Rose Ferrero Weekly Bulletin
Week Of: October 19-23, 2020
WEEKLY QUOTES FOR OUR TEACHERS AND STAFF
LCAP GOAL 2: PROCIFIENCY FOR ALL – Grading for Learning
The evidence is overwhelming that grades cause anxiety and stress for students (and for some teachers). Yet, we all understand that a “No Grade Plan” would never fly at a public school, where teachers are required to enter a certain number of grades by a certain time each trimester. Therefore, when one thinks about teachers creating grades for students and parents, the following three “ideal thoughts” come to mind:
- Grades should be an objective reflection of what a student actually knows and can demonstrate, not a reflection of behavioral, personal, or socioeconomic characteristics.
- Grade reporting should communicate useful information. Grades should be a record of an individual's academic strengths and weaknesses, able to be used for improvement.
- Mistakes are an opportunity to learn, and everyone learns at different paces and in different ways. Students should therefore be allowed multiple opportunities to practice and demonstrate learning of clearly communicated learning objectives.
So, what could this look like in a classroom? Well to begin, every single task, assignment, and assessment would require that the learning target – that came directly from the standards – was clearly communicated at the top so that students understood the assignment's relevance and purpose. Moreover, students would understand what success looked like because they would be provided with either examples of “success” (models), or be provided success criteria in the form of “I can” statements so that they would be able to see where they stand in relation to achieving the learning target (thus becoming assessment capable learners).
Though we should stop assigning homework altogether, if we did send home something for students to practice/do, we would definitely not assign a grade to it. As for “classwork”, this could be explained to students as “practice” toward mastering each learning target. Instead of a “grade”, one could offer detailed feedback so that learners could improve at mastering the standard. Thus, grades could be calculated and based only on formative assessments completed in class, which vary in format but are all designed to be an objective, individual demonstration of what students understand regarding that one particular learning target or standard.
Gradebooks would no longer refer to assignments as “Composition #1” or “Quiz #5” and instead be labeled as the learning target. Students could receive one grade per learning target, a grade that came from their performance on either the first or second formative assessment – whichever was better. In this way, printed grade reports would become a list of what each student did and did not understand. A student could clearly see that he had an 3 on “Add & subtract fractions with like denominators” or a 2 on “Determine the theme of a story.” However, the below proficiency grade for any learning target would not be permanent as students would learn from the mistakes that they made and retake their formative assessments after Tier 2 Interventions. If a student demonstrates she understands a concept at a later date, then the gradebook would be altered to reflect that. This may take some extra time, but that time will be worth it when you began to see the positive changes in your students’ attitudes regarding assessments and interventions.
Learning will become less about the grade and more about the learning targets. The question, “What can I do to improve my grade?” will become, “I still don't understand how to determine a theme. Can we meet later to go over my mistakes on this assessment?” Students will be able to see explicitly how their grades are connected to what they know (or don't know), and they will soon come to understand that they won't be permanently penalized for a mistake, be it academic or social. More value will be placed on learning from mistakes, the feedback that students receive will be much more meaningful, and teachers may find out that they now spend less time on grading.
LCAP GOAL 5: SUPPORT FOR TEACHERS – A Book From the Shelf
Part Two in a series where I take the time to highlight a book from my shelf – one that I have learned a lot from, one I believe is important, maybe even underrated a bit – and I just want to take the time and share with others. Jo Boaler, Profesor of Mathematics Instruction at Stanford University has always been a favorite educator/author of this Bulletin and featured often. But few know that before she wrote Mathematical Mindsets (2016) and her latest Limitless Mind (2019), Boaler wrote What’s Math Got To Do With It? in 2008. This was my “introduction” to Boaler, and it is still one of the most enlightening books I have ever read. In this book, she does discuss the necessary “mindset” needed for success in math (and all subjects), but Boaler focuses more on the ways teachers (and parents) can “transform” mathematics, which would lead to more student success in the subject. In her first chapter, entitled, “What is Math?” Boaler is quite critical of the way mathematics is taught as a subject in schools, “The math that millions of Americans experience in school is an impoverished version of the subject and it bears little resemblance to the mathematics of life or work or even the mathematics in which mathematicians engage.” To Boaler, mathematics is, “a powerful way of expressing relationships and ideas in numerical, graphical, symbolic, verbal, and pictorial form.” To conclude her point, she claims that schoolchildren know what English literature and science are because they engage in authentic versions of the subjects in school, and then asks, “Why should mathematics be so different?” And this sets the stage for the remainder of the book.
For Boaler, the issue is not so much the curriculum, but the way the subject is taught – and this is the “revolution” she so passionately wants to take place in classrooms … a change in the way mathematics is taught. “Students who are taught using passive approaches do not engage in sense making, reasoning, or thought, and they do not view themselves as active problem solvers.” Here, Boaler is absolutely correct to claim that this passive approach is “widespread and ineffective.” The “passive approach” would involve students being asked to memorize hundreds of methods/routines/procedures … which only leads them to struggle to use these methods/routines/procedures in new situations. “The secret that good mathematics users know is that only a few methods need to be memorized and that most mathematics problems can be tackled through the understanding of mathematical concepts and active problem solving.” Here, Boaler correctly points to studies that show that the students who are taught to memorize are the lowest achieving in the world and the highest achieving students are the ones who are taught to think about the big ideas in mathematics.
But there is so much more covered in this small book (195 pages) that will have the reader running out of highlighter and sticky notes quickly, but more importantly, questioning one’s beliefs about just what is effective mathematics instruction. For example, Boaler discusses effective classroom approaches, “being good at mathematics involves many different ways of working … asking questions, drawing pictures … rephrasing problems, justifying methods, and representing ideas.” Boaler discusses new forms of testing like doing away with multiple-choice questions, which do not allow an assessment of a student’s thinking or understanding, and the worst of all types of tests – the timed test, which leads to anxiety and stressed-out children. In her chapter entitled “Stuck in the Slow Lane”, Boaler delves deep into the ineffective and damaging practices of ability grouping and tracking and points to other the success of other nations who do not use such methods in their schools. “The Japanese approach of teaching students to help each other, to learn from each other … is part of the reason for their high achievement … Research tells us that approaches that do not group by ability help not only those who would otherwise be placed in low tracks … but also those who would be placed in high tracks, too.” One final note I want to make regards to this book has to do with Boaler’s chapter, “Paying the Price for Sugar and Spice: How Girls and Women are Kept Out of Math and Science.” This was a topic I was oblivious too until I read this book (remember that this was around 2012 or so). To Boaler, we must remember that mathematics is about deep inquiry, connection making, and rigorous thought, and she is correct in stating that, “Girls are ideally suited to the study of high-level mathematics and the only reason that they drop math in high numbers is because the subject is misrepresented and taught badly in too many classrooms in America.”
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about why there needs to be a true “revolution” in the teaching of mathematics in our classrooms. For more information, log onto youcubed.org as well.