Are you looking for a new grading policy that will make your life as a teacher so much easier while also emphasizing student learning? Grading should not be so difficult and burdensome. If that is how grading makes you feel, then something has got to change!
I have made serious changes to my grading policy these last few years. These changes were to help make my life easier when it came to grading but also to help emphasize student learning. I was so sick and tired of my students focusing only on their grades and ignoring the fact that they needed to actually learn something.
I decided to switch my grading system to a standards-based one. It has made all the difference. If you are looking to improve your grading system, then get started today with my free guidebook to set up a standards-based grading system in your high school classroom. I will walk you step by step as you set up your standards-based grading system.
Why you should switch up your grading policy
When I first started teaching, I began grading using a point-based system. I made up point values for each assignment. Each question would be worth a certain amount of points to get me to the total for the assignment. I would determine a student’s score by taking the number of points earned out of 100. This is the system I grew up knowing as a student so I thought this was the best system to use as a teacher.
But a few years into using this system, I knew this grading system was not working. I hated the process of grading itself because I never felt confident in my ability to determine how many points a question was worth. Was this question worth 1 point, 2 points, 5 points, etc.?? I just did not know what I was doing. I knew I was arbitrarily assigning these point values to questions.
Another problem I was finding with this grading system was that students became good at “playing the game of school”. My students knew how to easily earn points to achieve high grades. They would cheat their way through assignments or cram for a test to “get a good grade”. But true learning was never actually taking place. They could not retain information after a test or even after taking the course.
I researched ideas about standards-based grading and I was instantly hooked. Standards-based grading (SBG) is a shift in education to get students to focus on learning over grades. With SBG, the content of a course is divided into standards that students should master by the end of the year. The student learning is tracked by teachers so that they can provide mastery-oriented feedback to students to help improve their learning.
I wanted my grades to be a true reflection of a student’s mastery of the standards for the course. This would mean that I was no longer grading individual assignments using points but rather grading students on their ability to master a standard. This would completely change my grading system moving forward.
Set up your new grading system
Use a new grading scale
The biggest problem I had with my old grading system was that I was using points. Assessments were graded on a 100-point scale and a student’s grade was calculated by taking the number of points earned and dividing it by how many points total.
But this grading scale makes it so there is so much room for error. I needed to come up with a new grading scale that removed the error in grades. I threw out the 100-point scale and now use a 4-point scale.
This mastery-based grading scale makes it so there is significantly less room for error in assigning grades. A level 4 score indicates the student has mastered the standard being assessed. Think of this quality of work as being outstanding. The student clearly knows the content or demonstrates a skill in a new and creative way.
A level 3 score indicates the student is meeting the standard. This means they can recall information or meet expectations without going above and beyond. A level 2 indicates the student is approaching the standard. Most students will fall into this category, especially early in the learning process. Level 1 indicates the student is not there yet.
Grade tasks for completion = no grade
Because grades are now tied to standards, rather than assignments you will still want to account for all the classwork, homework, etc in your new grading policy. For this, we will call any assignment that is not a true assessment a “task”. I like the use of the phrase task instead of assignment because it strongly implies that it is something the student needs to complete.
You assign tasks because these types of assignments are meant to help students practice a standard or skill. By completing them, students should hopefully be learning. This means that I will not assess them for mastery but rather assess them for completion.
My learning management system allows me to use words in place of numbers in my grade book. Therefore, to indicate an assignment is complete, I use the word “Done”. This communicates with the student and people at home, that the student successfully completed the task. I use the word “Missing” to indicate any task that a student did not turn in. I will use the word “Incomplete” to indicate work that a student started but did not finish or anything that could use more work.
In my grade book, I do not assign point values to tasks. In my grading policy, it is clear that these assignments do not factor into a student’s grade but I remind students that by not completing tasks, it is hard to meet or master a standard.
Provide multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery
The goal of your new grading policy is to help students master content. This means that you will need to circle back to previous content/skills throughout the course. You may need to provide more frequent, small assessments so that you can revisit standards over and over.
With this new grading policy, you will give students multiple attempts to show mastery of each standard. Traditionally, teachers will average the attempts to determine a student’s grade at the end of a grading period. But with this new grading policy, you are moving away from the average.
You are looking for growth across the attempts on a standard. If a student starts in the “Not there yet” level but works to improve throughout the year to eventually meet the standard, then the meeting score is what they have earned at the end of the grading period.
Calculate a preliminary grade to communicate current mastery
By using a mastery grading scale, students may have a hard time associating mastery grades with a traditional grading system. In this new grading policy, I keep a “preliminary grade” in the grade book to communicate with students and families how their standard-based scores translate to a traditional letter grade.
This preliminary grade makes it easier to have conversations with students and parents that are less familiar with a mastery grading scale. You will look at all the student’s attempts on a standard and determine their overall mastery level for that particular standard. After doing this for each standard, you will then determine a letter grade to associate with those mastery levels.
If a student masters every standard, then they will earn an A. A student that mostly meets all the standards, then they are in the B range. If a student is approaching multiple standards, then they are in the C range. Check out my system for calculating letter grades from standards-based grades.
What is the no zero grading policy?
Many schools are moving away from giving zeros on assignments. A zero can be a HUGE burden to overcome in a traditional grade book. One zero can bring a student down two or three letter grades. Even if a student decides to step it up academically, sometimes it can be impossible for that student to ever be successful.
We need to rethink the concept of a zero. Obviously, you want to communicate with the student and family that they did not complete an assignment. With the grading policy outlined above, you will still be able to communicate home when students are not completing assignments, but it will have no weight on the student’s grade.
The idea of the tasks is to clearly communicate how much work students are completing. If a student has completed little to no tasks, then it will be hard for them to achieve higher mastery levels. Those tasks are practice work. They should help students understand the material or master a skill by completing them. I do not penalize students for not completing work because it will most likely be reflected in their mastery scores.
Sometimes, you may find that a student does not complete any tasks but can meet or master the standards on their own. Should this student be penalized for not doing the work when he or she clearly already gets it? Should they be required to perform tasks that are not necessary for their understanding?
More Ideas for your New Grading Policy
How to move away from percentage grades to help improve student learning
Why you should use rubric grading to make your life as a teacher easy
5 simple tips to make grading for teachers easy
How does standards based grading work in a successful high school classroom
I absolutely love sharing my ideas about my standards-based grading system and hope that you find my ideas helpful for your classroom! After reading this, if you feel you are ready to take the plunge into standards-based grading in your high school classroom, sign up for my free guidebook to become an expert at standards-based grading! It may just help you create your killer new grading policy!
