TT0307: Gradeless SBG Updates: Pros and Cons of the First Quarter

In episode 3, I talked about my plans to venture into uncharted territory (for me) by going gradeless and using SBG in my classes. Last week, we completed our first quarter which meant that grades were due for report cards. I wanted to give an update of my adventures so far. As with anything, the first time through is going to have some bugs. Everything takes some adjustment. In this case, it was an adjustment for me, my students, and their parents. My SetupI wanted to be very clear from the beginning about how class was going to be set up for the year and how grades were going to be calculated. Parents needed to know what to expect, so I sent out a long email at the beginning of the year explaining the new structure. Some parents I was able to speak with in person at Curriculum Night, but most just received an email. It was nice to establish communication with some parents from the beginning, in order to build those relationships right away. I got some responses and questions, but not a lot. I had students set up electronic portfolios and gave time in the first few weeks for taking pictures and uploading their work, in order to start to get them in the habit. I explained that their portfolio was going to be their place to keep track of evidence of their learning and mastery. They had the option of setting up a folder in Google Drive that was shared with me or using Seesaw as a platform. Either way, they were also supposed to share their portfolio with their parents, so that they could see their progress. The intent behind the portfolios was two-fold. First, I wanted parents to have a place to get information about their student’s learning since I wasn’t consistently entering grades into Gradebook. I wanted the focus to be on the work and feedback rather than the grade. The portfolios were also meant to be a place for students to gather evidence. This way, when it comes down to determining whether or not students had reached mastery on particular standards, they could cite specific evidence that they felt demonstrated their mastery. Most of my mistakes centered around managing time for this process. I feel like feedback and conferencing are two of the most important aspects this strategy, but they can also take an incredible amount of time. I’ll talk a little about the challenges I faced for each and then how I adapted things to try to make them better. FeedbackI wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to go about giving feedback. I tried to do some research and find different methods, but nothing seemed to fit perfectly. Also, I teach 4 sections of math and 1 section of science. Most methods I found were geared towards English teachers. For the first formative assessment I gave, I went through and put detailed comments on each problem. Most of my comments were questions, trying to guide them towards rethinking the problem and fixing their mistakes. I had also wanted to give some cumulative comments giving them my overall impression of what they were able to do and what they still needed to work on. However, all the comments I made on the individual questions took a really long time, and I just couldn’t go back and do more. It was too much. The feedback that I got from the students was that they needed to know if they got the problem right or wrong. Some really had a hard time not having a number on their paper. They wanted a concrete answer about whether they had mastered the standard or not. We had talked at the beginning of the year about possibly using a code just saying mastery, near mastery, or needs work, but the students pointed out that then they would fixate on that instead of the grade. We decided on feedback only. What I decided to do after that, and have continued to do since, is develop a code. This way, I was able to simplify what I was writing on each assessment, and make the process much quicker. This code I have used for math only. Since I only have one section of science, I decided to continue with the amount of feedback I was giving. A - Answer; this means that there was an issue with their answer, and it was likely wrong E - Explanation; students either did not explain or an important part of their explanation was missing W - Work; students either did not show work, or the work they showed had some errors G - Graph; this means that there was an issue with their graph, and it was likely wrong In addition to these codes, I might add small comments, or circle or underline the place where the error can be found. This way, students got the feedback about what was right or wrong, and were able to quickly identify which questions had problems that needed to be fixed. It seems to have worked pretty well so far, and it has significantly reduced the time it takes for me to give feedback. Conferencing and Determining GradesFive weeks into the school year, we had to enter grades for progress reports. I had given two formatives at that point, but I hadn’t entered anything into gradebook. Since I had only given feedback, I wasn’t really sure what to keep track of for my own information. The idea was that the students were supposed to upload their formatives into their portfolios so I would be able to look at them that way. I really wanted grades to be determined together with each student after an honest conversation about what they’d learned so far and how they were able to show it. I attempted to conference with students individually during class while the rest of the students were working independently. However, the conversations lasted longer than intended and I didn’t even make it through half of the students in a 104 minute block. I asked the rest of the students to email me what they thought they deserved and where I could find their evidence, but most of them didn’t. So Gradebook stayed empty and all students got a slash on their progress report, meaning a grade could not be determined. I also realized around that point that I needed to start keeping track of student mastery for my own information so that I wouldn’t be dependent on them uploading their assessments in order to be able to tell parents how their students were doing. I started keeping a spreadsheet for my classes where I entered a score in the 1-4 scale to show where I think they are in terms of mastery based on that particular assessment. This way, I could stay informed about my assessment of them, but they couldn’t see it, so they weren’t being distracted by the grade. As it turned out, our summative assessment corresponded with the last week of the quarter, so there was a bit of a time crunch to give feedback on 120 assessments, and then also determine final grades. As I mentioned before, I wanted students to have a chance to give their opinion about their mastery and provide evidence. I knew that holding individual conversations with each of them would be too time consuming, so I created a Google Form for them to submit. On the Google Form, students were asked to give themselves a mastery score between 1 and 4 on each of the 4 standards that were taught in that unit. They then needed to explain what evidence they had to support their score and where I could find it. To determine final grades, I went through every response to the Google Form, compared the grade that they gave themselves with the grade that I had given them. If we agreed on a score, that’s what I entered in Gradebook. If they had a different score than me, I examined their evidence to see if they could change my mind or not. For kids who had made minor errors and were able to show corrections that they had completed independently, some were able to change my mind. I found it really valuable to read their arguments and take a second look at their assessments and corrections, because of course I’m not perfect. There were some instances where I may have initially judged them more harshly than I should have. Taking a second look and giving them the space to advocate for themselves was a great reflective activity for us all. I also took notes for each student about what my reasoning when looking at their portfolio so that I could conference with those that wanted to and let them know why I made my decisions the way I did. For the most part, I feel like kids were really honest with their self assessment. There were still plenty who thought they were at mastery that weren’t, but when we were able to sit down and look at their mistakes, they were able to understand why and what they need to do to fix it. Quarter Grades and ReactionsOnce I combed through all of their responses, and determined final mastery levels for each standard, I entered them all into Gradebook. Then, depending on how many of the standards they had mastered, they received an overall letter grade. So, this first time around, there were a lot of F’s, but I also had some A’s and B’s. I emailed parents pretty immediately after putting in grades in order to try to explain grades in order to prevent a massive freak out. I emphasized that they should consider anything below a B as a “not yet.” Students have not yet mastered those standards and need to do additional practice and retake the assessment in order to get another chance at showing mastery. I explained to my students again the entire process and what it meant, and their anger dissipated a little. Many of them have been focused on continuing to work towards mastery. Overall, I’m really liking this process. There have been moments when it’s been a lot of work, but that’s mostly been either my own fault or just poor timing of things. I’ve seen some major shifts in students that I taught last year. The grading system last year shut many of them down. They thought it was unfair and so used it as an excuse not to try. Now, they feel more free to make mistakes because they know that they will learn from them and improve. The conversations I overhear when they get assessments back are so much more thoughtful. Students are given a voice, and I think they feel empowered by that. To have a kid come and passionately argue with me that he has mastered a standard and show me all kinds of evidence is way more satisfying than a kid begging for extra credit. I would love to hear your experiences! And if you have any advice for me, I’ll take it! Also, Teacher Tribes will be on a brief hiatus through the holidays, so this will be the last episode for a little bit. I’ll be back in January! I hope you all get some rest and enjoy the holidays! The post TT0307: Gradeless SBG Updates: Pros and Cons of the First Quarter appeared first on Teacher Tribes.