|
|
|
The views expressed on this page are
solely
those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County
News Online
|
|
Achieve Virtual
K-12 Dive
How educators are tweaking grading approaches in response to the pandemic
Teachers are allowing students to revise work and stretch deadlines in attempts to fairly assess student performance this year.
Kara Arundel
Dec. 8, 2020
For 10 years, Kaitlin Jenkins graded her high school English students
according to the traditional A-F model she grew up with and was taught
in educator preparation courses. But when a student asked her why an
assignment marked with an 89.2% (a B) was not a 90% (an A), she
struggled to justify the grade.
“I had to really stop and have a painful conversation with myself about
why that was, and I realized it was because I was not grading for
equity,” said Jenkins, a 9th and 12th grade English teacher at Colfax
High School in Colfax, California. “I was equating time spent [on the
assignment] with [subject] mastery, which is not the case.”
Last school year, Jenkins began eliminating all extra credit
opportunities and behavior-related points for tardiness and
participation from metrics for end-of-course grades, focusing instead
on a simpler and singular measurement system for student advancement
toward mastery of academic standards set by the California Department
of Education.
“It's really hard to look at your own performance in the career that
you love, and that you've chosen to do for your life, and realize that
the first whole decade-long chunk of it was not equitable — that what
you were doing was not great for kids,” Jenkins said. “That feels icky
inside.”
Grading students’ work has never been a favorite task for teachers.
Some elements of grading are subjective, and the task is tedious,
teachers say. It’s a struggle that’s being amplified during the
pandemic as educators continue to have high expectations of their
students but want to recognize the burdens and barriers the novel
coronavirus may have on student performance.
School districts that were lenient in the spring with grading policies,
however, are not giving much flexibility this school year, which is
worrying some education experts about the equitable evaluation of
students’ performance during the pandemic.
As the first grading period closed this fall in a challenging school
year, some districts discovered a concerning rise in Ds and Fs despite
efforts to create small in-person learning groups, extra tutoring times
for struggling learners and other supports. For example, Sweetwater
Union High School District in Chula Vista, California, released data in
late November that shows an 8 percentage point increase in Ds and Fs
over the last school year.
Additionally, an analysis by Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax,
Virginia, of first quarter grades for middle and high school students
found an 83% increase in Fs compared to the first grading period in the
2019-20 school year. The data shows while all student groups had
increased failure rates early in this school year, students with
disabilities and English learners had the highest rates of Fs compared
to White and Black students.
“With the dramatic rise in Ds and Fs we are realizing that common
approaches to grading are not effective now or are really applicable
now,” said Joe Feldman, founder and CEO of Crescendo Education Group
and the Equitable Grading Project.
‘Do no harm’ approach
Many districts and classroom teachers, while not completely overhauling
their grading systems during the pandemic, are currently taking a "do
no harm" approach to grading, which avoids penalizing students through
low grades for circumstances out of their control, such as lack of
access to internet or the need to care for sick family members.
Teachers also have thinned out some of their lesson plans so they make
sure to hit on essential academic standards while still pacing the
class for remote and in-person learning formats.
Wanda Tharpe, the principal at Dacusville Middle School in Easley,
South Carolina, said grading during the pandemic has been challenging
because teachers are constantly wondering if an incomplete assignment
or poor performance was the fault of a student not having access to the
internet or some other factor.
While the district hasn’t changed its grading policies, Tharpe said
teachers are putting a lot of time into planning appropriate
assignments that can be taught and assessed both remotely and
in-person. Teachers also work individually with students when poor
performances are recorded.
“Not knowing how long the pandemic will last, we want to make sure our
students’ educations are not lagging,” Tharpe said. “We want to
continue with as rigorous a curriculum as we can during this time
because we want to lessen any learning gaps.”
Feldman said that, in general, there’s a reluctance to change grading
practices because the A-F and 0-100 point system is so ingrained and
nearly universally used. At the high school level, grade point averages
are used for class rankings, course promotions, athletic participation,
college applications and scholarship opportunities.
Grading is also one of the only autonomous activities teachers have,
Feldman said. While local and state school systems typically provide
guidance for grading structures, such as the numerical range to use for
letter grades and course promotion requirements, the grading of daily
assignments, tests and end-of-course grades is solely the duty of the
classroom teacher. Teachers of early elementary grades typically don’t
give A-F letter grades but instead provide feedback on progress through
narratives.
A few school systems are tweaking grading approaches this school year in response to the pandemic:
In Georgia, the state board of education has approved a change that
reduces the percentage weight that the Georgia Milestones end-of-course
assessments will count in a student’s final grade in the course. The
statewide passing score typically places that percentage weight at 20%,
but for this year only, the percentage weight will count as .01%, at
minimum, of a student’s final grade in the course.
New York City Public Schools is allowing schools to set their own
grading scales, such as a 1-4, a numerical scale to 100 or an A-F
system. The district is also allowing flexibilities for families in how
final grades are reflected on a student’s academic record, plus other
allowances.
The San Diego Unified School District recently changed its grading
policy in an attempt to more equitably assess student achievement. The
revised system requires teachers to assign letter grades for students
based on “mastery of content” and allow for “reflection, revision and
reassessment” in order to reach mastery levels. Separate citizenship
grades will be issued to students based on behaviors, such as being
prepared for class and participating in discussions.
Inequities in grading
In California, Jenkins uses a 1-4 point system for her classes’ English
tests and assignments to calculate an end-of-course grade that follows
the A-F system. She allows students to revise work that received low
marks, but gives deadlines for when those revisions should be turned
in. Her system, which is also used by the other high school English
teachers at her school, was initially hard for her 9th-grade students
and their parents to understand. But now, after more than three months
of school, she’s receiving mostly positive feedback.
This fall, Jenkins had to review skills students missed out on learning
in the spring. She also eliminated one novel from the required reading
list so she’d have enough time to cover all the other essential
material. Still, she said her grading system takes out a lot of the
guesswork for assessing students’ knowledge, particularly during the
current health crisis.
“It's just all around equitable, because I know at the end of the day
that all I've asked you to do is show me you can do these standards,”
Jenkins said. “I haven't asked for, you know, a dog-and-pony show. I
haven't asked you to scan a piece of paper with tea and burn the edges.
I have only asked you to show me that you have the skills to go on to
the next level.”
Feldman said traditional grading systems can disproportionately punish
students who have fewer supports and create advantages for students who
have more stable and supportive home environments. Eliminating grading
for activities such as homework competition and participation can help
remove bias in assessing student performance, he said.
During the pandemic, teachers should also consider the use of
incompletes if a student is just not able to meet the requirements of a
class, Feldman said. Traditionally, incomplete interim and final grades
are avoided in school systems unless there is an unusual circumstance
that prevents a student’s academic participation, such as a prolonged
illness. But because so many students’ educations are being interrupted
currently, an incomplete could more accurately reflect an individual
student's situation as opposed to a failing grade, he said.
“My hope is that this pandemic has cast this much brighter spotlight on
the inequities and inaccuracies and the harmful impact of these
traditional grading practices,” Feldman said.
Sheldon Eakins, director of the Leading Equity Center, also supports
revamping grading approaches through equitable practices. For example,
he advocates for removing grades for homework and participation. He
also suggests teachers allow students multiple options for
demonstrating their knowledge of an assignment, a component of
universal design for learning. Teachers can also ask students to
honestly assess their own performances by providing evidence of their
learning, essentially allowing students to use proof to grade
themselves.
Teachers could even consider going gradeless during the pandemic, Eakins said.
“I don’t know if there’s an equitable [grading] approach to online
learning and honestly, traditional learning,” Eakins said. “There are
so many different factors that need to take place to meet everyone’s
needs.”
|
|
|
|
