So there has been a shift in the last 10 or so years to a new way of grading. But so many people still don’t know about it.

I’m Christina Tondevold, The Recovering Traditionalist and I hope you stick around as we look at assessing math proficiency using standards based grading in our quest to build our math minds so we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

Here are links to products/activities mentioned in this vlog. (Some may be affiliate links which just means that if you do purchase using my link, the company you purchased from sends me some money. Find more info HERE about that.)

• A Beginner’s Guide to Standards Based Grading
• Dane Ehlert’s curation of Standards Based Grading resources
• Dr. Justin Tarte’s tweet thread about the Integrity of a Grade
• Standards-Based Learning in Action: Moving from Theory to Practice by Tom Schimmer, et al
• Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading: The Classroom Strategies Series by Robert Marzano

Other videos in the series:

• Assessing Math Proficiency: How many math problems should kids get?
• Assessing Math Proficiency: Does the type of math problems you use matter?

In the past, the way that we would grade is that we would give students a grade on each individual assignment and then the students’ grade at the end of the quarter was based upon an average of those grades.

Standards Based Grading is focused on the end result, not the journey

Standards Based Grading looks instead at key concepts or standards and you look at the overall understanding that students have on those. So you are focusing on the end result, not all the attempts that they take on their road to the end of that result. 

One of the examples that I just love and it stuck in my mind because it is so awesome is the example of assessing a child on riding a bike. If we took a grade during every attempt, every practice that they have along the way, and they get on that bike and they fail.  They get on that bike and they go a little bit further but they don’t make it. And then they fail again and they fail again, right? They’ve got like an F every time basically, and then that final time they take off and they are riding a bike. But if we average all those attempts, they still end up with a FAIL as their grade for riding a bike even though now they can ride a bike. 

Why do we do that when it comes to their learning of other concepts? If we want to take a look at just that end result, that is really what we’re trying to get kids to do, right? That’s our job, get them to be able to do X, Y, Z…whatever your standard is. It doesn’t matter all of the attempts moving up, as long as at the end, they have it. 

I really love this visual by Dr. Justin Tarte, he shows how this shift is really bringing about the integrity of the grade. There is so much that goes into grading our students but so much of it can really not reflect the true learning of that actual concept. 

Just as an example, I want to take a look at just that first row across, that in the old way that we would grade, behavior had a big part of it. As an example, if a student turned in their work late, we wouldn’t give him full credit because it was late, right? But really, even if they turned it in and it was completely correct, everything was right, does that lower grade actually reflect their understanding of learning that concept? No. 

They understand the concept so their grade is not reflective of their actual learning, their grade was a reflection of their behavior, and the behavior was that they weren’t turning work in on time. 

One of the shifts that we make when we move to Standards Based Grading is having different areas that we are grading. Yes, it’s still important to assess students on things that are behavioral based like timeliness, organization, even like handwriting. 

I remember marking kids down because it was sloppy. I mean, I did that!?!? That’s an important thing, I want students to not be sloppy. I have some of my own personal children who are sloppy, but that’s a big thing that I do want to instill in them. But that should not be a reflection of their mathematics learning, that’s a reflection of some of the behaviors that we want to bring up. 

The grading needs to be focused on the learning versus grading in which we are assessing their other issues like timeliness, organization, handwriting.  That stuff needs to be separated out. I love this visual, there’s lots of ideas in here, more than I can go into in just this video. But that’s the idea is that standards based grading is really looking at those key concepts and making sure that our assessment of those concepts is solely on the things that are involved with learning that concept, not some of the outside influences that used to impact our grading system. 

Learning can always be improved

Another big thing for me that Standards Based Learning and Standards Based Grading emphasizes is that your learning is not fixed, your grade is not fixed. Through traditional grading, students would see that their grade was fixed. Like, I already got an F, or I got a zero because this wasn’t turned in, and they feel like they can never improve their grade. They shouldn’t even try because I’ve already failed at this. 

With Standards Based Grading, they see that there’s always a way to improve their grade. It isn’t all about this journey piece, it’s really that end result and there are, like I said before, there’s other ways you should be assessing that timeliness and turning their stuff in, and all of that stuff, but if we are looking at their understanding of the mathematics, we want them to understand that when we are doing their grade, it is based upon that understanding and even if they aren’t getting it right now, they still can get it. 

We have that growth mindset that if they put in the work, they keep on learning, they will get there. And that’s the other key part of Standards Based Grading is that it’s mastery by the end of the year.

Mastery by the end of the year

So here’s an example, If you are 3rd grade, and one of the 3rd grade standards that we have in our state is getting kids to have recall of their multiplication and division facts. That’s something at the end of the year, not at the beginning of the year. You might be working on it now, yes, but at the end of the year is when they should have mastery of that. And along the way, there’s going to be ups and downs, and things they don’t know and things they have mastered.  But it’s, again, that end result by the end of the year, where are we wanting the kids and what does that look like? 

What does the “being able to ride a bike” look like for the big standards at your grade? That’s what standards based learning is really about. 

If you want more detail on that, then I have provided some links down below this video that give you links to articles that people have written, a couple of great books on Standards Based Grading and Standards Based Learning to give you way more detail. Because if I was to do a whole thing on it, it would be a really long video. 

I want you to go straight to that source, to those sources and get more details about how to implement Standards Based Grading and Standards Based Learning because it really is a big shift from the way that we were taught to assess students. So I hope that this video has helped you build your math mind so you can go build the math minds of your students. Have a great day.