Standands-Based Grading

The story yesterday in the Des Moines Register, in regards to Waukee middle schools moving toward standards-based grading, gave me a chance to reflect on changes I am starting to make within my own classroom. The idea of student centered learning is indeed where our educational practices should be but as we may remember from our childhood and what we still see in many classrooms today is that the focus is on the teacher, not the students.

Students will receive statuses of "beginning," "developing," "secure" or "exceeds" in 10 to 12 objectives - or standards - per subject instead of traditional letter grades. By doing this it will make it easier for schools to align their grading standards with teaching standards of the Iowa Core or National Core. This will also allow students to better understand what they "get" or what they still need to try to understand at a higher level.

A good resource for this discussion comes from a blog I follow MeTA musings. Matt uses his background in the subject area to explain this much more clear than I probably can. The idea that students will now understand what they "get" or "don't get yet" versus the idea that you got a 7 out of 12 on a worksheet (what does that mean?).

I am not sure that letter grades should go away but should be linked to the standards that a student has met by the end of a grading period. I still think students need to have goals and the idea that we should totally eliminate competition from our classroom worries me. To simply change to SBG without regard to challenging students to go above and beyond while also working at a pace that is suitable to our best and brightest might bring the bottom up but might slow down growth at the top.

If you would like more information about SBG, I would like you to take a look at this open letter to the DMR that does a great job of taking on the ideas of those against change!