If an autopsy reveals the cause of one's death, shouldn't tearing open the pages of a grade book help teachers see the life and demise of their own teaching practices? Grades are coveted by parents, teachers, and students during the course of a school year, and they are the sole determinant of one's efforts—whether those of the teacher, student, or parent's upbringing. However, grade book inquiry is rarely seen as necessary during the high-stakes, test-prep climate under which our country currently suffers.
This is unfortunate because we believe that one step to developing a school culture of teaching reflection, effective grading practices, and honest dialogue about what we value in student performance and mastery is professional development (PD) that's directly connected to teachers' experiences. What better way to begin than by starting at the finish line of our practices.
The following example of PD takes you through an important step of change: teacher reflection. Teachers reap the most benefit in their professional growth from the simple act of thinking about what we do, or in this case what we did and how we did it. The inservice PD we held for our faculty at West Adams Preparatory High School did just that.
Grade Books Should Be Reflection Tools
The truth about grading is that few grade books are reviewed or evaluated for standards-based grading. Administrators don't see their relationship to grade books and teaching, but instead look at grade books as mere symbols of the school days. Teachers go along with this charade and maintain that the grade book is not a reflection tool, but more a legal document to use in a rare court case as evidence in a wayward student's criminal case. Administrators, in turn, collect grade books, secure them in a safe place, and move on to other duties, like setting up a classroom for what they think is more meaningful PD.
At West Adams we designed a simple PD activity, based on the enormous amount of guiding information about assessment and instruction, to quickly engage our teachers in analyzing their grading practices. The anecdotal results were simply phenomenal.
Getting Started
We began the PD by anonymously looking at other teachers' grade books. We simply printed out one-pagers from Engrade and Easy Grade Pro, cut off the teachers' and students' names, and passed them out among the group.
We then set up the following group guidelines: Do not judge, but be inquisitive and questioning. Avoid talking about what your grading philosophy is or what you do better than the sample shown.
- Which assignments are most rigorous?
- What are the names of the standards-based assignments?
- Which assignments require little effort or time?
- What titles seem to reflect summative and normative work?
- Can a student fail the tests and quizzes but still pass this class?
We then passed out two grade book sheets to each teacher for a 10-minute review. They could talk in pairs or just read and question what they learned by looking at a semester of grading.
Analyzing the Data
- What do you think of the rigor in these class assignments?
- Which assignment—the journal; the Say, Mean, Matter chart; or the essay rough draft—shows the most mastery of the standards being taught?
On first reflection, the teachers noticed that this student is doing very well on daily course work—a lot ofA work. Yet, this student failed the class with 67 percent. Why? We also asked, "Which assignments are standards-based?" and "Why is the district's periodic assessment included in the grade book?" Note that the student failed the standards-based assessment. Earning an A on daily work but failing a standards-based assessment was an interesting contrast and a heuristic point of conversation with our group.
Other topics led to a vigorous discussion—and some quiet lulls—about what we as a group should do with our own grading practices. We also talked about how we could begin to get our entire faculty on board with some simple guidelines on what to put in and take out of a grade book. One 22-year veteran had an epiphany during this inquiry and shouted out, "The last time I even thought about my grade book was in college during my year of student teaching; and that was only for 40 minutes!"
Reviewing 20 grade books resulted in our teachers completely transforming their thoughts. They whispered in hushed tones, "Does the administration know about this?" as if they had hit on a treasure trove of information that could revolutionize education. As it was intended to do, this grade book PD shifted the focus of our teachers' instructional practices from test prep or intervention to more concrete and relevant student achievement.
We followed this examination of real grade books by reading the research of experts on grading. We looked at Ken O'Conner's "Fixing Grade Books" and Robert Marzano's Transforming Classroom Grading. We concluded the PD with a Socratic seminar on grading, where the group talked enthusiastically for 45 more minutes.
Reflecting on the Results
Everyone agreed that not only should their entire campus have this PD, but that other schools should also.
We can only hope that all of our wishes will come true, but the real lesson here is knowing that the place to start in education reform is with thoughtful reflection about what is going on in your classroom. Begin with your grade book. Our teachers were startled when they realized that there were serious problems not only with our school's grading policies, but also with their own teaching practices. That type of honest reflection is what is missing in our PD world.
Putting grades in your grade book should be the most powerful moment of your instructional day. After all, the grades students receive on their work are permanent marks of their achievement under your direction and an insight into what is both commendable and troubling in our profession.
