[Guest Post!] Student Feedback and Standards Based Grading

So, your district is considering a switch to Standards Based Grading (SBG)....

Are you excited for that change or does it make you nervous?
Are the student results going to be worth the struggle of changing your grading philosophy and practices?
Will people just say, “This too shall pass”?

The above are very real questions in the hearts and minds of teachers as they ponder a switch from traditional grading to SBG. Our district began the conversion from traditional grades to SBG 6 years ago. We could probably write pages about our transition process, but instead today we are going to focus on three outcomes of our switch to not only standards based grading, but also to standards based reporting (on their report cards, our students see their grades as 1-4, not A-F).

1. Greater emphasis on students mastering science practices, less emphasis on memorization of content (our curriculum became more rigorous).
2. Well-defined rubrics provided us (teachers, students, and parents) with a richer understanding of what students were able to do, and most importantly, what the next steps were in learning. 
3. Well-defined rubrics and aligned assessments lead naturally into improved feedback (teacher → student, student → student, student → self, and student → teacher). 

In our freshman-level biology course, we built our mitosis and DNA unit around cancer - a very high interest subject to our students. The science practices that were assessed in this unit include questioning and constructing an explanation by supporting it with reliable evidence. Instead of having our freshman solely take a test that provides them an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of mitosis, cancer, and DNA, we also give students the chance to ask their own questions and then research the answers to guide their own learning. Here is our Mitosis, Cancer, and DNA: Research Assessment. We collected students’ generated questions throughout the unit, organized their questions into topics, and then provided those questions back to students in this assessment. Students were asked to select two of the questions (or generate new questions), then use reliable sources to answer the questions.

You will notice two things. First, by providing these types of opportunities in our class, we are placing emphasis on our students being curious and driving their own learning. Our curriculum has actually become more rigorous because students dive deeper into the content than what we would have probably covered in class as a whole. Second, students are also able to make connections to their real-world, thus giving meaning to the content they are learning in our class. Third, we are placing emphasis on the science practices, the skills in science. We use the same rubric of science practices in all the science courses offered at Marshall High School. Because our standards are centered on practices, we look for ways to have students learn content through the process of doing science. Students learn that all science classes focus on thinking and behaving like a scientist; they must actually DO science, not just learn about science content.

When you move to an SBG world, your rubrics must make sense not only to the educator that is assessing the student, but to the students themselves. As mentioned above, we use the same rubric of standards in all our science courses. Students quickly understand the rubrics involved because all our science teachers use the same language when it comes to expectations. Another key part that aims to ensure clarity is our row under the actual standard (you can see this in blue text in the linked assessment above). We call this row the “What this looks like here?” row. We can say in our standard to “apply scientific reasoning to explain how the evidence supports a claim,” but to a freshman, what does that really mean, and most importantly, what does that look like? Sometimes this row is given to the students, and sometimes it is generated with the students. This hopefully then provides everyone (teachers, students, and parents) with a richer understanding of what students were able to do, and most importantly, what the next steps were in learning.

Our rubrics are written in an “I can” format, and this paves the way to have discussions about their next steps in their learning. One of our favorite things to do in terms of feedback are Mini Conferences; a student and teacher co-assess student work and plan next steps for growth. This also provides immediate and actionable feedback to the students so they can grow in their skills from assessment to assessment. Throughout the semester, we focus on building students’ ability to self assess - with the goal of building a students’ ability to identify and produce more quality work. Additionally, as students see the power in the 1:1 mini conference, classroom culture becomes focused on growth and student productivity. A key component of our feedback system has been to have rubrics that are clearly written, student friendly, and tailored to assessments that connect with student curiosity.

In the comments below, please share other ways that you have increased the role of feedback in your classroom or the way that standards based grading has enriched student learning!

Guest blog authors:

Danielle Bendt, dbendt@marshallschools.org
Life Science Teacher, Marshall High School

Allison Fuelling, afuelling@marshallschools.org
Life Science Teacher and Secondary Instructional Coach, Marshall Public Schools