One of the things we know about leading second order change — such as when a school transitions to standards-based grading practices — is that it often involves an implementation dip (see McRel’s Balanced Leadership research). For example, we should anticipate that students will initially question the value of completing homework if there is no
By Matt Townsley & Ken O’Connor In his April 3rd column entitled “Educators in growing debate scold me for defending grading of homework,” Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews asserts that homework deadlines help prepare students for life. Mr. Mathews is writing to express his disagreement with Arlington Public Schools’ recent move toward removing penalties
How can teachers communicate mastery of learning standards to their students? On a recent Khan Academy Ed Talk, I joined Dr. Kristen Dicerbo to discuss how to create meaningful student grades.
In 2021, I published four new articles related to grading. The references and abstracts/summaries are below, and when possible, a link to the full article is also provided. Griffin, R., & Townsley, M. (2021). Points, points and more points: Grade inflation and deflation when homework and employability scores are incorporated. Journal of School Administration Research and
The following is a list of what I believe are the top five articles from 2021 (in alphabetical order by lead author’s last name) related to standards-based grading.
Teachers and school leaders frequently express a disconnect in the purpose and importance of teacher evaluation, particularly as it relates to educator growth. At the same time, some schools are beginning to communicate student growth through a standards-based grading philosophy. One way schools might “walk the talk” of their grading reform efforts designed to communicate
With a strong movement of schools starting to use standards-based grading practices, one of the aims of this study was to learn if traditional grading practices communicate grades that are accurate based on the students’ learning of the course objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which employability and homework
Waterbury, Conn., superintendent Verna Ruffin noticed early on during the pandemic that students had taken on some demanding and necessary roles outside of their academic responsibilities. They were serving as caregivers and money earners for their families. During the economic and social upheaval brought on by the coronavirus, the 18,000-student Waterbury schools made temporary changes
[Note to readers: This column was recently published in Iowa ASCD’s The Source e-newsletter. My co-author was Dr. Scott McNamara, assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Northern Iowa] Too often, educators intermingle attitude, effort, and achievement in their grading practices (Brookhart et al., 2016). This can especially be true of physical educators in that they often