time, and 4 o'clock Eastern Standard Time. When I looked at my research for the K-12 Grading System, it occurred to me that on yesterday we were all observing Memorial Day.
And so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms, such as education and the education system here in the US. So if you all would just take a moment of pause and reflection of silence. Thank you. Tonight's episode, our resources are coming from K-12 academics and teach thought.
I know a lot of us have our own views on the Grading System as it currently stands and what our pros and cons are about how the Grading System is. Or maybe you haven't even thought about the Grading System at all. You just assume that this is the way it is and this is the way that it will always be. But I can distinctly remember and experience for me in high school that, well, even in elementary school, they kind of stuck with me based on the Grading System.
So when I was in elementary school, one of the things was I always had poor handwriting. And so my mother would always say, well, Buffy, why is it that we can't, you know, improve your writing score? And I'm sure you guys know, it was either satisfactory, needs improvement or unsatisfactory. And so I always received a needs improvement in handwriting.
And no matter how hard I tried, every time I opened up that report card, and for those of you out there, the students who don't know what that is, when we were in school, there was an actual paper report card that folded in half that you brought home, that had your school's name on the front, and whether or not you were what grades you were currently in, and if you're going to be promoted, it would be on the, I think, was on the front of the card after the year was over. And so when you opened it up, it had your first half of the year on the left hand of the card, and the second half of the year on the right hand of the card, and all of your comments and signatures from your parents and your teachers from the back of the card. So every time you got the report card, your parents will have to sign it, you have to take home your parents will sign it and bring it back, and your teacher would put comments. And so for whatever reason, handwriting, I always got unsatisfactory.
So I can remember the day where, um, towards the end of the year, I don't even know what grade was in, probably the fourth or fifth grade, finally got a satisfactory and I practiced so hard on my handwriting, but anybody that knows me today knows I still have an awful handwriting. It's legible to me, of course, but I do have to practice at it still today. So that was one of the things, um, an elementary school that stuck with me as far as the grading system, but we're going to talk a little bit more about the A through F grading system. So in addition to that, in high school, I received and you guys are not going to believe this because it's going to sound really, really weird or season F in PE.
And I remember it because it said, you know, we received report cards, you had the letter grade, and then your teacher would put like this hiking sign and then the actual numerical grade. So it was an F and 41 in PE, if you can believe that. And it was because I didn't dress out. Okay.
So how do you get it? F and P, you don't dress out. And so in those days, you had dressing out was like a major part of your grade. If you didn't dress out, everybody dressed in the same uniform.
And you had to dress out and I was a painfully shy person. People would not believe that, but I still am a pretty shy person. And so for me to have to dress out, I don't know, it's just something about it. I just didn't like it.
And so you would go to the girls locker room and you would dress out in these uniforms and everybody having the same uniform. And I was just rebelling against it for whatever reason. And my mother was living, of course. And, um, I received a 41 F in PE.
So, um, that was my kind of experience with it. But I think one of the things that kind of stood out with me, because, you know, throughout the US, we received four report cards throughout the year, but now it's, of course, a paper version. And the report cards are given out in, you know, pretty much the same intervals. They were during that time.
But in addition to that, our students have what's called, you know, active monitoring, electronic monitoring of the grade. So every time a teacher puts in a grade for your child, their parents can actually go online and look at what assignments they're actually doing. So when we were in school, if you did poorly last nine weeks, it will take a whole nine weeks for your parents to actually figure out that you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing, unless the teacher sent a note home or sent a notification to your parents that said, Hey, Johnny or Jill is not doing this particular project, but you helped them with that. But there was no daily monitoring of the grades.
And so I'm wondering if that daily monitoring is a healthy thing. You guys can tell me what you think. I'm not quite sure. Of course, I don't have children right now in K through 12.
So for me, I'm not sure if that's a healthy thing. You only think that that's a productive thing. And I can see where it could be because then if your child was struggling with something, then you could help them with it before the progress report came out or the actual final grade came out. But when we were in school, we had time to kind of catch up and do better on the next test and the next test.
And we, I can remember us really striving to try to make sure that once the grades came back out for the next time, well, of course, you know, I never made an F of E ever again. But I'm pretty sure I got grounded and you would have time to kind of make up that grade and do what you needed to do in order to do better in that class. And so I would like to know for the parents out there, do they feel like this electronic monitoring of grades is a better way to kind of keep track of their students progress in school. But the other thing is that, you know, the grading system in the US is pretty common.
It does differ from school to school. So you have some schools that the standard is A through F. But then there are schools like in Texas and Virginia that if you get a D in a class, which means from 70 to 60, that is considered a failing grade. But in Hawaii, you could receive a D and it could be a passing grade.
And that's the same thing here in Alabama. And so, well, in most schools in Alabama. So also in Hawaii, you could have a D and it could be considered a failing grade in a particular class. So it kind of depends on the class you're in in Hawaii.
But then in other states, it may vary on the scale of 0 to 100 as to whether or not that student is actually passing within the class. But we know that grades, they impact our students greatly because it determines so many things. So your GPA will ultimately determine if your child is ending up going to a four year institution, it factors into what school or institution they decide to go into based on how high their GPA is, and also what kind of activities they participated in. So the grading system has a big impact.
And so one of the things we're going to look at tonight is the differing or alternative ways of grading in education. And so I want to know from your perspective, what does that really mean for you? Because I can remember students are pretty much defined by what their grades are. You hear comments like, what can I do to get an A on this project?
Or what can I do to this student is usually a C student or this student has generally gotten A's and B's in my classroom? And so students are kind of defined by what type of grades they have, whether that's a numerical grade or whether that's a letter grade. And so we know that these things also determine whether or not our students qualify to play in sports, get in the college, or whether that child deems themselves as being smart or not being smart based on this letter grading system. So what I'm proposing is are there other alternatives out there for our listeners to consider as to some things we may need to be thinking about within the education system and how we grade our students.
And so we're talking today about the grading system in K through 12. And so we hope that you will join us after the break. We'll be back in a moment. Right now, you might be struggling through your classes or even failing them.
You might be worried that you may not finish high school. There might have even been a thought that you may not be smart enough. Well, the New Heights Education Group begs to differ. We not only think you're smart enough, but with our help, you will complete your high school diploma.
The New Heights Education Group strives to improve your academic success through its tutoring services. To learn more, please visit newhideseducation.org and contact us. New Heights Education Group. Educational resources to help reach your goals.
Check us out at svhs.co. Welcome back. This is your host Buffy Williams and you're listening to the New Heights Education Group, the New Heights Show on Education. And tonight's topic is K through 12 grading system.
And I just talked about some of the experiences that I had as far as grading and elementary and high school and also what is the thought process for parents now and thinking about alternative ways of grading or educators out there, alternative ways of educating our students on what is the best way to determine if they have actually retained the knowledge and the skills needed in order to be considered an expert or have learned the qualifying learning points within their particular classroom or curriculum. And so what is the understanding of the actual subject and the process by which we go through teaching those students what is success or performance in this particular area? And we don't want to oversimplify things, but we want to look at and explore the value and the utility of the knowledge that students are learning and seeing if they can be creative thinkers and also be curious about the subjects that they're learning about and then be able to transfer that information and that learning into the real world. So this can be a step in the direction of maybe looking at alternative ways of grading.
And there are some out there that I had not heard of before. One of the first is that it's one call gamification and it's basically when students are given tasks to encourage them to participate more in a particular subject. And then feedback is given verbally or written immediately following the project. And so it's kind of like a live scoring.
There's no letter grade or number grade associated with it. It's just feedback and it could also be audio recorded and also put into a system similar to the system that the parents access now for the actual grades, but it allows the parent to actually look at the feedback that the teacher is giving the student. And it's an alternative way of giving grades on the spot for the student with verbal or written feedback. And then there's one call upgrading and it's called upgrading because there's a grade, it reinterates and then it replaces.
And so basically what the student does there is kind of the traditional way that grades have been given, but then the student is given an opportunity to revise it and then gradually improve until they actually master the course. But this works better than just the current grading system because the current grading system, the student takes the exam, they get the grade that they get, and then they kind of move on. But the upgrading means that you keep doing it over and over again until you master that particular thing. And so the grade is only used as a jumpstart to the revision process for the student.
And then the next one is always on proving ground, which means there's a building block. So more, I would say kind of like a demonstration process, but not in the form of a test. So the student actually demonstrates whether or not they can actually retain the knowledge. And then it's a building block situation.
So once they resolve that, then they go on to the next thing and it's the building situation. And there's one that's very similar to that and it may help you better understand the always proving ground, which is a continuation. It's called so, so what now? And to give you a way to understand that, it's like, you give the student the information, then the student asks, so what did I do to summarize the details and get the big picture?
So what, why was this working for reporting? And then what now? What is the logical next step in this assignment idea or topic? And so those two are kind of similar to each other, and it gives the student the opportunity to build upon their learning based on those, those perspectives.
And then there's one that's called standard based reporting, which is pretty much subjective, but it's much better than actual just letters, but it's more of giving grading with numbers versus the letter grade. So you always give them a number grade. And then that's one that's called action reflective narrative. And this particular one, it's more of a reflective process for the student.
And so it's based on reports and observation. So the student is given the information, but they are given feedback based on reports or observation of their learning and objectives within that course. And again, this is not a letter grade when it comes to this one. So there's no letter grade associated with it.
It's only the student demonstrating the reports and actual progress that the teacher then gives feedback. And then there's one that's called the digital portfolio, which is not highly recommended, but this particular one is kind of, it focuses on the highlights of the student. So when the student does the work, it's more, this one is more arduous for the teacher because the teacher has to forget all the work that the student does and pull out all the best things that they've done. And then they actually put together a portfolio, a digital portfolio.
And again, this is kind of subjective for the teacher, but it tasks the teacher because then the teacher has to design, okay, what goes into this particular task and then assign it some type of value and then manage it, organize the grading. And so it's not the best system because it's very taxing on the teacher to be able to do the digital portfolio and then kind of extract what the student has done best throughout the year or throughout that particular unit and then using it in a digital portfolio format. And so that's one other alternative grading system that teachers or educators have put out there as an option. But this is just brainstorming.
These are just educators brainstorming different ways of looking at the grading system. And then there's a pass or fail, which is not highly recommended within the K-12 level, but definitely recommend it sometimes on the college level. And so there's a pass or fail, there's nothing in between the A to L, you either pass it or you fail it. So the downside to this is that there is no alternative.
And then there's one called PDP, S to S, or Mentor Collaboration. And that PDP is peer to peer or student to student or there's a mentor collaboration component. So this one I actually prefer and like in a way because it gives the peers an opportunity to talk with the students and it's more unit based for the student. And so within this, they plan out a project and they work with diverse peers across multiple school areas and multiple school locations, but they work as a unit.
And then they are grading each other based on the work or they can actually have an outside mentor, which also could be a teacher, to collaborate with them in the learning process. And so there are no grades associated with this or point value, but they work as a unit to actually work through a rubric and assign what's the best fit for a particular assignment. Then there's the final one, which is called publishing, which kind of, it is what it sounds like. Students actually do their work and they publish it.
But a lot of people have a lot of concerns about the privacy of this particular one. And with this one, actually they recommend that this could be done not necessarily all the time, but just with certain projects throughout the year. And everything can be posted anonymously, but it also allows for the families, the parents, community members, and other peer students to be able to make post comments about whatever the project is. And this, they say, is designed to kind of allow the work to kind of take on a life form of actually implementation into the world, like it's a real world experience.
And it gives their peers an opportunity to collaborate on the revision process and also give some feedback, which can be negative or positive based on the work level or the performance level that the students have put into the project. But it tends to, over time, improve students' knowledge and it also creates a visual resume because they've been able to publish this information. And then at a later time, they can actually claim the work once all the revisions are done and they have it into a more of a perfect state. And so it's an alternative to grading, but it's not recommended as a tool for grading every project or maybe like major projects.
But overall, I think these 12 alternative ways of grading are very interesting, to say the least, because we've been using the A through F grading system for a long time and I think that maybe we can explore alternative ways, but I think in some way it'll still be tied into the A through F grading system because it's easy to understand, parents understand it, you know, for the most part, if you make anywhere from like a 93 to 100, you get it, well, a 92 to 100, you get an A or something like that. And then they know kind of where you fall, if you got B, if you got a C or D, then the main thing is factoring in, I think for me, is deep passing or is deep failing. And so when you have students that struggle within that particular, that particular numerical bracket, I think it's more important to be distinctive about whether or not they have retained the information because one of the cons that in the article, they were reporting on the researchers were saying that when you give a student a letter grade that the parents, all they know is that the students passing or failing, it does not actually relate to the actual content of what is the student failing in. And so with the alternative 12 forms of grading systems, whether researchers are proposing is that in addition to giving a student a grade, is there a way for us to be able to us as educators, I mean, to be able to extract what is it that the actual student is missing within this particular subject area.
So the student is failing in factoring, this student is failing in multiplication, this student is failing in understanding the main idea versus just giving them an overall grade so that the parents can actually understand what is it that we need to actually work on. And so I think in some ways, when we were in school, if we were struggling with that particular area or a particular sect of something, that the teacher actually wrote that out in their own personal handwriting on the report card, which I do kind of miss, because it's actually something that you can treasure throughout the years, because your teacher actually took the time to actually write out your comments or whatever to your parents. And so we're exploring K through 12 in the grading system. And on next week, I hope that this information has been helpful for you.
I know it was interesting for me to learn the alternative ways that people are thinking about grading students in the K through 12 area. But on next week, we're going to talk about careers in education, and I hope that you join us on next week's show. But I want to thank you all for being big supporters. And I want to thank Chrissy for posting a comment on Speaker about what she thought about last week's show.
So I want to encourage you to continue to let me know your thoughts and feelings out there on social media. And I am grateful to have you all as listeners. We hope that you join us next week. That's our time.
And you have been listening to the New High Show on Education. I'm your host, Bruffy Williams. If you like what you've heard, search for us on your smart speaker and listen to us anytime. Thank you for listening.
Good night. Until we meet again next Tuesday night, 6 p.m. Central Standard Time, 7 o'clock p.m. Eastern Standard Time, as we discuss next week's topic.
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