From The Archives: Shifting Grading Practices With Jessica Liew - E084

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I am Jessica Perta, host of the Elementary Music Teacher podcast. A part of the education podcast network shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed, may not reflect others. Find other interesting education podcast@edupodcastnetwork.com.

Rachel: 0:25

Welcome to the edu gals podcast. We are your co-host Rachel Johnson and

Katie: 0:31

Katie Atwell. We are here to bring you tips and tricks to help you integrate technology into your classroom.

Rachel: 0:40

In this episode, we are joined by special guest, Jessica Lou from the Vancouver School

Katie: 0:46

Board. We are going to be talking all about assessment and how you can shift towards a standards based practice. Let's get

Rachel: 0:52

started this week. Katie and I are super excited to be joined by a special guest this week, Jessica Lu. So, you know what, I'm actually just gonna pass it over to Jessica and allow her to introduce herself to you.

Jessica: 1:13

All right, thanks Rachel. Uh, so basically I am a teacher from Vancouver and I am currently in a role officially called the Secondary Technology Support Teacher. And I'm supposed to help secondary teachers get more comfortable using technology in their teaching. And as part of that, myself and my partner in crime, Blair organized this big conference and somehow managed to track down the edge of gals and have them come over to the conference. And as part of planning all of that, I think, uh, I revealed my deep dark secret, which is that I am a. Huge assessment nerd. And I love all things assessment, and I've been on my own journey with this for a really long time. I'm an English and Social Studies teacher by trade and out in BC there is a real push towards standards-based grading and the use of proficiency scale language. And so I was part of a pilot project at my school and it just kind of lit a fire underneath me. And I have been making, you know, subtle shifts in my practice ever since. And just, uh, you know, heads up if assessment is what we're talking about today. I, uh, I love talking shop, but I especially love talking assessments. So, uh, just be prepared for the onslaught of like, just. Outright nerdy that's gonna happen. Assessment is like basically one of my trigger words where it's like, oh, do you wanna talk for five hours now about all things assessment?

Katie: 2:38

That is awesome. Well, we also have been on a bit of an assessment kick and kind of looking at changing up the classroom. So this should be really kind of neat to hear your perspective and what you've been trying and, uh, hear how we can start to make some more changes in our own classrooms.

Rachel: 2:54

Yeah, we've definitely been on this kick. And even just before we started recording here, Jessica was mention mentioning the grading for equity book by Joe Feldman, which I read over the summer too. Absolutely loved it. And I, I've been nerding out on assessment myself as well, so this conversation really, really excites me. Yeah. So how

Katie: 3:17

did you get started on this journey and this learning kind of.

Jessica: 3:21

Adventure. I think for me, like there was always certain things, especially around writing report cards, that always like bothered me. At the back of my mind. I was always like, oh, you know, this doesn't add up, or that kid that that would really try to improve and then there'd be such an incremental change in their mark. And so there was things that always bothered me. But in particular, I'm a big believer also in growth mindset, which is like the second thing that you could get me going on for about five hours. And it also really bothered me that my students just sort of would take the feedback, look at it quickly, and then everything would end up in the recycling bin. And I was really trying to figure out like how do I get them to engage with the feedback so that they can actually use it to grow? Because to them it was just, You know, something that, that they clearly didn't value. And I was reading this book called Grading Smarter Not Harder, by Myron Duick. And he has this one sentence in it that basically was my big light bulb moment. He says, students will not be interested in running to the wharf if it is clear to them that the ship is already sailed. I, it was the start of me beginning to appreciate that I was giving them all the feedback at the end. So to them, that ship at all race sale, that Mark Wa was the end of the process. It wasn't the beginning of something. And the way that I was marking, as I sort of started to learn more about standards-based grading. It was all very task specific. All the feedback was task specific. We would do similar tasks later in the year, but that was a really abstract thing. I think, especially for my younger students, to recognize that every time I write an essay, I'm writing an essay, even if the topic is different. This feedback about my introduction could be used on this next introduction that I write. Some of them got that connection, but most of them didn't, and I think it was because of. A whole variety of factors, including how I was phrasing things when I was doing feedback. So that idea that I wanted my students to realize that if they ran down to the dock, there was still something there. Maybe not the same ship, but a different ship that they could get on, that there was lots of journeys that they could take. I, I sort of took that as like my metaphor that I, I wanted to run with was the idea that they needed to have more opportunities to make meaningful connections between the feedback they were getting and what they were doing next. And, and that involved, I realized a lot of things had to change with me first before I, and I didn't even really know, like that was the, the, the light bulb moment. But I didn't really know what the next steps were until, as I mentioned, we started this pilot program on standards-based grading, and that was really when. Everything started to kind of line up for me of like, oh, okay, so instead of being task specific, let's look at the standards. They can generalize a little bit more. Every time this shows up on the rubric, it's the same standard over and over and over again. I know that the feedback about this can apply the next time we're doing an assignment on the same standard ideas like around things like changing the way I do feedback so that it's coming more frequently throughout the learning process, that more of it is formative rather than summative. You know, there's a lot of shifts that I've been making and that teachers, uh, that I work with have been making. But that was really the goal was that the students would start to realize that there was a point to the assessment, that there was a way for them to grow from it, and that hopefully. When I sit down to write report cards, I feel like I'm able to give a fairer assessment of how the student's doing and they feel like it reflects what they're able to do a little bit better. I

Rachel: 6:47

love that. And the one, the one sort of thing that's really, um, I don't know, kind of, kind of sparking interest in me is the idea of going from something that's task based, to something that's standards based. And to me it sounds like it would be based more in the skills. And building the skills and the progression through learning versus, you know, those one and done kind

Jessica: 7:12

of opportunities. Yeah, and that was actually, I think one of the first shifts I started making was the idea of like, what are the, the learning goals of this course? And in the new, like BC redesigned its curriculum around the same time it started making all these shifts with assessment and it really does focus on, we call them curricular competencies, but they're basically skillsets that students are expected to develop. And I've always believed that. The transferrable skills of every course are what the students take away, and the content is really just the vehicle we use for, for teaching that. So that really made sense to me. Uh, you know, as a social studies teacher, very, very often students ask me, why do we have to learn this? Like, for some reason in English, like they appreciate reading and writing. It's like a useful skill for the best of their life. But, you know, some of the social studies content, they don't really understand. And, and I've, and that was, has always been my answer, that you're right. Like I could actually teach you the things that matter in this course with a lot of different topics. I just pick topics that I personally am comfortable with or that kind of fit the rough timeline that we're supposed to be doing in this grade or whatever it is, but, Yeah, the, if you don't remember all the Canadian prime ministers or like who, uh, is considered a father of confederation 20 years from now, I'll be okay. But I really want you to be able to evaluate the legacy of a historical figure or how reliable a source of information is. And the, and that's really what I hope you get out of social studies. And so I just. Realized a as moving towards standard based assessment, that that was just getting assessment to align with what was already my philosophy anyway. And that really the skills too. It's like, it's sort of a performance versus rehearsal approach, right? Like the content, you kind of either know it or you don't. And, and there's, it's really difficult to like get better at understanding content. Uh, but, but you can do, you know, you can analyze a bunch of different sources and build that skill of figuring out which sources you can trust and which sources are sensationalized or biased or, or whatnot. Those are things that over time through practice you can get ready. And then theoretically I could give you any content and you could apply those skills and do really well. And, and I think that that's sort of the shift, uh, with standards-based grading is starting to emphasize what are the real. Learning outcomes of your course, what are the transferable skills that students could apply to things in their life besides just learning the topics that your course covers, and then how do you assess those fairly?

Rachel: 9:37

Yeah, that was one of the, the light bulb moments I've had pretty recently as well. Mine actually came from, uh, reading the book, going grade less. Grade six to 12. It's Jo, um, or sorry, Dave French. French Joseph and Elise Burns. It's a relatively new book. It's, um, written by a couple of science teachers. And so that kind of spoke to me since coming from a science perspective. But they said the same thing. They, they said, you know, like that they're using the content just as a vehicle to develop the skills. Through it. And they actually had some really nice, like skills they had broken it down into only, I think like nine sort of big picture skills that they constantly revisited and, and reassessed throughout the

Katie: 10:26

course now a couple of times. Now you've mentioned this whole, um, shift that you as a teacher had to make. Can you talk a little bit more

Jessica: 10:34

about that? Um, well, I think one of the big shifts, and I think it's a really controversial one for a lot of teachers is, and. Rachel will recognize this cuz she's just read Joe Feldman herself. Um, he talked about the omnibus grade where we put so much information into the grade that we tell students and their families. Your grade represents your understanding of the course material. And yet often there are things in there like, did you wear a costume on Halloween? And did you hand this in on time? And so one of the big shifts I had to get away from was if I was gonna make my assessment based on the learning goals and then helping the students to recognize that that feedback is gonna help them grow and develop their skills. I had to make sure that. Everything I was assessing was actually evaluating their knowledge. So one of the first shifts I got away from was, uh, giving out late marks, which was more challenging than I, I thought, uh, in that I was one of the only teachers in my school at the time, it was me and one other person who didn't. Give out late marks. And so my students basically told me to my face, they're like, well, you're the only person who's not punishing me, so whatever you've given us to work on is the bottom of my to-do list. But what sort of happened is they quickly dug themselves a hole and then they, they kind of learn the hard way that you do have to still manage your time just cuz someone's not holding an, you know, the sort of damocles over your head. Doesn't mean that there aren't consequences, it's just that the consequences are, I think, more natural and they're, you know, instead of treating the grade kind of like this stick that I'm gonna use to motivate you. Uh, I, I want the grade to tell me how much you actually understand about the course. And so once I started doing that, I started realizing there were a lot of other things I was doing that was, were kind of creating omnibus grade situations. My students really hated it. They loved it when I got rid of late marks. They really hated it when I got rid of bonus marks. Uh, so that was a, that was an another one, especially cuz for me, bonus marks were things that I gave out like. On the fly, you know, who wants to help me with this? Bonus marks, who wants to go see this movie that's loosely related to our course? Bonus marks? And and, and I'd have student groups coming to me like student council saying, will you give up bonus marks if students come to this event or do this, this volunteering thing? And. I really realized like I was giving out marks that had nothing to do with what students understood. And so you'd have students whose marks were really high, but you'd give them a test or a project, and they just, it felt like they didn't deliver. But when I stepped back from it, I realized I was inflating their grades with bonus marks, or in some cases penalizing them because they had terrible time management. And, and that was another thing I had to learn was that a lot of these sort of carrot and stick, uh, approaches to grades that I was doing were really not teaching the students the things that I wanted. I hate when students think of grades as points accumulation when they're coming in and they're just like, just bump me up a couple more. Uh, I hated those conversations, but bonus marks really reinforced that it's a game. If you can find ways to kind of. Jack your score up, all the better for you. I hated when they would look for the easy out, like taking a course online cuz they heard it was an easy a instead of actually like learning to do something properly. All that I think is, you know, bonus marks are just all part of that culture of how much can we drive our grade up any way possible. And, and then late marks and, and zeros for not doing things like the, the, almost always, those are kids who just have terrible executive functioning skills or something else going on in their life that might even be completely outside their control. Uh, at my school, it's really common for kids to have younger siblings to take care of or to be working, uh, until quite late at night where I've had kids tell me honestly, when I get home at the end of my shift, I have to choose between going to bed on time or getting my homework done. And I think it's really unfortunate that young teenagers are, are in those situations, but a lot of them are. And so that was the one of the big shifts I had to make was I had to take all of that stuff out that was reflecting so many things about my students' lives and personalities besides what they understood about the course and really just focus on. Anything I was grading needed to be evaluating what they understood and all the other stuff I had to find other ways to deal with. And it wasn't always easy, and that's why it's been, as I say, it's like a shift. I would make a change and then that would help me realize, oh, here's another place where my current policies and practices are kind of undermining my goals, or sometimes harming my students unintentionally. You know? So that was another thing when I started thinking about it with bonus marks. I was like, I was giving out bonus marks for things like wearing a costume on Halloween when like, some of my students don't celebrate Halloween. I was giving out bonus marks to go see this movie. Well, what if they didn't? They were working or they didn't have the money, or they didn't have the interest to, you know, so basically, you know, these were things that were. Some students were benefiting kind of inequitably from as well. And that was like a hard thing for me to have to realize was all the times I thought I was doing good and being a fun, cool teacher. And in fact, I was probably hurting as many students as I helped with some of the things that I was doing. Now, how

Katie: 15:38

did some of these changes affect your day-to-day in the classroom? Like for kids who, for example, are working a lot at night or taking care of siblings, did you shift things even further in your practice to kind of help them be

Rachel: 15:50

more

Jessica: 15:50

successful? I've definitely shifted away from homework as well. I, and Covid really helped drive that home if there, like we all know now that our students do not go home to the same learning environments, the same resources and, and honestly, uh, I've, I've walked down the hallway enough watching kids copy off of each other that I, I know also that the idea that they've done it all themselves is a, is a bit questionable. So I. I realized the classroom is really the only environment where I can really guarantee that they've all had the same help available to them, the same resources available to 'em, the same time, and so forth. And so I've really tried to think about what I'm giving for homework and in particular around things like. Projects, yes, you need time outside of class because the, that is extra time involved. You're often coordinating with partners, but I wanna make sure that you've had enough time in class that if there's any issues those have been dealt with so that you're really just going home and putting the finishing touches on things. And that's how I've tried to treat homework, is that it, they should have had enough time in class if they sat down and worked on it. Some of them choose to take it for homework. Some of them say I'd rather talk to my friends right now. But that I try to make it so that they have that opportunity to get it done in class as often as I can. It's not always possible sometimes. Things come up and you just have to get things done. But that is definitely one of the things that I, I have had to change in order to make sure that it also, if you take away late marks, you, you have to sort of make sure that they, they, uh, aren't taking too much home because they do tend to dig themselves a hole and, and have trouble getting caught up sometimes. So that was one of the things that's definitely changed in my classroom, was also looking at the homework piece. But there's also been some really nice changes, things that I didn't anticipate. Uh, if you stop putting like marks on everything and making everything about points accumulation, they stop asking if something is for marks when you hand it out to them, which is really cool. I love that. Yeah, that, so that was another thing I used to hate, uh, that it kind of happened by accident that I, we really started talking more in the language of, Growth mindset. We started talking more about assessment as opposed to grades about feedback as opposed to marks. And really just changing how I was talking about it started changing how students were talking about it because we were talking about things like rehearsal versus performance, that some of the stuff we're doing in class isn't for marks because it would be unfair for me to make it for Marks, cuz you haven't had the practice yet, uh, you need some time, you need to get some feedback first. Then something will be for Marks. And so that was definitely one of the things that, that shifted, uh, that I think came more from the student side of things then from what I was doing. But it was because of what I was doing that they started. Uh, having a different attitude. They also stopped asking me to postmarks all the time, so that was nice. That was nice as well. Uh, like cuz when I first shifted, there's, there was no grading software available to me that worked with standards-based grading. It was all numbers and averages and spreadsheet type data. And so I needed to keep track of things differently. So I just went back to old school, paper grade book and made my own little setup that worked for how we were doing things and the only way they could find out what their grade was, was to come and talk to me about it. And a lot of them didn't care, so that was interesting. But the ones that did, they came in and we had way more meaningful conversations about what do you understand? What are you struggling with? How can you improve in those areas that you're struggling? And that was also helped by the fact that I was setting things up by standard as opposed to task, right? If you have five quizzes and they tend to struggle on quizzes, your only feedback you can give them is, oh, well, you should probably study harder for quizzes. But what do you say to the kid who says, but I study really hard. Like I spend an hour or three hours preparing for every quiz, and what I realized was not, at some quizzes, they would do well on some they wouldn't. And it wasn't consistency from the sounds of it. It was probably that those quizzes were evaluating different learning standards and they were struggling with some standards more than others, or the, you know, they didn't get. All the questions wrong. So there were definitely areas that they understood and that was something that, uh, really helped as well was once the grade book was organized by standard, we could kind of identify what are the things that you do well and what are the things that you struggle with and have a really different conversation because I don't think they needed me to post marks in the same way because I also switched to a proficiency scale, which is only four points in the BC scale. And I think it's pretty easy to figure out roughly where you are on a four point scale. It's a lot harder on a hundred point scale. And so the need to constantly update marks, they can look at their last few assignments and see, I've gotten the same feedback on the last four or five assignments. I know where I'm at. And so that's been a, a big change as well, that they don't. Ask for, for me to constantly update the grading software so they can check their marks, uh, which is, which has been very nice takes, takes the pressure off me. So I did have to kinda get into better habits around actually doing the feedback part, uh, because I used to, you know, use their, Constantly asking me as a way to motivate myself. Now you said

Rachel: 21:06

you started off, there was no grading software. You, you're talking a little bit about grading software. So is, is there something out there now that works really well with

Jessica: 21:15

standard space grading? There are some things, uh, like fresh grade worked quite well from what I heard from people. Uh, I, a lot of people I know they have their own thing that they've just set up in Excel. Uh, we have a program, uh, called My Education in bc, which is like the Provincially provided Student Information System and you can set up the grade book for standards based grading. It's not awesome. Like it has, it wasn't, it wasn't originally designed to be a standards-based grade book. So they've just kind of taken what already exists and shoehorned it into standards-based grading. So there are definitely, are things available. I still, uh, have my, my little paper version that works really well for me and I. It doesn't like my students and their families don't seem to be clamoring for me to have some online 24 7 accessible grades that are, I'm always updating. Uh, so I, I haven't gone back to using grading software and I find most grading software, there's always a flaw. So it tries to do an average, even if that's not really what you want or. You can enter, enter things by standard. But th there's difficulty with sorting by standard or tracking progress with the standard. Uh, most grading software tries to do some kind of calculation for you, and they often resort to old school approaches like averaging, uh, to come up with some sort of calculation. Uh, and so I, I don't personally use any of them, but I know there, like there are teachers out there who, who do, and there's stuff out there as well. Like some districts pay for programs. So there are things out there that I just haven't tried because my district has not invested in, in those programs.

Katie: 22:52

We were actually looking into different options in terms of skill-based and how to track and how to kind of, Input marks in a similar way. So, uh, it's, it's kind of reassuring that there doesn't seem to be one that you've been able to find, cuz I haven't really found one that fit well. So I don't know if that's reassuring or

Jessica: 23:13

perhaps, you know, I think it is still more cutting edge and I think part of the problem is it would be harder from a programming side of things. I think it would be harder to do. Well. It's really easy to come up with the formula if you want, if someone's just gonna enter a bunch of numbers and then you average them all out and that's the final mark. That's pretty straightforward. But I think standards-based grading, Is new as well to that. A lot of people are doing it differently still as well. There's not sort of an accepted one size fits all practice that everyone is doing, even though that is, that is the goal out here in BC is they'd like all teachers to be on the same page. Uh, and I think we're more on the same page than we used to be. Uh, in terms of something like weighted categories in a traditional grade book, people would weight things all sorts of different ways. They'd have all sorts of different categories. And a student's grade had as much to do with how the teacher made those decisions as it did with anything the students actually did. Uh, and so, so I think we're, we're, we're moving away from that. I that, I mean, we're still not universal on that. There are definitely still some teachers who are like, but I don't understand why I can't do that anymore. The categories are really important. And so there are definitely still some variation, but I think it's ultimately, if you get into the four point proficiency scale, it's a lot easier for teachers to agree where does a sample of work belong on this four point scale than on a hundred point

Katie: 24:38

scale. And so on that note, can you break down that four point scale that you have a little bit?

Jessica: 24:42

Yeah. Um, so ours, we basically, when I'm talking about the scale, first of all, I think it's important to be clear that essentially a student is considered on the scale once they've minimally met the grade level standards. So they would be at a, a point of passing the course if they're on the scale. So our first one is, uh, beginning. So this is a student who's just starting to, to work with this scale. Uh, they still need a lot of help and support or reminders about certain things, but they're not, they're definitely not doing much independently if they're being successful, uh, at the beginning stage. Then we have the developing level, which is the next level up, and this is sort of the, the short description is its partial understanding. So generally this is a student who can do some of what is expected of them. Perhaps they can't do it consistently or they can't do it with a, a very high level. Sophistication. So from like a grammar perspective as, as something most people are familiar with, they make mistakes, but their mistakes probably don't interfere with their meaning. You understand what they're trying to say, but the mistakes are noticeable. And occasionally, you know, you have to stop and, and reread something, but you can figure out what they meant. When we get to the next level, it's, we call it the applying level. And, uh, or some, some districts call it the proficient level, but this is sort of the student who has a complete understanding and how I personally choose to interpret this is if we have covered it in class, if I have told you that this is how you do it or this is what that is, they can do it. Uh, they, but they tend to, uh, the next level, the final level is extending, and this is one of the things where there is a bit of, of struggles is some, some people, because of the use of the word extending, believe that students have to go beyond grade level officially. If, uh, our Ministry of Education says, no, this is just a student whose work is exemplary, have a, they, they have a very sophisticated skillset with whatever you're trying to teach them. For me, uh, this is the, the student who knows the rules so they can break them. So if they're writing, they're, they're, they have like original, fresh kind of style, whereas someone at the applying level would be more formulaic. They, you know, they've got their introduction, they've got their three paragraphs, they've got their conclusion, and, you know, they probably start each of their paragraphs with first, second, and third. Uh, when you get into the extending level, this is somebody who has their own voice. They, things tend to to flow a little bit more, and they just have, and the other thing for me, a as a teacher is I'm looking for someone who is able to show, they've done some of their own thinking, they've made some of their own connections and done some analysis that isn't stuff that I've pointed out as the teacher or that we've seen in a documentary or something like that. That's really, uh, extending to me is going kind of not beyond grade level, but beyond. The exact things that we've been taught in the course or connecting things from different parts of the course or something like that, so that it's not just, uh, you know, memorization, but they've actually done some deeper thinking. That's, that's roughly how it breaks down. And I think, I think most teachers would agree with me, but it is still pretty new. So there have, there have been, everyone I would say is pretty consistent with developing. Everyone knows exactly what developing looks like, but beginning some people would like it to include students who are making an attempt to understand the material, even if they still don't get it. And there, and the same thing with like the proficient extending piece. There is some debate about, uh, and I think it often comes with people, Trying to take a four point scale and then equate it to some letter grade percentage thing. So like, so is extending an A or could you get an A if you were proficient? Uh, and really you don't, like, I don't wanna even have that conversation. I wanna talk about what does their work look like? What does their level of understanding look like? Um, and so I think that's one of the things that, in terms of making a shift like this, uh, that teachers need to keep in mind is trying to relate it back to the older system that you're more familiar with is only gonna undermine it because you'll, if, if the whole idea is growth and you're not gonna do an average anymore, it's then students need to kind of get comfortable with the fact that they can't, like those, A students can't see extending as a, and I have to get a every time, or my average goes down. That's the wrong thinking. The idea is extending is where you end up usually towards the end of your learning. And as I tell students, I'm like, if you're at extending from week one in this course, you shouldn't be in this course. Like it means you already know what you need to know. You, you won't grow if you stay in this course. So the idea that that's the goal, that they, that's the goal for the end of the year. That's not necessarily the goal starting right now. Whereas in an averaging system, everything is high stakes. If you don't get an A the first time you go down and you go down and you go down. And so that mental shift is really hard for, for students to make. And I would say those are the students who I've seen struggle the most with. This is the students who are the real top performers, who are always looking for those ways to game the system and get the score as high as possible. And don't really, they have to really shift to thinking about learning as a, a messy process. And they tend to be perfectionists, they tend to be really motivated to achieve. And so to. Sort of step back and, and have to rethink all that is, is really difficult for them. Whereas the thing I like best about it is the students who used to give up on me who'd say, ah, that's cool. I'm just gonna go to summer school in like April. You're like, you not, you don't need to be preparing for summer school in April. Like, we've got time. Um, but they, there are certain students where their average would just get so low and. Because it's an average. Any struggles they had or bad decisions they made around not doing work end up in their, in their grade. Uh, unless you have a teacher who forgives a lot of those zeros and stuff. And that was another shift I had to make. Cause I had to let go of the zeros. I had to recognize that if. I'm looking for their understanding. I have to look at what evidence I have and does what they've shown me demonstrate a good enough understanding to pass this course. And for some students it's great cuz if they screw up once or twice, it doesn't harm their grade in any way they feel like they can recover. Uh, but I really find it's those students who I used to feel really bad about when I wrote report cards where they would turn over the new leaf and they would see those little incremental changes, but they dug themselves such a deep hole. At least that's what I told myself at the time. They dug this hole. But I really did, like, I kept handing out zeros thinking that that was gonna change something and then they had to kind of dig themselves out of, of this hole. But the zeros don't really reflect anything like, like I doubt that on any time I ever gave a student a zero, they truly knew nothing. And that's kind of the other problem is the. A hundred point scale is weighted towards failure. There's a 50 point difference between zero and a passing grade, but then only about a 10 point difference between any other grade on the scale. So you have to work really hard just to get to a pass. And so if you, uh, if you have a teacher who's given out late marks and zeros, it's really easy for your average to go down to the point that you don't have hope. But if you have a teacher who instead of saying, I'm looking for evidence that you, you've reached these learning goals. Show me that evidence and we can change your grade. Uh, that's a really different conversation. And so that's the thing I've liked the most is the students used to give up. You can still get them to check back in. Most of the time it's not a miracle. Like I wish, I wish it was. I wish every kid you'd go, Hey, you still got a chance? And they would say, yay, I can't wait to invest in my learning. But some of them are like, nah, it's all good. Like, I don't care about this. Your class is dumb. Um, I'm perfectly fine to, to flunk out and repeat the course or. Or you know, or they've heard summer schools easier or whatever it is. Like there's some, there's some students who you won't be able to get no matter what you do. But it definitely has shifted it for a lot of students, which is, has been awesome. So much of that

Rachel: 32:23

has really resonated with me. Like even thinking about those kids who, they start off with a really rough start in your course and you know, maybe the first like unit test or whatever, they, they score terrible, but then they're trying to dig themselves outta that hole with traditional grades the rest of the semester and they never do. And it's, I don't know, it's, it's so sad, honestly.

Jessica: 32:47

Well, especially if you go back to the idea that it's the skills, not the content. If on the unit one test you were learning about a certain topic. But ultimately you're expecting them to apply the same skills to understand that topic. They, they demonstrated a gain and a gain throughout the course. Then you should be able to adjust. And that's one of the things that I think is, it's hard to wrap your head around cuz it's so different. Uh, it's why I always talk, when I talk to other teachers, I always say the word shift, like it's about making a shift in your practice and then the next shift is gonna come more naturally. And it's, and it's not go all the way to this opposite of what you're doing right now, thing on, on day one. It, it really is. Every time I made a change, I would notice something else and then I would change that. Like, one of the last things I got rid of was participation marks. Cuz I, I would've like, fought to the death for the love of participation marks. I thought I did it right. I tracked every time they said something like I had a little like, Chart that I used, I was, I was like, it's not just my impression of the student and whether they're talkative or not talkative, like I keep track. Uh, but I really like realized though at the end of the day, I was still keeping track of their behavior, how often they said something rather than whether what they said reflected understanding the material, whether what they said really helped drive the conversation forward. It was. There was no quality to it. It was a quantity thing. Yeah. Uh, but I really believed that active participation in class was an important part of learning. And, and it really, my students were the ones who got me to realize how flawed this was. Uh, because we did this self-assessment of work habits. And one of the things was participation and the number of them who wrote about things like, I work really hard to listen to other people, and I, I wasn't given little marks to that. Or, the one that killed me was the student who I would've considered to be one of the worst particip in the class. Being like, I am so proud of myself. I made a goal that I was gonna participate more in class this year, and I've been doing amazing. Like I say something at least once or twice a week, and I'm, I'm sitting there thinking that is not how I interpreted what I was seeing. And so I realized that a lot of things that are valuable about being a, a good contributing member to a class aren't things that I was really assessing with participation and that participation actually, Is most valuable when the students are participating meaningfully and they're not just doing it to, again, that points mentality of driving their score up. And I found that the, the best conversations were happening not as a whole group, but in small group situations and things. And so I just sort of changed. I stopped making it about marks and I started and I just changed kind of how I was doing conversations in my class. It was a lot more about students talking to each other with me kind of lurking in the background and just listening in and popping in if I felt like they were going in the wrong direction or getting off topic because they had way better conversations with each other in groups of four or five than when it was 30 people and me. Cuz it was basically, it was always like voling back to me. Someone would say something and then they'd wait to see how I reacted to what was said and then somebody else would say something and I never was able to get them to talk to each other, which is what I really wanted. And so I, that was, I think, taking the points. Thing off of it helped, but I think also trusting them more to have conversations that I wasn't a part of that were on topic and it's pretty cool if you ea drop, some of them know a lot of things that they would never say if you made them say it in front of the whole class. So that, that was a, a hard one for me because as a student, that was something I really liked was when we would have class discussions. And so it was hard for me to let go of it as a teacher. And, uh, but my students love it. Like I had some students that were in grade eight with me, and then when they're in grade 12 with me, the year I got rid of participation marks, they were like, what? There's no participation, mark. Like this is the greatest thing that had ever happened to them. And one of them came and said, you're like, that was like the one thing I didn't like about your class because I'm really quiet and I really hated, I wanted to do well and I hated that I. 10% of my mark was, was participation. And I felt so much pressure that totally would've

Rachel: 36:56

been me and me as well. Like you just described me as a student, I would've, I'm sorry. I would, I would've hated that because as, as Katie and I have said many times on the podcast, we are both very introverted, which is why we don't do video. We do, do we do audio, you know, so we can hide kind of a little bit behind our mic microphones. But, uh, yeah, like I, I would not have enjoyed that.

Jessica: 37:23

Yeah. Well, and that, that, that is something that I think has been really positive for me about the whole process, is it's really, I, I said to a colleague who was one of the people running the pilot project that I was in, like, this is the best professional development I've ever done because I thought I was participating to change one thing, which is to. Do standards-based grading, which is really not one thing, but it seemed like one thing when I first found out about it. And, but it just, it made me reevaluate everything that I did. And I remember in university, one of my professors saying, as teachers, we tend to teach the way that we like to learn. Yeah. And. That you have to kind of be self-aware about that. And I thought I was, but as I was going through this whole process, and especially when it came to things like participation marks, I realized like I was valuing it so much. I thought it was cuz it was generally important to learning, but it really is. I like to learn by talking and like I've always said, like the only way you get me to do a master's a PhD is I was allowed to go and do it all by, listen to someone who knew a lot about the conversa, like about the topic, talk to me for a couple hours and then we would have a big group discussion and that was how we were evaluated. I, I don't mind writing papers and stuff, I just don't have the time for it anymore, the way that I did when I was younger. But that's what I would love. Like, I would love like to just be able to talk to somebody and they'd be like, you know, enough for a master's degree. Like, that's how I like to learn and how I like to express my learning. And, and, but I, I would definitely work at a school where there are a lot of introverts and a lot of kids who come from cultural backgrounds where you're supposed to be very deferential to the teacher. And so the teacher is the expert in the room. And so putting your hand up and saying something to some of my students feels like contradicting the teacher. That if you're having a conversation about a current event, they wanna know what I think first. So they know what the safe opinion is to give. Oh. Cause they don't want to conflict with me, uh, even though I tell them, I'm like, my favorite students are the ones who are like not afraid to stand up to me and fight. Uh, I shouldn't say fight debate. Uh, civilly with me, but they, but a lot of my students, they just, they can't do that. They just, uh, and so that's been, uh, an interesting part of this too. As, as, as I've changed things, that's when students have been comfortable coming and telling me what they had problem with, with how I done things in the past. It just, it works out that with what I teach, I often get students in grade eight and then I get them in like, Grade 11 or 12. And so as I went through this process, I'd get these little groups where it was like my feedback squad where they're like, oh yeah, you've, you're doing this differently. I like this better. Most of the time some of them don't like it better. Some of them would like to go back to the old way because it worked for them. And, and as I said, the, the, the top students are usually the ones that have been the most negative, and it often has to do as well with that fear that post-secondary is different and that how am I gonna get into post-secondary if I don't have a letter grade or I don't have a percentage and I need that percentage to be as high as possible. And so that is actually one of the parts I'm still struggling with. Like, I still, like, I, I basically hold those grades back for as long as I can, but the universities in grade 12, they want them so, Early, uh, you know, they want them before I even know all my students' names. It feels like. So that is something that is a bit of a struggle. Like I can take the proficiency scale language and the feedback and I can come up with what I think is a fair grade. But sometimes I would love to just be able to be like, this student is, uh, in a standards-based grading course and I can really only tell you what they're capable of at the end of the learning, not this midway point. Uh, so if you could just, uh, withhold judgment for a few months, that would be great. But, but apparently they won't accept a thoughtfully written letter from a teacher. So, you know, so it makes for grade 12, it does make a lot of the early learning really high stakes, even though I try not to make it high stakes and say, Hey, you know, this is just your first research project. Like you can learn and improve your research skills and get better. And if you get better, I. Your grade is going to go up to that level. It's not gonna be an average where it's somewhere in the middle and they're like, that's awesome, but I still need to report my marks to the university like next week. So can you, if you think I'm gonna improve, could you just give me that grade? I'm like, I, I guess, but I don't really wanna have it be that reverse situation where I've given them something and then I have to pull it back because they, they don't end up going in the direction that I thought they were going. And I, I don't wanna pull the rug out from under kids, so. Mm-hmm. It, that is the one thing that is, is tough about it is initially, like at nbc, it's only mandatory that we do standards-based grading until grade nine. And then after that it's supposed to be percentages and letter grades. But a lot of grade eight, like our high schools are eight to 12. And a lot of high school teachers, they've got grade eight to nine s. They really like how this works. They like how ferret feels. They like that it. Better reflects the growth that the students have shown over the course of the learning. And so they often end up wanting to do it for grades 10 through 12 as well. Uh, and so that is the grade 12 is the only spot where I've found like a bit of friction where what I wanna do and what. Is required because of how the system works. It. That's really where I notice it still. So that

Katie: 42:49

actually brings me to the question that, uh, I had lurking in my head, and you've kind of touched upon it a little bit. How do you make the standard based assessments work with a percentage system or a letter mark? Which, you know, the reality is in many courses you do have to have

Jessica: 43:06

one. At certain points, I think that one of the ways that I would recommend people go about that if they're, they wanna do standards based, but they're working, you do have to work within the system. It's often we're contractually obligated to do certain things as teachers, even if we don't necessarily agree with them. Uh, so one of the things that I've seen is people will basically sort of tell their students, like, here's my conversion chart. So some people will, at the very end, attach numbers and they'll do kind of like a. Like a 4.0 gpa, like every, every developing you got is a two. Every proficient you got is a three. So that's one way you could do it. You could attach numbers to them in order to sort of calculate out some kind of an average. Typically what I've seen people do is they'll look at all the data they have for each of the learning standards, and then they'll kind of give the student a numerical ranking in each one of the standards, and then use that to convert it to a percentage. Uh, usually not doing like a two divided by four, uh, sort of thing, but more like a 2.0 is the equivalent of a 60% or something like that. So if you, if you're familiar with like the 4.0 GPA scale, it's very, very similar to that. Uh, but one of the things I've seen some teachers do, and I think this is probably how I'm gonna go about it, the next time I have to write report cards, which won't be until the fall cuz uh, I'm still on this, uh, Support role for, uh, till June, but in the fall, I think I, I'm gonna go where with, uh, essentially a more limited a hundred point scale. So basically fixed percentages. So within each of the four categories, there's gonna be three percentages. Someone who I think is just made it into the category. So like if you're think if like, let's just take extending, like if you've just gotten into the category, that'd be an 86, right? Like an early a, if they're kind of pretty strong, maybe it's a 95. And then, Someone who's just like blowing my mind, totally gets it. The curriculum inside and out is 99. It's, it's the English growth mindset teacher in me that there's no such thing as perfect. It's, there's always room to grow, so I can't give out a hundred percent. Uh, but that's just me personally. But the, I do know a lot of people who've sort of said, uh, if you're in this, like if you're on this point in the proficiency scale, here's the letter grade that you're gonna get, or here's the percentage you're gonna get if that's where you're at. Uh, and a lot of students actually really like it. Uh, and in fact, if you're not comfortable with the proficiency scale, but you want to kind of move away towards sort of standards-based grading and get away from averages, that's what a lot of teachers I know do is if I've put you at. 80%. The next place that you jump to isn't 80.65. It's, it's gonna be 85% or something that if you improve, your average goes up noticeably. And I, I use the word average incorrectly there. I, it really, if you improve, your improvement is immediately shown in your grade. It's not going up incrementally, uh, at, in by decimal points. It's, uh, you've, if you've grown. There's a jump, which is especially nice if you've got students who are on the low end of the scale. If you've got that student who's at 40% and they jump to 50 or 55, they can really see that effort I put in made a big difference. Whereas in the past, they could put in tons of effort and they'd be like 42% instead of 40%. And so if you see those changes instead of averaging, you just move them up that scale. And there's just certain points that you've identified on the scale in order to facilitate that and keep that a little bit more clear, I think, in the teacher's mind. Uh, so that's probably what I would do is I would just. Keep with my four point proficiency scale and then looking at the data that I had, which of those three percentages within that range on each part of the scale would I give them, is probably where I would go. So it's, it's definitely doable. And I've also, because I think it is, it's based on evidence. I have had a few of those grade 12 students come to me being like, I need 88, nothing lower than 88, or I won't get in. And, and I'm like, well, have you earned an 88 or better? Like, what do you think you've earned in this class? What do you think you've shown me? Like, look at the evidence and make your case like, I could have interpreted it differently than you've interpreted it. And I've, and I've had a few students convince me to change their mark cuz they're like, well, you know, we really only did this twice, but this thing we've done five times and I'm really, really good at this thing. Uh, and this one I do need more room to grow, but I don't think that's fair if we've only done it twice. That, that's factoring in as much to my mark. And I'm like, convinced. Good job. I hope you're going to law school. So, um, so I do think there's room for conversations as well, especially with older students to really get them to take ownership of their learning. A lot of them have a target. That's completely disconnected from what they're actually doing. And if they're not getting it, they often like to blame the teacher for being really unfair, hard marker, all sorts of things. So grading conferences is a really, uh, nice way as a teacher to have a meaningful conversation with students about their learning, but also give the students a bit more of a sense of ownership. And I've definitely had, uh, students convince me to change their grades. Uh, and I've, and I've had students who at the end were like, oh, you're right. Like I really am. I, I need to work on a couple of important things. And I think, you know, like, I'm gonna work on this over the next month or so, and I won't get early acceptance, but hopefully I'll go get accepted later when I apply later. Like, there's, I'm not gonna say every kid, there's been some who are still like, this is stupid and you should just gimme the mark. I need to get into university. But most of them, because the conversation is different, it's not just about points and massaging those numbers. Until they look the right way, they do start to appreciate like, these are the things, as your teacher, I need to be able to say you can do well. And I can't ethically say that you are good at something if you have not demonstrated that you understand this inside and out. It's a really, really different conversation. Whereas when it was task specific, A lot of it was harder for me to justify. Like they'd say, well, how come I got this mark? And I'd pull out the rubric and I would try to kind of make sense of it. But a, but a lot of it was like, well, you know, one of the things was you needed to have a good title. And I personally didn't feel like the title was very creative. That's not the best feedback to give to a student. And I, I fully appreciate. Now I still think a good title is important, but it's not actually a curricular goal. Like communicating clearly and effectively is the curricular goal. And that's a really different conversation. Like I didn't feel your title clearly told me. What your writing was gonna be about. Is it? And, and I think when you start to think about what is the, what is the learning standard, you start to give better feedback and it takes you off the hook as well, because it's not about, well, like I, I, you know, cause I used to have students call me out and be like, you know what, my teacher from last year didn't make us write titles on anything, or my teacher from last year didn't make us cite our sources. We could just cut and paste the websites at the bottom of what we wrote. And, and I'm like, okay, well the, some of that is my personal preference, but some of it is actually like, these are the the things you have to be able to do. And one of the things is you have to be able to document your research. So citing your sources is how you document your research. I have chosen this format because it's the format I'm comfortable with and I know, but ultimately if you do go out to university or you're in certain professions, Somebody's gonna set a standard for you, and you have to follow those expectations to be successful. So I, you know, as an English and history student, I had all sorts of different ways. I was asked to cite my sources and then I went and got my teaching degree and that was another system that I had to learn. So, It really, I, I think it's an important thing to get the students to appreciate that. Like that is the thing you will always have criteria that you are trying to meet in a variety of different situations in your life. And some of it is obvious, like everyone's always equating school to work. But I think you also have criteria in your relationships. If you have a partner or a friend who really values thoughtful gifts on their birthday, that's a criteria you have to meet or you're gonna have trouble in that relationship. And you have to start appreciating like, what am I, what am I expected to do in this situation if I wanna meet My goal, which is, you know, in learning hopefully, is to get better at certain skills, but in other areas of your life it might be to have a good relationship with that person. And I think that's one of the things I think about making the shift with around assessment that's really important is it hopefully helps students to stop seeing assessment as. Just these points that are really abstract. And it starts to help them realize like, this is a process you're in all your life. And if you really, if we wanna help students become lifelong learners, one of the most important things is you have to figure out, what do I wanna learn? How am I gonna know when I'm successful? And then what do I need to do along the way to get there? Because you're not gonna get it the first time with most things. I mean, I've never put up together a piece of IKEA furniture the first time successfully. You always have to go back, figure out where you put the piece on backwards and unscrew it and start again. Like that's just, that's how things work. And I think that this approach to assessment with standards-based grading, with emphasizing feedback, with taking the numbers out of it and talking about a progression and growth, it sets you up for the way that you will learn things through trial and error outside of school. You know, you'll never be able to make it. Super authentic. Like there's always still gonna be report cards and other like policy things that we'll have to do in the classroom as teachers, but I do think it gets the classroom much closer to that authentic way of learning in the non-school world. Okay.

Rachel: 52:50

So what would be your best advice then for someone who's just getting started with standards-based grading? Like how can, what are sort of some of those first steps that you would recommend someone take to start shifting their

Jessica: 53:05

practice? Standards-based grading actually involves a lot of shifts. Uh, so the first thing I would actually encourage people to do is if they're, if they're really interested in standards-based grading, if they've already started learning a bit about it and they feel comfortable with that, then they can certainly start making some of those shifts. But I would say regardless, even if you don't think standards, if you think standards-based grading is just the latest. Trend in teaching and you're just gonna ride it out till the pendulum swings back in the other direction. I would, the thing I would start with is the things that require the least from the teacher, but will make the most impact on the students, which is to shift towards only evaluating knowledge in the students grade. So that omnibus grading thing where you're putting in all the penalizing marks for the students who don't follow your expectations and the bonus marks for the students who do all the little extras. Uh, I think it requires no effort from the teacher to remove those things from their grading policy, but it will mean that the grades are giving out reflect what their students actually know. And I think that is, I think mentally it's a big shift for teachers to make because it's so different than what we're used to. I mean, That was how I was evaluated when I was in school. That was how my mom and my grandparents were evaluated when they're in school. Like, it's so familiar that it feels right because we've been doing it for a long time. But I think that would be the, the first thing to do. And I didn't do all of those things at once. I still gave out zeros. I still gave out participation marks. I still gave out bonus marks. The first thing I got rid of was late marks. I, and I loved it cause I had to, I didn't have to keep track anymore of who handed things in when, which saved me some time. Actually. I used to, I used to spend a lot of time sorting through piles, trying to remember which pile was the students who handed it in one day late, and which one was the students who handed it in two days late. So really going like, it's less work for the teacher to do all of that, uh, but it'll make things so much more equitable. And I think, and then after that, I would start doing the standard space shifts. So, uh, and another one that would save teachers a lot of time is figure out what the learning standards are for your course. And then make one master rubric that's written generically enough that you could use it for any task you gave students that. So in, in social studies, for example, one of our standards is related to working with, with evidence, primary and secondary sources. So I would just word it, you know, I can evaluate a primary source for bias, not a specific source, not, uh, you know, tons of detail about exactly what they might be expected to do on a certain assignment, but that anytime we're looking at primary sources and we're evaluating them for bias and, uh, and, uh, identifying the context in which they're created and so forth, that, that it's basically a description of what you would do every time, no matter what the task was. Uh, you create your kind of master rubric based on that, and then you kind of cut and paste those together to customize them. So, you know, maybe you have 10 standards you're doing in your, in your course and. You, you know, this assignment is on standards one, four and seven, and the next one is on one, four and eight. Uh, you know, you kind of cut and paste them together and it's quick and easy then to put your assessment tools together. Uh, and that's a big time saver. And I think kind of hand in hand with that would be a standards-based grade book. So no more weighted categories. No more organizing by task, but organizing by standards. And if you had a rubric, That had three different standards that you were evaluating, you'd actually enter the feedback from that assignment in three different spots in your grade book so that each of those standards, you recorded the evidence of what the students understand for each one of the standards on that assignment. It initially sounds really complicated, and this is the one downside to a podcast, if I had some visual aids, it's not as complicated as it sounds, but it, it's, um, I think that would be the next shift. And I think then after that, most of the other stuff will kind of start to come almost naturally. You'll just start to notice other things that you're doing and be like, oh, what if I tried this and what if I did that? And so I do think that, that those are sort of like the A, b, and C that I would do. And then after that, it's kind of open to wherever the teacher's at. And I think different subject areas might have other things that seem more pressing, uh, that you'd wanna address in your, in your practice. Now the next

Katie: 57:22

question is more of like a follow up because you have so much to share and so much to kind of. Put out there with the world. Are you on social media? How can people connect with you?

Jessica: 57:32

I actually, I am not. I, I've, I've, in my mind, one of these days I'll have some website or something, but I just kind of do things myself, uh, and with my colleagues. I don't really have an official social media presence, but if people really wanted to get in touch, they can send me an email. It's j l i e w. Vsb BC ca and I can probably just point them to my favorite people to pay attention to on this topic. Uh, so I, I would say one of my favorites, uh, he's really big, uh, is, uh, in BC is Tom Shimmer. Uh, he's definitely got a social, social media presence. Katie White is another one. And I like both of them as well because they're Canadian, so they. Have a lot of what they're putting together is done in a Canadian context. Uh, and uh, Myron Duek is another one. He's the one Grading Smarter, not Harder was sort of the book that I read that was like, yes, I need to do this. I don't know how yet, but I need to fix, fix everything. He's a, a great guy. He's al, he's also from bc uh, so he's, uh, got a good Canadian context. And then if people are really interested in how these shifts can make their grades more equitable and better serve the diverse students that they're working with, uh, Joe Feldman is a really great author. He's based out of the state, so a lot of his data is, is very American and has to do with the American context, but it's still, I think when I was reading his book, it was one of the last books that I read as I was on this journey and it just, Made everything make more sense to me that I, I was making changes and he kind of gave me the why of why I should have made those changes. Uh, I'd already done it, so I just felt really gratified. But if you're, I think if you're on the fence, like, why would I make some of these changes? How would this even help my students? His book, I think, will really, Make it clear that it's not just about some trend in education, but it really is about better serving students so that their, you know, their grades have a lot of effect on where they end up in life. And so we wanna make sure those grades are as fair and as equitable as they possibly can be. And I know

Katie: 59:43

we could talk about this for hours and hours and hours, literally

Jessica: 59:46

five. I could, I, I'm sure I could do five if not, you know, uh, maybe like a full weekend of conversation. But, uh,

Katie: 59:55

But no, thank you so much for joining us this evening and for taking some of your spring break to kind of connect with us and talk all about assessment.

Jessica: 1:00:03

Well, thank you for having me. It was great.

Rachel: 1:00:05

So what we'll do is we'll include any of the links or resources we talked about here today in our show notes. And you can access our show notes for this episode@edugals.com

Jessica: 1:00:17

slash 84. That's edu G A l s.com/

Katie: 1:00:21

84. And if you like what you heard, then feel free to share this with a colleague or a friend. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future

Rachel: 1:00:31

content. And as always, we would love to hear from you. So it could be about standard space grading or anything related to assessment and evaluation. We would love it if you went onto our flipgrid at edu gals.com/flipgrid and left us a

Jessica: 1:00:47

message there. Or you

Rachel: 1:00:49

can go onto our website@edugals.com and leave us a written

Jessica: 1:00:53

response.

Rachel: 1:00:53

Thank you for listening, and

Katie: 1:00:55

we'll see you next

Jessica: 1:00:56

week.

Katie: 1:01:02

Thanks for listening to this episode of our Edgy Gals podcast. Show notes for this episode are available@edgygals.com. That's E D U. G A l s.com. We'd also love to hear your feedback, so leave us a message on our website,

Jessica: 1:01:20

and if you

Rachel: 1:01:21

enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and consider leaving a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep being awesome and try something new.