SBG 2: Online reports

Last year I started to use Easy Grade Pro as my electronic gradebook, and part of the reason I chose Easy Grade Pro is because it allows me to easily upload a progress report to my school's network that my students can access anytime they are on campus and thus get a real-time view of their grade. This successfully helped prevent surprises about missing work and low grades - most students made use of the online report, and even for those who didn't, I could explain to their parents how accessible my gradebook is.

Yet this year the SBG component has made this process a bit more complicated for my freshmen class. I'm not the first to run into a conundrum with releasing frequent progress reports (see here); the SBG inherently disapproves of the idea of focusing on results, but instead emphasizes process, so telling a student that they can always find their cumulative grade in a class that wants to promote formative learning is somewhat counter-intuitive. So I've spent the last few days playing around with Easy Grade Pro and trying to decide what would be the best way to show students their progress.

Ideally I would like for them to have access to a graph that would show them how they are doing on standards. I tried a quick draft in Excel and it came out something like this:

The top graph shows their abilities in using evidence, and the bottom in writing skills. In this way of visualizing the student's process, for example, it's easy to spot that he/she improved in standard ES 2.3. My freshmen could easily keep track of their standards in such a way, but Easy Grade Pro does not make for internet reports that are graphic. So this isn't really an option unless I want to make a separate report card through Excel instead, but I am not sure how I would securely get such a report on the network for my students, and I haven't spent enough time considering Excel as my ultimate Gradebook.

Fortunately Easy Grade Pro does allow for showing the proficiency on each standard per assignment, so this is a snapshot of ultimately what my students would see:

The only slight problem is that this report shows a 'cumulative' standard grade (see "Succeeds" for ES 1.3), which is really an average of all of the scores per standard. I think this is ok for the purposes of progress reports, since the students should understand that their standards grades are meant to be in flux until the end of the term, but at the end I will have to calculate their final grade differently because I plan to weigh the scores at the end of a term more heavily than those at the start of the term (i.e. I'm not averaging the scores).

I have also decided that I will not show their current overall grade on this progress report - really the purpose of this online report will be for students to examine closely where they are 'beginning', 'developing', 'succeeding', and 'mastering' in the Essential Skills standards, and where they need to reassess for the Unit Goals standards. 

I will also take some time at the mid-term to have them reflect on their own progress - they'll get a physical copy of their standards scores and complete a reflection something like given here. The point of SBG is to get students to reflect on their learning process, so I want my online gradebook to show the least number of final results as possible, while still giving them a good idea of what assignments they are missing and what skills/content material they need to focus on. 

The first day of class: not too shabby

First confession: I was a little nervous today in anticipation of introducing the standards based grading system to my freshmen. I had written a concise but informative description of how I planned to implement the system in my syllabus, but I also decided I wasn't going to introduce it by just reading the syllabus together. That just would have been too wordy and boring. So instead I told them they could read all the details in the syllabus (indeed their first assignment is to sign a mutual agreement of expectations that I also signed and that their parents need to sign), but that I would explain the system using visuals and we'd have a discussion.

Second confession: I cribbed *a lot* from my friend Bowman to introduce the concept of standards based grading to my freshmen - in particular, he came up with a wonderful analogy between SBG and the game Angry Birds. So I will also give him all the credit for just how well they responded to the explanation. It was actually kind of thrill to see their positive reactions. 

First, it was obvious that they really welcomed the idea of having it be made very clear on every homework what they could work on and what skills they were required to master. I thought they'd be intimidated by it all, but instead they were really receptive. In fact, some of them almost anticipated some of my visuals with their questions. I think showing them a sample homework and explaining how it would work really helped (see sample homework image below).

Second, they clearly loved the idea that they could fix their knowledge of content with my unit goals component. I'll be interested to see which students end up actually pro-active about it, but at least today they made it clear that they understood they could be rewarded for improvement as well has penalized for not being pro-active about understanding the skills and content necessary for the course.

So we'll see how it goes, but third confession: I'm quite relieved that introducing my grading system was not as painful as I feared. In fact it only took about 15 minutes total with their questions and my visuals. 

I'll also say that while they didn't seem immediately sold on the concept of having a notebook solely devoted to my class, and the idea that we'd be gluing handouts in it, they clearly perked up at the idea of designing the cover of their portfolio. I had already decorated a cover for my portfolio and so I showed them mine and challenged them to make theirs look better because I'm a terrible artist. We'll see what they come up with next week!

SBG 1: The Syllabus

School is definitely around the corner: proctors have arrived back on campus, classrooms are being decorated, and the tone is being set for an exciting new year. In the midst of it all I have spent some time rethinking how I will apply SBG in my class, and have had some really thoughtful conversations with colleagues here about the process as well. In fact, the number of people on campus who are going to use SBG in some form this year has grown exponentially over the summer, and so it's been an exciting opportunity to talk with people from many other disciplines about how they plan to do it.

I drafted the syllabus for my freshmen and I think it articulates fairly well the grading system I will employ. You will notice that this end result is a much adapted concept from what I wrote a month ago, and in particular I have cut down drastically on the number of standards I hope to keep track of.

So here is the plan. Below is a table explaining how the final grade will be calculated.

How will this work? I am conceptualizing the 'Unit Goals' component of the standards grade to be a chance for students to reassess on summative, content driven assessments. The 'Essential Skills' component of the standards grade is a chance for them to reassess continually on formative assessments.

So let's start with the 'Essential Skills' component. For every assessment I give (whether it is homework or a quiz), I will grade their proficiency in mastering a certain set of standards on a 1-4 scale. Depending on the homework, I will grade all or just some of the standards in the table below, as announced in class.

STANDARD	ID	DESCRIPTION
Using Evidence	ES 1.1	I support my argument(s) with specific, relevant, accurate, verifiable, and logical evidence
	ES 1.2	I support my argument(s) by accurately drawing on or critiquing evidence from several points of view
	ES 1.3	I ensure that any facts I give to support an argument demonstrate a logical connection with my argument
Writing	ES 2.1	I can use word choice that is thoughtful, relevant, & precise
	ES 2.2	I ensure that my writing has clear organization so that each sentence and paragraph supports an overall structure that is logical and builds to a compelling, persuasive conclusion
	ES 2.3	I ensure my writing is appropriate to purpose and audience
	ES 2.4	I ensure my writing lacks spelling and grammatical errors

That's only seven standards, which is a much more manageable amount than what I had earlier, and I like that I (and maybe eventually the students!) can pick and choose which standards I want to grade for each assignment. Students can always improve their standard grade in later homework – the more they show mastery in a skill, the more their grade will reflect it in the end (more on that later).

Yet I wasn't comfortable with just allowing students the chance to reassess on skills - I felt like they should also have the chance to reassess on content. This is why I built-in the 'Unit Goals' component. The way this will work is that at the start of each unit students will receive a table to glue into their portfolio that includes a list of essential questions. By the end of each unit they will answer these essential questions and be graded according to the following rubric:

  

STANDARD	ID	DESCRIPTION
Content Knowledge	UG 1.1	I support my answer with specific, accurate, and verifiable evidence, drawn from discussions in–class, and from primary/secondary sources
	UG 1.2	I can use primary sources carefully, considering questions of point of view, context, and audience, as well as gaps in the available records
	UG 1.3	I can clearly, thoughtfully, and thoroughly explain and analyze the connection between all evidence and the arguments I make
	UG 1.4	I thoughtfully evaluate facts for their reliability and relevance to support my answer

The goal is to boil the list of essential questions down to only 2-3 per unit. I originally had 5-6 questions for a unit, but a colleague smartly reminded me that many of my questions could be combined. I will work on these essential questions throughout the year, and it will be a great exercise in thinking about what are my 'essential' questions! It seems so obvious now that this will help me backward design, but in all honesty this whole process has been rather revolutionary in my own planning of units. 

So, going back to the grading - let's say a student does not answer a unit question well because they did not use a lot of evidence, then they will have the chance to reassess. To do this, they just have to schedule a quick 5-10 minute discussion to formulate a reassessment. As my colleagues have pointed out, this is a great chance to allow a student to do a more 'personal', perhaps creative kind of project to demonstrate understanding (e.g. write letters between historical figures drawing on evidence; making a documentary etc.) I like to think of this actually as a more focused way of giving motivated students extra credit. The goal is to work together to come up with another assessment to demonstrate that they have a 4-level understanding of a certain standard.

So what will the grading look like? I will give my students the following rubric, which I adapted from MissCalcul8.

LEVEL	NUMERIC EQUIVALENT	HOW YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND IT
Exceeds expectations	4	I completely understand this skill and can repeat it without supervision with few, if any, mistakes. I would be comfortable explaining this skill to someone else.
Meets expectations	3	I understand this skill but there are times I make mistakes when I do it on my own. I still need help in figuring out where I am going wrong because my ability do apply the skill is inconsistent.
Needs practice	2	I have basic understanding of the skill, but I often get stuck. I need some more practice because it is clear I am having trouble applying this skill.
Beginner	1	I have very little understanding of the skill. I try to apply this skill, but it does not come naturally. I am frequently unsure of how to start with this skill.

I also love her StarWars rubric, which I will also introduce to the students.

The real problem is how to translate all of this into something that makes sense for their final grade. I decided the fairest way of dealing with this will be to weigh the final grade more heavily toward the last level grades. So this means if a student started off in the 1-2 level, but by the end of the term scored in the 3-4 levels, their positive progress will be what is most reflected in the final grade. Conversely, if a student was a master most of the term, but started to slack towards the end because they got lazy and ended up losing their mastery, that downfall will also be reflected in the grade. I have started playing around in my EasyGrade Pro gradebook with how I will keep track of all these records - I will post in the future how this weighing and record keeping turns out.

Some last thoughts: as you will also notice, I kept a fixed part of the final grade. For example, grading assessments in a more traditional fashion is still 20% of their final grade. So let's say I give an assignment where students read selections from the Epic of Gilgamesh and answer questions based on the reading. They will get a grade that falls into the 'assessment' category for completion (e.g. they answered 4 out of the 5 short essay questions thoroughly, so they get 4/5) and maybe get separate standards grades for ES 2.1 and 2.4. Then I may have them write a focused essay that forces them to reflect on how the Epic of Gilgamesh helps them to understand Mesopotamia and the Neolithic Revolution, and that will also be graded for completion as well as all 7 ES standards.

I have also kept the 'Citizenship' portion of the grade because I think my students need feedback as to their behavior, and although I very much understand that it is not easy to objectively grade a student's participation, I think writing thorough and specific comments on the report card about a student's behavior will go far to help explain the student's proficiency as a punctual, engaged student.

The 'citizenship' portion also allows me to start a new way penalizing students for late work. I used to take points off for dilatoriness (5% for one day late, 15% for two days late, 50% for 2+ days late), but I decided there may be a simpler, less drastic method. Each assignment will be marked according to its timeliness per the scale below:

0        1        2

Not turned in        Late        Met deadline

This number will go into the 'citizenship' part of the student's grade. It won't murder a child's grade (it's only 10% of their grade) if they are constantly late, but it does penalize them in a track-able way.

And finally the final exam. I plan to make it clear to students that it is the chance to show me what they have retained. Throughout the year they will have had the chance to see the skills in which they are strong and weak, and to improve the latter. The final will be their opportunity to pull it all together and show me what they understand from the term in its entirety. And theoretically the SBG portion of their grade will give them a chance to know exactly how  and what they need to study to do this.