What I learned about grading by working retail

It's been a really long time since I've blogged or tweeted, like almost six months.  Thanks to both of you who missed me.  Part of the reason is I've been working a second part time job for a major electronics retailer.  State budget cuts and frozen salaries combined with a continually rising cost of living have made this a necessity.

Like any retailer, the holidays are a major source of revenue.  In my particular department, we make somewhere in the neighborhood of two-thirds of our annual revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Black Friday is a big deal for us.  I sold a lot of stuff that day.

I am not paid on commission but my personal sales are tracked.  On Black Friday, each person in the department had an assigned goal of approximately $30,000 in sales.  Keep in mind I'm not selling cars but consumer electronics.  That's a pretty high goal.  On the following Monday I checked our tracking system to see my totals.  To be honest I was pretty excited to see just how much I sold.  Due to a glitch in programming, not all the data was properly assigned.  In my own estimation I knew I had exceeded the goals for all three days of Black Friday weekend, but nothing was there to show it.  I was bummed.  Despite knowing I do not receive any commission or special recognition for my individual sales, I wanted to know.  Then I had one of those "oh great wise one share your wisdom with me" moments of clarity - this is how my students feel about grades.

This is my second year using a standards based grading system.  Assignments receive a score between 1 and 4, depending on the level of mastery they have shown.  At the end of the grading period I conference with each student and we assign a similar score for their overall progress.  I then convert this to a typical 100 point based grade to satisfy local requirements.  I tracked with my students from 6th grade to 7th so this system is nothing new.  However, this year I'm teaching math, a tested subject.  The kids don't really care about grades but their parents do.  Every time I send home a progress report with ones, twos, threes, and fours I have to answer the question, "What's my child's grade?"  These numbers are important because so many people measure everything by them.

So, what exactly did I learn about grading from working retail?

• despite the lofty ideals of working /learning for the sake of simply doing so, we all want to see some fruit for our efforts
• when you are being assessed on your work/learning, everyone wants it to be a meaningful assessment.  Don't just give me a set of exercises to do, connect them to something.  Do they really assess my learning OR my ability to recreate rote tasks?

The task for me now is to find a way to address and apply both of these lessons.  What suggestions do you have?

Let's just do what we're already doing

This afternoon, Greg Couros asked this question on Twitter

If standardized tests are not the best for data for schools, what data can we use? I would love to hear your thoughts.                                                                                                                      

gcouros

I've wondered this same thing many times myself.  I can even think of a few (very few) good reasons for standardized tests, but that's a hill I'll die on later.  My response to Greg was simply to use standards based grading and evaluate student portfolios.  Let me give you a real life example from right here in good ol' North Carolina where portfolios are used as the "unofficial" trump of all of our end of grade, standardized testing.

Here in NC, we administer end of grade (EOG) tests for third through eight grades.  Many of the mainstream, college prep courses in high school have end of course (EOC) tests as well.  We also have what are called "gateway" grades - third, fifth, and eighth.  If you do not pass your EOG's for this grade, you are given five hours of remediation and a retake.  Incidentally, my district has determined to really make sure students are ready and have made EVERY year a gateway year.  If after the retake you still do not pass, then you have the option to go through the waiver process.  A waiver committee hears the case presented by the teacher and sometimes the parent on why the student should have the EOG standard waived so that he or she can advance to next grade.

I have prepared waiver portfolios for my own students.  I have served on waiver committees for other teachers and schools.  Every grade and course has a standard course of study (SCOS) divided up into goals. Among other things the portfolio contains, the most important are sufficient samples of the student's work that demonstrate proficiency for the individual goals within the SCOS.  I do not have good solid stats on this, but from what anecdotal evidence I've been able to gather from my colleagues and my own experience, less than five percent, perhaps lower, of the students taken to waiver are actually denied.  In every case that I have personally experienced on either side of the waiver table, the decision to waive was justified as "Student has made adequate progress".

Here's what gets me.  Every teacher, EVERY teacher, hates the EOG.  Every teacher and committee member look for proficiency in individual goals.  If this is how it's going to go down anyway, then why don't we start there and save literally billions of dollars each year on tests?  If teachers are going to use standards based grading to justify a student's progress, why aren't they already using it on a regular basis throughout the year?

It is true most of the samples submitted show that a student got 80% of the questions right,so some changing still needs to happen there.  But why, in the name of all that makes sense, why the heck aren't we doing what we are already doing anyhow?

To Grade or Not to Grade - An Open Letter to My Colleagues

If you were to take of poll of the hot button issues in education, grading practices would easily rank in the top five.  If not the top 5 it would definitely make the top ten.  We are currently debating grading practices at my school.  Among the issues on the table are the zero policy, how to handle retakes, and whether or not we will record a grade on our regular common assessments that are also used to identify students with remediation needs.  For the record, I would never give another grade of any type if it were completely up to me.  I advocate for an either "you learned it" or "you are in progress" system.

For the last twelve months, I have been soul-searching, researching, and people searching to help me find another way.  I have been looking for creative ways to satisfy both sides of the debate (even though there are probably more than two!).  Along the way I have read the works of Alfie Kohn, perhaps the most popular anti-grade activist on the planet today.  I have read the summary of Black and Wiliam's study Inside the Black Box. I have come across a host of other resources.  They all say the same thing - grading inhibits performance, motivation, and quite possibly learning itself.

I have to be honest in my thinking though.  Grades in themselves are not bad things.  They do provide a measurement of our learning.  You can't drive a car if you don't pass the test.  You can't perform surgery if you don't pass the test.  You can't even coach intercollegiate sports if you don't pass the test.  What has created this mess we have today if the way grades have been used.  Instead of providing a measurement of learning, grades have become competitive measures, reward (and punishment) systems, and proof that I have memorized a set of facts.  This shift is a result of the way behaviorism and "accountability" has permeated our culture.

As I write that last sentence, I am struck with an internal inconsistency that is forcing me to deal with an incomputable dilemma, ala HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I am a staunch cognitive behaviorist.  At least I used to be.  Perhaps I am slipping into some other primary mode of thinking.  Even so, I do believe that we learn certain patterns of behavior based on the negative or positive responses we receive for that behavior.  I still believe that such an approach to the classroom has merit, even when it comes to learning.

What if we set our expectations on the basis of whether you have learned or mastered a set of material instead of centering the the approach on the grade you receive?  I could provide several anecdotal accounts of where that is working.  Given a short amount of time, I can provide research to back it as well.  From a behaviorist perspective, you can then condition the student to value learning and maybe even become intrinsically motivated.

The bottom line in this debate is what is best for the kids?  We must take an honest look at that answer, considering everything we know to be true about how students learn, how their brains work, and what the data tells us about all of it.