While facilitating a workshop on math conferences and centres the other day, a teacher asked about Report Cards.
I'd been talking about descriptive feedback, and moving away from letter grades and percentages (based on research that demontrates that marks actually interfere with student learning), and sharing a criteria-linked observation recording template. Despite the research in favour of timely, descriptive feedback, teachers in Ontario are still forced to report with letter grades twice a year. So how, the teacher at my workshop wanted to know, do we translate our descriptive feedback and anecdotal comments into a mark on the report card?
Report Card Marks, Translated
A further look at what an "A", a "B" or a "C" even means may be in helpful here. Since in Ontario, we evaluate student work in accordance with curriculum expectations (as opposed on grading on a bell curve) Levels 1-4 and Letter Grades A-D have very specific meanings.
I'd been talking about descriptive feedback, and moving away from letter grades and percentages (based on research that demontrates that marks actually interfere with student learning), and sharing a criteria-linked observation recording template. Despite the research in favour of timely, descriptive feedback, teachers in Ontario are still forced to report with letter grades twice a year. So how, the teacher at my workshop wanted to know, do we translate our descriptive feedback and anecdotal comments into a mark on the report card?
Report Card Marks, Translated
A further look at what an "A", a "B" or a "C" even means may be in helpful here. Since in Ontario, we evaluate student work in accordance with curriculum expectations (as opposed on grading on a bell curve) Levels 1-4 and Letter Grades A-D have very specific meanings.
Because we're not ranking students, but rather, assessing and reporting on how well their work demonstrates the grade level (or possibly modified, if they're on an IEP) expectations, we use letter grades to synthesize and label this description: A Level 4 (or A), for example, is basically a shortened way of saying, Hey, this student's work shows most or all of the criteria for assignments, tests or class work. The student consistently does them really well ('proficiently" or "to a high degree").
A B (or a Level 3) indicate that the student demonstrates most of the expected criteria considerably well, a good portion of the time. A student working through Level 2 would earn a C, demonstrating that work is getting close to meeting the grade level expectations, and a D, or a Level 1, would indicate that a student is just beginning the journey towards meeting grade level expectations.
Even percentages, used to report on Grade 7 & 8 report cards, are aligned with these 4 levels (Growing Success, page 40), and in an attempt to make assessment more holistic at the intermediate/senior levels, many boards have even taken to using anchor marks, where a B, for example, is given a certain specified percentage.
Spinning Gold from Straw...
Given that marks therefore basically describe the degree to which a student's work meets a set of pre-determined criteria, teachers should be able to translate comments to marks with relative ease.
I recently had a unique opportunity to practise what I am preaching here.
... Even in a Pinch!
As I am often out of my classroom due to various professional projects I am invited to participate in at the board or provincial level, I try to work closely with a regular OT to almost "co-teach" (or at least co-plan for) our class curriculum. This term, that included my OT assigning a small group research project to the students in my class. They'd been learning about substance use and abuse, and about addictive behaviours. My OT and I decided that the students would work in groups to develop and deliver a short multi-media presentation about a drug they had researched. The OT and my students worked together to develop and record a list of criteria according to which their presentations would be evaluated. Shortly before the day they were to present and be assessed on their work, my regular OT got a long-term contract to the end of the school year, and had to cancel the rest of the dates I had booked her in!
A new OT took over the job, and -- with a little guidance from me and the help of my students who by now have been well-trained in the process -- she stepped fairly seamlessly into the gap and assessed the students' presentations.
The feedback she offered them was directly linked to the criteria they had co-constructed, and her observations were noted in considerable detail on a template I had developed and sent her ahead of time.
A B (or a Level 3) indicate that the student demonstrates most of the expected criteria considerably well, a good portion of the time. A student working through Level 2 would earn a C, demonstrating that work is getting close to meeting the grade level expectations, and a D, or a Level 1, would indicate that a student is just beginning the journey towards meeting grade level expectations.
Even percentages, used to report on Grade 7 & 8 report cards, are aligned with these 4 levels (Growing Success, page 40), and in an attempt to make assessment more holistic at the intermediate/senior levels, many boards have even taken to using anchor marks, where a B, for example, is given a certain specified percentage.
Spinning Gold from Straw...
Given that marks therefore basically describe the degree to which a student's work meets a set of pre-determined criteria, teachers should be able to translate comments to marks with relative ease.
I recently had a unique opportunity to practise what I am preaching here.
... Even in a Pinch!
As I am often out of my classroom due to various professional projects I am invited to participate in at the board or provincial level, I try to work closely with a regular OT to almost "co-teach" (or at least co-plan for) our class curriculum. This term, that included my OT assigning a small group research project to the students in my class. They'd been learning about substance use and abuse, and about addictive behaviours. My OT and I decided that the students would work in groups to develop and deliver a short multi-media presentation about a drug they had researched. The OT and my students worked together to develop and record a list of criteria according to which their presentations would be evaluated. Shortly before the day they were to present and be assessed on their work, my regular OT got a long-term contract to the end of the school year, and had to cancel the rest of the dates I had booked her in!
A new OT took over the job, and -- with a little guidance from me and the help of my students who by now have been well-trained in the process -- she stepped fairly seamlessly into the gap and assessed the students' presentations.
The feedback she offered them was directly linked to the criteria they had co-constructed, and her observations were noted in considerable detail on a template I had developed and sent her ahead of time.
The comments were detailed (and distinct!) enough for me to translate into marks for both Language and Health. I recorded the corresponding letter grades in my marks folder on my iPad with relative ease, and also made a few relevant notes in the folder were I collect anecdotal evidence to inform my learning skills comments when reporting. Then I cut each student's comments from the farthest column on the right and pasted them into their online portfolio on Edmodo, where they had submitted the presentations they'd created, so that they could see their specific feedback (and so that their families could also read how they had done on the assignment in my absence).
Holistic Reporting
While I am still cautiously optimistic that the formal process of reporting to families in this province will one day encompass a less contrived (and less stress-inducing!!) and more wholesome approach, I do rest more comfortably in the fact that even with the existing letter grades we are obliged to assign twice a year, assessment-literate students and their families can read between the lines and find specific feedback to inform their future learning goals.
Holistic Reporting
While I am still cautiously optimistic that the formal process of reporting to families in this province will one day encompass a less contrived (and less stress-inducing!!) and more wholesome approach, I do rest more comfortably in the fact that even with the existing letter grades we are obliged to assign twice a year, assessment-literate students and their families can read between the lines and find specific feedback to inform their future learning goals.
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