"Standards-based grading," or, reaching out to an edublogger

For one of my responses to an edublogger, I revisited the blog that I wrote about over the summer, Science Education on the Edge by Chris Ludwig. There have only been two new posts - I imagine he's been rather busy getting the school year rolling! - but they were both candid and informative, as all of his posts are.

His latest post, Zero Points Were Given (which, by the way, is a play on a popular (and profane!) internet saying that I will not repeat here, which says to me that this guy is very plugged in, much like myself), is a provocative screed against traditional points-based grading system followed by his thoughts about an alternative. His alternative could be broadly termed "standards-based grading," but Chris prefers to frame his approach as asking "'what do you want students to know and be able to do?' and 'what will you be looking for in their performances of learning?'". He replaces assignments with content and skill goals that he wants his students to be able to attain. He provides them with concrete feedback about how to improve, then allows them to respond to his feedback by, you know, improving! He uses a system called BlueHarvest that I blogged a bit about in my last post to keep track of this narrative feedback (and responses by students). As for converting this type of feedback into numerical grades, as required for most schools and college applications, he provides some advice about establishing a consistent method of doing this. He concludes this advice with a pretty powerful insight: "It will be subjective. But so is everything about teaching if you are doing it right and responding to different student needs and abilities." I gotta say I agree with him. From what I've seen so far, trying to stick to some "objective" grading standard is not only impossible, it's irresponsible. By making the subjective system something that also helps students to improve, it seems like Chris is significantly improving the experience of his students. The final piece of his system is to have students make a weekly check-in in which they argue for a certain grade they have earned that week, and they have to use evidence of their work to support their argument. Perhaps as a happy accident, this also lets students practice one of the 8 scientific practices in the new standards: arguing from evidence!

While I enjoyed his post very much and like the sound of his classroom, I couldn't help but puzzle over exactly how such a system could get up and rolling in my classroom (and any high needs classroom I might find myself in). It seems like it requires significant student independence. So I made the following comment on the post:

As a pre-service teacher trying to figure out my “own” approach to teaching (which will inevitably be a pastiche of other peoples’ ideas until I really get my legs under me), your blog is fascinating because it presents a perspective I haven’t heard yet. I appreciate your candor and detail because it helps me to envision how these things can work in a classroom.

I am intrigued by your critique of points-based grading and the alternative you have developed. I was a kid (still am, kind of, in my masters program…) who was excellent at playing the game and got As across the board pretty much throughout my educational experience. As I’ve grown older and realized that the world doesn’t give you an A simply for following directions, I’ve begun to worry that what earned me the label of “brilliant” in school is not terribly useful in the real world. This makes me think hard about what I want to communicate to my own students. Does the ability to successfully complete a multiple choice test about atomic structure correlate to any real world ability? I’m not sure it does. I am searching avidly for ways to make learning chemistry relevant and enriching. I’m wondering if your approach could be part of the key to that.

What I struggle with, however, is figuring out how to earn enough buy in to this system to get it to work. I am currently student teaching in an urban arts school. My students, by and large, have a dismissive attitude towards science, and the ones that try do so mostly because they need to pass chemistry to graduate. Many of my 11th graders are at a middle school or lower level in math and/or reading. I struggle with how I could inspire and foster the kind of independence and motivation it seems like such a system needs in order to function. I have a vision of students excitedly investigating questions related to chemistry of their own volition, but then I think about how many of my students need extensive one-on-one scaffolding to carry out unit conversions and I hit a mental roadblock about how to translate one into the other.

That said, right now my mentor and I have students who have a grade of literally 4%, students that I know are sweet kids and don’t want to fail. I want to help them. And I think stepping away from empty number grades would be one way to do that.

I would appreciate any advice on how to kickstart such an effort – maybe some baby steps toward the full fledged model. Where do I even begin?

Only hours later, Chris responded with a generous comment filled with advice:

Anne,
Thanks so much for the comment and for being willing to tell us about your situation! As a chemistry teacher for ~15 years now, I have yet to really hit on the magic formula that will make it appealing to everyone. I have some small victories at times, but often it feels like I’m losing the battle to get kids to really understand chemistry at the level that I think they should. With that said, some things work better than others to get chemistry students involved in class:
-Labs seem to work really well at engaging students, although they sometimes seem to come away with a more superficial understanding than I would like because they lack some of the background knowledge about underlying principles.
-Drill and kill worksheets only help a small percentage of students, and while I might think they are necessary, students don’t often agree.
-The best assignments in chemistry are those that respond to student interests. This is tricky, since not every student’s interest can be sparked easily, but I bet your arts students might find some interest in the science behind paint pigments, for example, and maybe the tie-dye lab.

The real trick is to set up a system that can help students realize even small gains in skills and content knowledge in your class. We should reward students with some helpful suggestions rather than having to come up with a number to represent how many points we think they are worth that day. They might be way below where I would like them to be, but if they are willing to work with me at all and follow my advice, I can usually get them on track.

One last piece of advice: allow students multiple ways to show you what they know. That way they’ve taken some ownership of what works best for them, even if it doesn’t always conform to what we think chemistry class really ought to look like. 

You have the right attitude about stealing other people’s ideas, and I look forward to stealing some ideas from you in the future.

I very much appreciate Chris's quick reply, his kind comments, and his honest advice. He doesn't try to sugar coat for the newbie but rather responds candidly and specifically to my thoughts. That said, I have to be honest in turn and say that I'm slightly dismayed by these insights from an expert. His concern about labs and students taking away a superficial understanding is definitely one of my biggest concerns for teaching chemistry. Seeing chemistry in action is one thing; really understanding the underlying explanation, and transferring that to other contexts, is a whole other ballgame. I'm also concerned about his lack of regard for "drill and kill" sheets; I think there are some skills (converting between units, naming compounds, balancing equations) that can only really be nailed down with repeated practice. Does he remove emphasis from such skills in his classroom? It seems as though most higher level chemistry applications are absolutely predicated on having such skills in one's mental toolbox. Since my students have significant difficulties with math, I fear I will leave them behind if I try to jump into the more "solid" stuff without spending time trying to master the "basics" first. I may have to leave a follow up question asking him to clarify this point. Our students do a lot of worksheets right now, but I would be hard pressed to think of an alternative method to learn the skills we're targeting right now.

I do quite like his suggestion that chemistry teaching try to draw from and respond to student interests. I think there's a lot we could do with our students' passions and talents at DSA. I'd love to hear them come up with a chemistry song, for example, or do an interpretive dance of covalent bonding. Such ideas might be something I would consider going into the second semester, when I have more autonomy.

The central piece of his thinking, which he highlights in his comment, is to give students something real to build off of, a blueprint for their own improvement. I think this is a valuable insight. Right now, my mentor teacher generally gives numerical grades with little substantive feedback. On the other hand, what we're grading is often problems with clear cut answers, and it would take ages to explicitly write out responses and corrections for every student's work. Chris's use of BlueHarvest is crucial in supporting him in this endeavor to provide substantive individualized feedback and I think I will seriously consider using this system, if not next semester, then when I begin my own teaching practice. 

On a more meta level, it was great to get such a substantial response in such a short time. I will definitely be keeping track of Chris's work and probably drawing on him as a resource again in the future.