6 Fundamentals to Facilitating Change

I’m a pretty straight-arrowed rule follower, and I’ve never considered myself a rabble-rouser. So several years ago, when I got called into the principal’s office, I suffered a mini-anxiety attack. With my heart palpitating and my spores gushing sweat, I feebly sunk myself into a chair opposite of the principal’s massive desk, seemingly hoping to hide behind it.

“Reed, you gave 15 INCOMPLETE grades. Incompletes are only to be used in extreme situations like when a student misses several classes because she was sick. Go back to counseling and fix this.”

With that--and no opportunity to defend myself--my shift to Standards-Based Grading grading had hit another roadblock. I had a great relationship with both the director of school counseling and the registrar, so I was pleased to see them together as I entered counseling department. Obviously, they knew why I was there, and they reassured me that it was no big deal. The registrar let me in on a little secret, another teacher had also given a significant number of incompletes, and from her perspective, the only problem with incompletes was that it required more work for her since she would have to manually enter the new grades. She continued, “We can’t accurately calculate GPAs when a student has an INC. Other than that there’s really no problem with incompletes except that it’s something different.”

With that I immediately understood: different isn’t always good. This is especially the case when it goes against a long-standing school policy.

After I explained to the registrar that students received incompletes because they had not completed a significant assignment or did not demonstrate the required mastery of a strand or unit, the registrar offered a temporary solution, “Reed, give them the F or whatever, and then come back with a grade change form and I’ll change the grade. It’ll end up being the same amount of work on this end.”

I appreciated her understanding and willingness to work with me. Of course, I had already explained to the students and their parents why I had given Incompletes and what needed to be done, so I went back to my office space and started making phone calls.

While this wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time, it offered an opportunity for me to reflect, “Standards-Based Grading has been good for my students and assigning Incompletes (in my classroom I called them ‘Not Yets’) on assignments had led to improved academic performance.  What could I have done differently? What did I need to do going forward? What had I done wrong?

As an educator, I sought to constantly tweak, change and improve, but clearly I had taken a few missteps in my journey towards Standards-Based Grading. Through reflection I identified six areas where I erred.

6 Fundamentals to Facilitating Change

1. Change requires honest dialogue and courageous conversations. Internally, I had identified a problem and a solution but not wanting to rock the boat, I did not involve others when I should have.
2. Educational change requires support from many people. By providing information to others, along with the rationale and supporting research, I could have increased support and avoided conflict.
3. There’s nothing wrong with starting small and sharing. I had been flying solo on my Standards-Based Grading journey, but I could’ve expanded my efforts to include other teachers from my PLC or my team. Doing so would’ve ensured ongoing dialogue, increased validity and improved fidelity.
4. Change efforts must be organized. Had I been more organized and done a better job of coordinating my efforts with others, I could have avoided cynicism and conflict. By creating a specific plan with the help of others, the change to Standards-Based Grading would have been more valid.
5. Anticipate problems and emotional reactions, including your own. My principal rightfully felt like the carpet had been pulled from under him as I--unintentionally--broke school rules, and I also became very frustrated. I did not anticipate emotional attachments to educational policies, nor did I proactively plan for problems.
6. Expect cynicism. To reduce the rampant cynicism among most school staffs about educational improvement, restructuring endeavors should be well organized and coordinated. A written and/or visual model of the change effort can be developed and posted, including timelines, activities, task force members, and their responsibilities

Educational policies should be synonymous with change. Ongoing restructuring and improving should be a valued norm. Such innovation must be appropriately managed to ensure positive results. Doing so will ensure that we meet the needs of our students.

The Power of Not Yet

“You haven’t taught until they have learned.”  Sage advice from legendary basketball coach John Wooden, who credits his time as an English teacher with shaping his coaching philosophy.

For the first five or so years of my teaching career, students had one shot to demonstrate their mastery of subject. If a student failed to complete an assignment, the “logical” consequence was a zero. If an extremely capable student earned a C or below because of a lack of effort, then that’s the mark that went into my grade book. Or so I reasoned.

My thinking and my grading system were seriously flawed. If the students couldn’t demonstrate their learning, had I really taught them?

Assigning students zeroes or unsatisfactory grades doesn’t teach responsibility; rather it teaches students that they don’t have to do the assignment. If it’s worth assigning a grade, students—and teachers—must see the value in ensuring that each student does his/her best on that assignment. As educators we must constantly communicate that we see the potential of each and every student and hold them to high expectations.

Here’s where NOT YET comes in to play. No longer would I let students off the hook by giving them a zero or a grade below C. No longer would I accept less than a student’s best effort.

I’ve previously written about why zeroes make no sense, so here I’ll focus on the not yets for students who turn in work that doesn’t reflect their abilities.

How did Not Yets Work?

Simply, D’s and F’s were removed from my grading; instead students would receive a “not yet” or “work in progress.” Students would no longer be punished for not achieving mastery; rather feedback was provided and students were given an opportunity to relearn and demonstrate their knowledge and skills again.

Some students scoffed at the idea, “C’mon, just give me the D.”

I held firm, “I believe in you. I know what you’re capable of and this isn’t it.” Again a Wooden quote epitomized my new philosophy, “Success is the peace of mind which is a direct result of the self-satisfaction in knowing that you have made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”

By providing students with meaningful feedback and giving them the opportunity to improve, they seized the opportunity to learn from their errors and approached the assignment in new ways with more effort. Instead of allowing less than their best, students were provided with the opportunity to reflect and adjust so they can learn from the situation and meet the learning objective.

Yes, it meant more work for me, but was I really teaching if they hadn’t learned it? 

My Journey to Standards-Based Grading

I’ll be honest; I came upon standards-based grading totally by accident.  

I had become increasingly frustrated with my students’ attitudes toward learning and grades. Many of my “top” students were motivated more by “What do I have to do to earn an A?” than “What do I have to learn?” My less motivated students were too quick to accept less than their best. They were perfectly satisfied to earn C’s or D’s. It was the latter that spurred me to make changes to how I taught and how I assessed.

My three original reasons for adopting standards-based grading:

1. Students avoided work because they didn't feel they'd be successful. 
2. Too many students were not completing their work. 
3. Many students were turning in work that was far below their potential.

high school career. But over the years far too many students were not completing their work. Many turned in work that was far below expectations and often extremely below grade level. Challenging assignments were met with trepidation; if the assignment was difficult, many students either simply didn’t do it or their efforts were minimal.

In conversations with other freshman teachers, we lamented that in middle school many students had the option to not turn in assignments, and at the end of the semester or year, they were given opportunities to raise their grades. These ranged from extra credit to fluff assignments to being allowed to turn in work that was assigned months ago. (Disclaimer: I know it’s easy for high school teachers to blame middle school teachers and for middle school teachers to blame elementary teachers. I also know many high school teachers have the same ineffective policies, but the point here is that if we’re going to prepare our students for college and life, we must do better.)

I pledged to myself and to my students and their families that I was no longer going to let students off the hook. I believed in their abilities and I was going to hold them accountable. They would leave my class with a newfound confidence in themselves. They’d be better prepared for life and along the way they were going to have fun learning about history.

On the first day of school, I explained my new learning and grading to all of my students. I explained that redos, retakes and revisions would be allowed (for more on redos and retakes: here and here). I went on to say I would never assign a grade less than a C, instead students would receive a “not yet” or “work in progress.” Practice assignments, including most homework, and formative assessment activities wouldn’t be graded. In addition, students would be given freedom to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways.

My standards-based grading goals were simple:

1.  By attaching learning goals to each assignment and activity students were more likely to challenge themselves.
2.  Instead of emphasizing grading, I’d be providing more feedback
3. As author Ken O’Connor suggests, I wanted to be confident that the grades the student in my class received were accurate, meaningful and supportive of learning.
4.  I wanted to remove subjectivity from grading.
5.  I was no longer going to grade behaviors by punishing students for late work or work that wasn’t turned in.
6. I'd make greater use of differentiation, flexible grouping, pre-assessments, and redos and retakes. All were intended to increase student motivation, reflection and increase intrinsic motivation

By no stretch of the imagination was the process easy or flawless. During the first year, I struggled to “compute” grades, the administration admonished me for giving incompletes on report cards, and several students and parents complained. Student grades provided a more accurate snapshot of student learning, but more importantly more students became motivated to learn and pushed themselves. Instead of avoiding challenges and withdrawing from tasks, they became risk takers; their efforts increased. They became more analytical, reflective and persistent. They established their own goals and strove to achieve them.

So while I stumbled upon standards-based grading accidentally, my journey had begun. I haven’t looked back since. 

Two Conversations that Emphasized the Need for Standards-Based Grading

This past week I overheard two conversations that reminded me of the need for standards-based grading.

Conversation 1: in produce section of grocery store between a parent and a middle school teacher who I’ll call Mr. Smith

Parent: Good to see you Mr. Smith. How’s Jon [another pseudonym] doing?

Mr. Smith: Jon’s one of my best students. His test scores are always among the best in the class. I think he had the highest score on the last test.

Parent: That’s great! He really enjoys your class.

Mr. Smith: Thanks. He's a pleasure to teach. 

What's wrong with this conversation?

Simply, why is the teacher comparing Jon’s performance against other students? Assessments and grades should be used to provide meaningful feedback in relation to learning objectives. Grades should never be used to rank and sort students. I'm sure the teacher meant well and the parent was clearly pleased with this impromptu progress report, but does the parent truly know How's my child doing?

Conversation 2: overheard at a basketball game

Parent: Did you get your test back?

Middle school student: (Sheepishly) Yes.

(Parent tilts her head and gives her daughter “the eye.”)

Student: I got a 60. But everyone did badly.

(Long pause as parent simply stares through the child.)

Student (with cautionary optimism): She gave us an extra credit assignment to pull up our grade.

Parent: Get it out and start working on it.

What's wrong with this conversation?

I applaud the teacher for recognizing that the entire class struggled on the test (assuming the student didn’t make it up). But instead of assigning an extra credit assignment to raise students’ grades, the teacher should be reflecting on her own professional practices to ensure improved achievement. This should include re-teaching and re-assessment.

While some extra credit assignments do equate to increased learning or mastery of the objective, most extra credit assignments dilute the meaning of grades. For example, in this case, it sounds as if the student simply needs to complete additional work to raise her grade; meaning the quantity of work becomes more important than the quality of the understanding.

If, as the student stated, most students did poorly, it’s not a learning problem. It’s a teaching problem that requires corrective action.

Four Standards-Based Grading Principles Relevant to These Conversations

1. Grades should focus on results rather than activities. Emphasis should be on learning and not competition and completion.
2. Assessments provide information for students AND teacher.
3. If a particular concept or skill is worth assessing then it’s important enough to teach and teach well.
4. Teachers should follow assessments with high-quality corrective actions and students should be given additional opportunities to demonstrate mastery.

Grading Group Work in a Standards-Based Classroom

The other day, Ms. Snider approached me with a simple query, “Do you have a minute to discuss grading of my group project?”

The ensuing conversation centered around two questions:

1.     Should the group be assigned one grade?

2.     How can we assess for individual learning and provide meaningful feedback to each individual?

We began with a resounding “NO!” to the first question.

Both of us believe that a grade stands for what each student learns, so this was easy. But, as we explored the subject in more detail, we soon realized that assigning the group one grade actually defeats the purpose of a cooperative assignment. Ms. Snider shared a story of her daughter, a high-achieving student, who often felt pressured to pick up her group mates slack. Like many students, her daughter felt it easier to do their work than to wait for them or to work with them.

Is it any surprise that a lot of our top students, cringe at the thought of group work?

We had our starting point: individual students will be responsible for their own learning and will receive their own grades.

Our next challenge was to determine how students would be held individually accountable while still relying on each other to successfully complete the assignment. Although this was a new project for Ms. Snider, she knew exactly what she wanted the students to learn and what skills they would acquire. That led us to our next question:

How can we assess learning and provide feedback?

After much back-and-forth, we stumbled upon the following idea. Periodically, each student reflects on his/her own contributions to the group and on his/her own learning. (Sometimes this might be daily and at other times it might be weekly.) We immediately began to craft a rubric, but then another idea hit us. Why not have the students share their own experiences and have the class create their own group participation rubric.

This, of course, led us to our next problem. Ms. Snider teaches some of our best students—students who are highly grade-motivated. Some would undoubtedly grade themselves harshly, while others would unfairly inflate their grades. To counter this, Ms. Snider came up with an outstanding idea: After each self-reflection, lets allow the students time to share their own rating and give the other members of the group time to provide feedback.

For the student who grades herself harshly, this would be easy. For the student who inflates, his/her grade the task would be more difficult for the group mates, but the ability to provide truthful and honest feedback is an important skill. Additionally, this would take some of the pressure off of students having to actually assign their peers a grade (an idea we nixed).  Again, we could use the same student-created rubric to help this process.

While great ideas were flowing from our conversation, we hadn’t yet discovered a way to accurately assess student learning. We were getting closer though.

Last year, I remember watching Ms. Mathews’ students create a Rube Goldberg machine. Along the way, she peppered the students with individual questions, and after presenting their machines, students were asked more detailed questions. Her questions required students to demonstrate their knowledge; their reflective nature also shed light on the entire group experience.

Ms. Snider took Ms. Mathews’ ideas to the next level, “You know what? That’s a great idea.” With increasing enthusiasm, “I think we can go one step further. Why not have the other students in the class ask questions—and I mean real questions after each group’s presentation?”

Finally, we started to discuss two very important individual components. First, all students would be asked to grade themselves according to the class-created rubric. Finally, each student would be required to demonstrate his or her knowledge of the assignment through an additional assessment—perhaps a test or an essay.

We were definitely on to something. As the project progresses, I’m sure Ms. Snider will improve upon the ideas we generated.

What started as a simple conversation morphed into something much more complex. Our focus centered around 4 basic, research-supported premises:

1.    No group grade will be assigned

2.    Students will not be told to grade each other. Students will, however, provide meaningful and honest feedback to their group mates.

3.    Reflection is critical to the learning process.

4.    Targeted, well-crafted and specific questions will be used to assess student learning. This will provide meaningful feedback and can be used as both for both formative and summative assessment.

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By the way, I need to give Ms. Snider’s project a plug. This is not a group project in which students simply gather facts, arrange them neatly on a poster or PowerPoint, and then spit them out during a presentation. Ms. Snider’s project required students to think for themselves, to pose questions, to think creatively to solve problems and to rely on each other. I can’t wait to see the end results.