1. I chose what to grade carefully.<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen I first started teaching, I thought in terms of \u2018assignments\u2019 and \u2018tests.\u2019 Quizzes were also a thing.<\/p>\n
But eventually I started thinking instead in terms of \u2018practice\u2019 and \u2018measurement.\u2019 All assessment should be formative, and the idea of \u2018summative assessment\u2019 makes as much sense as \u2018one last teeth cleaning.\u2019<\/p>\n
The big idea is what I often call a \u2018climate of assessment,\u2019 where snapshots of \u00a0student understanding and progress are taken in organic, seamless, and non-threatening ways. Assessment is ubiquitous and always-on.<\/p>\n
A \u2018measurement\u2019 is only one kind of assessment, and even the word implies \u2018checking in on your growth\u2019 in the same way you measure a child\u2019s vertical growth (height) by marking the threshold in the kitchen. This type of assessment provides both the student and teacher a marker\u2013data, if you insist\u2013of where the student \u2018is\u2019 at that moment with the clear understanding that another such measurement will be taken soon, and dozens and dozens of opportunities to practice in-between.<\/p>\n
Be very careful with what you grade, because it takes time and mental energy\u2013both finite resources crucial to the success of any teacher. If you don\u2019t have a plan for the data before you give the assessment, don\u2019t give it, and certainly don\u2019t call it a quiz or a test.<\/p>\n
2. I designed work to be \u2018published\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nI tried to make student products\u2013writing, graphic organizers, podcasts, videos, projects, and more\u2013at the very least visible to the parents of students. Ideally, this work would also be published to peers for feedback and collaboration, and then to the public at large to provide some authentic function in a community the student cares about.<\/p>\n
By making student work public (insofar as it promoted student learning while protecting any privacy concerns), the assessment is done in large part by the people the work is intended for. It\u2019s authentic, which makes the feedback loop quicker and more diverse than one teacher could ever hope to make it.<\/p>\n
What this system loses in expert feedback that teacher might be able to give (though nothing says it can\u2019t both be made public and benefit from teacher feedback), it makes up for in giving students substantive reasons to do their best work, correct themselves, and create higher stands for quality than your rubric outlined.<\/p>\n
3. I made a rule:\u00a0<\/strong>No Fs and no zeroes. A, B, C, or \u2018Incomplete\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nFirst, I created a kind of no-zero policy. Easier said than done depending on who you are and what you teach and what the school \u2018policy\u2019 is and so on. The idea here, though, is to keep zeroes from mathematically ruining a student\u2019s \u2018final grade.\u2019<\/p>\n
I try to explain to students that a grade should reflect understanding, not their ability to successfully navigate the rules and bits of gamification stuffed into most courses and classrooms. If a student receives a D letter grade, it should be because they have demonstrated an almost universal inability to master any content, not because they got As and Bs on most work they cared about but Cs or lower on the work they didn\u2019t, and with a handful of zeroes thrown in for work they didn\u2019t complete ended up with a D or an F.<\/p>\n
Another factor at work here is marking work with an A, B, C, or \u2018Incomplete.\u2019 Put another way, if the student didn\u2019t at least achieve the average mark of C, which should reflect average understanding of a given standard or topic, I would mark it \u2018Incomplete,\u2019 give them clear feedback on how it could be improved, and then require them to do so.<\/p>\n
4. I went over missing assignments frequently.<\/strong><\/p>\nSimple enough. I had a twitter feed of all \u2018measurements\u2019 (work they knew that counted towards their grade), so they didn\u2019t have to ask \u2018what they were missing\u2019 (though they did anyway). I also wrote it on the board (I had a huge whiteboard that stretched across the front of the classroom).<\/p>\n
5. I created alternative assessments.<\/strong><\/p>\nEarly on in teaching, I noticed students saying, in different ways, that they \u2018got it but don\u2019t all the way get it.\u2019 Or that they believed that they did, in fact, \u2018get it\u2019 but not the way the assessment required (reminder: English Lit\/ELA is a highly conceptual content area aside of the skills of literacy itself).<\/p>\n
So I\u2019d create an alternative assessment to check and see. Was the assessment getting in the way\u2013obscuring more than it revealed? Why beat my head against the wall explaining the logistics of an assignment or intricacies of a question when they assignment and the question weren\u2019t at all the points? These were just \u2018things\u2019 I used the way a carpenter uses tools.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it\u2019s easier to just grab a different tool.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d also ask students to create their own assessments at times. Show me you understand<\/i>. It didn\u2019t always work the way you\u2019d expect, but I got some of the most insightful and creative expression I\u2019ve ever seen from students using this approach. As with most things, it just depended on the student.<\/p>\n
6. I taught through micro-assignments.<\/b><\/p>\n
Exit slips were one of the the greatest things that ever happened to my teaching. I rarely used them as \u2018exit tickets\u2019 to be able to leave the classroom, but I did use them almost daily. Why?<\/p>\n
They gave me a constant stream of data for said \u2018climate of assessment,\u2019 and it was daily and fresh and disarming to students because they knew it was quick and if they failed, another one would be coming soon.<\/p>\n
It was a \u2018student-centered\u2019 practice because it protected them. They had so many opportunities and, math-wise, so many scores that unless they failed everything every day, they wouldn\u2019t \u2018fail\u2019 at all. And if they were,<\/p>\n
I could approach a single standard or topic from a variety of angles and complexities and Bloom\u2019s levels and so on, which often showed that the student that \u2018didn\u2019t get it\u2019 last week more likely just \u2018didn\u2019t get\u2019 my question.<\/p>\n
In other words, they hadn\u2019t failed my assessment; my assessment had failed them because it had failed to uncover what they, in fact, knew.<\/p>\n
7. I used diagnostic teaching\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
You can read more about diagnostic teaching but the general idea is that I had a clear sequence I used that I communicated very clearly to the students and their families. It usually took the first month or two for everyone to become comfortable with it all, but once I did, grading problems were *almost* completely eliminated. Problems still surfaced but with a system in place, it was much easier to identify exactly what went wrong and why and communicate it all to the stakeholders involved in helping support children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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