At my school (J.T. Moore Middle School), they use a grading system called "grading for
learning," which means that they can re-take tests and quizzes as many
times as they want until they get an 85% or above. They have to do this
voluntarily and on their own time. My particular teacher has made it so that
they cannot get full credit back but rather 70% credit back. Also, when they
make corrections, they have to give her an explanation for why their original
answer was wrong and why their new answer is correct. Other teachers are less
strict and it is much easier to do corrections and get points back. I'm not
sure what I think about this "grading for learning model." Doesn't it
encourage students that it doesn't matter how they do on the real thing if they
can always make it up later? What do you all think?
This is interesting. I wonder what the average assessment score is and if this negatively or positively impacts learning and study skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it can be difficult to decipher whether or not they are actually promoting negative habits.....
ReplyDeleteI guess I think it depends on the school, students, and teacher. I would think that if this option is being used all the time, then not only is there a problem with the students' work ethic, but there could also be a problem with the teacher's assessments. It seems like if students were constantly failing and needing this option all the time - then there is something wrong with the teaching as well as the work of the students.
However...as a student that is eager to learn, I would say from my experiences that I would have personally found this opportunity really enriching and helpful - especially if we had to actually explain WHY the correct answer IS the correct answer. On assessments that require recall of past learning objectives, it would reassure me that I had rectified any previous misconceptions by getting the opportunity to fix my work. In that case, I would feel like the grade improvement would function as an incentive for me as a student to actually care about working to understand the content and learning goals.
As a college student, I have always found it very beneficial when professors allowed you to "rewrite" essays or reports for a better grade. However, this was only the case when you were able to meet with the teacher and you discussed what went wrong and what needed to fixed. Also, you were required to reflect on your work and the changes that you made and why. In this case, it promoted learning as an ongoing process and did not penalize you for one bad test, day or instance. This was helpful because it allowed me to learn from my mistakes and know what to do better next time. Although, sometimes I felt not as much pressure the first time when working because I knew that I had the possibility to fix it. However, with a college student's maturity level, I understand the need for learning and how it effects my knowledge of the subject and other subjects as well. However, I feel at that young age, students are not as aware of this and it may set students up to believe that their initial work is unimportant because they can "just do it over." Therefore, I think that it is important that students are aware of the fact that "doing it over" is only beneficial when they learn from their mistakes and that getting it right the first time is ideal.
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ReplyDeleteI believe there is a benefit to this type of grading. Especially if students are explaining their work, and discussing it with teachers. Making changes shouldn't just be done for a better grade but it should be done to help them learn. Although this is the mission of their system the way it is ran is important to its success. A school wide system should be used to ensure the same treatment. All teachers should have the same procedure for corrections and each student should be held to that standard. If students are never making mastery, they shouldn't though be able to do the work again and all of sudden make mastery. They should have to go through intervention of some sort for that specific skill. Just reviewing content will not build that understanding. If they truly want students to learn from their mistakes then teacher intervention and instruction in the specific topic will be crucial.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Dana and Susannah that as a motivated student, I would have loved the opportunity to raise some of my lower grades going through school. I had never really though of it from a teacher's perspective until this past Friday, though. I administered 3 quizzes to different classes, and I was kind of crushed when about half of my students failed their quizzes (some was over material I had taught, some was not). For the material that I had taught, it felt like I had done them a disservice--if I had taught them well enough, then I shouldn't have students scoring 50%, 30%, even 0% on their assessments. And for the material I hadn't taught, I still just felt really bad--it was only a 5-question quiz, so each question counted for 20% (which SUCKS from a student perspective). I was SO RELIEVED to hear that students have the opportunity to retest until they pass because after grading the tests, I just felt like there was no way I could move on to new material knowing that most of my students weren't ready for it. So even though I've never attended a school with the "grading for learning" philosophy, I'm glad it exists at the school I'm teaching at. If students are taking advantage of it, then I think as teachers we should be glad that they have the opportunity to take charge of their own learning and improve their grades if they're motivated to do so.
ReplyDeleteMy school does not follow the 'grading for learning' model and I have to say that reading about this makes me wish that we did! My second graders are SO focused on whether or not they passed that they rarely take the time to really focus on the skills or the mastery of the content. So often when we hand back an assessment, they look to see their grade or count how many they got wrong, but I almost never see my kiddos checking WHY they got it wrong or trying to explain their mistakes. I hear this complaint from the faculty at Hickman frequently- that students are so motivated extrinsically by grades that their desire to master the content simply isn't there. Especially in my second grade classroom, this leads to a lot of issues with looking off of other peoples papers, nerves about getting questions wrong, refusals to try if students think they might fail, and lack of perseverance on hard problems. I think this 'grading for learning' model would really increase the stamina and desire to achieve in my students.
ReplyDeleteAt our faculty meeting yesterday, our principal passed around an article on 'grit' and had the teachers discuss ways to foster 'grit' in our students. The issue of grading actually came up amongst many teachers, and I think the consensus was that if Hickman ran more on this type of grading basis, students would have a great deal more grit in problem solving and trying again.
My school also follows the grading for learning model, and it seems to work well for my teacher, although she doesn't do the same model for re-writes. I wonder if that us the definition of grading for learning, or just one school's interpretation? With my teacher, I have seen her use the term as a guide for appropriate assessments. For example, the students did a writing assignment in paris and she had originally planned to grade it. Upon further reflection and discussion she decided not to grade each paper and to rather give a grade for effort, since the written product would not reflect each individual student's understanding. In this context, I took "grading for learning" to mean only counting in the final grade assessments that would be a genuine reflection of student learning.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I agree that this model may send mixed messages to students. Perhaps a model that would allow for re-writes on certain tasks, like exams, but require completed final drafts of tasks like essays. I guess I'm not sure what an ideal model would be, but I agree that it is important to teach students that tests and projects should require effort, focus, and attention as if you were not going to have another opportunity. I also agree with some of these other comments, however, that if students are looking at why their answers are wrong and growing from their mistakes, this is beneficial to learning in a long-term way. We don't want to teach the idea that students should be cramming for an assessment and not actually learning. It does seem to be working at Lockeland, but I agree, there are definitely some tricky aspects.
My school also uses the “grading for learning” model. I really like the focus on mastery of skills. It allows a lot of students to relearn skills that strategies that they didn’t understand the first time around. Many schools and parents place a huge emphasis on grades. While grades might matter in high school, there are very few reasons that elementary and middle school students need to be so focused on grades. They are still learning a lot of basic skills that need a lot of practice and improvement. Using grading for learning really encourages them to work on improving their understanding and keep learning.
ReplyDeleteWhile this model takes the pressure off of students to always perform perfectly the first time, it doesn’t allow them to get full credit. Students can only get some of the points back by correcting and explaining their answers. This allows students to redo assignments that they did poorly on, but it doesn’t make it unfair to students that succeeded the first time. I think the model is helpful in younger grades, but as students move to high school they need to learn how to find help before an assessment if they do not understand the material.