"How do we implement Ch 8.'s multipart approach of grading to a single grade high school?" & "How do teachers sort and regulate students for the state?"

Hi All,

I’ll focus on Ch. 8 from the Tomlinson and McTighte text in my blog post.  We’ve all read it so rather than producing a summary I’ll try to organize my comments by posing 2 questions.  As many see it, grading can be a boring topic, so hopefully my questions provoke some kind of integral discussion, which I see as the primary goal of the blog, and make writing your blog responses more fun and useful.  The bad news is that my questions are not entirely related… the good news is that, if you’d like, you have two to choose from!

Here goes:

1:  Ch 8 poses the problem of a single grade and prescribes grading and reporting reform that grades students on three factors: grades for achievement of goals, progress toward goals, and work habits.  The text criticizes the norm-based grading system as harmful to the motivation of both struggling and excelling students.  Grades can discourage students who get “F’s” and show students who get “A’s” that an abstract grade is the true measure of success toward which excellent students need only apply as much effort as the context demands.  I really like Tomlinson and McTighthe’s recommendation of the three factor grading system because it clarifies the goals and standards that students are expected to perform, it communicates the progress that individual learners have accomplished since the start of the grading period, and because “work habits” measure not only the product but also the learning process.  At the same time, the vast majority of school districts dole out single grades to high school students so I wonder how to utilize the text’s multipart approach to grading in a CPS classroom or a suburban school district.

Questions 1: Is there a way to implement a version of Ch. 8’s three factor grading system in a high school that assigns singles grades?  As a teacher, if you combine the three factors into a single grade how can you avoid the single grade pitfalls that discourage learning by lowering motivation and obscuring feedback?  What are other ways we can differentiate assessment, clarify feedback, and use grades to encourage motivation in the single grade high school in which most of us will be teaching?  And how do your mentor teachers deal with these problems?

2:  Tomlinson and McTighte write that the primary goal of grading is to communicate feedback to both support the learning process and encourage learner success.  Though teachers may practice grading and reporting toward the goal of learning it is totally obvious that society also uses grades for other purposes.  Two such purposes are the sorting and regulating of students.  What I mean is that the grades that teachers assign sort students onto tracks that guide the entirety of those students’ lives.  The “F” that you give your CPS student may contribute to placing that student onto a track to a jail cell (75% of inmates do not have a high school diploma, meaning that they have either dropped out or been flunked out) in the extreme case.  The “A” that you give your student may help open the door to a life of success and privilege.  Grades also serve the regulatory function of ordering students to adhere to an array of societal norms.  Regulating student’s behavior may be viewed as either constraining or empowering.  On one hand, teachers may cringe at the loss of difference or the sacrifice of individuality involved in the proscriptive character of grading.  On the other, grading may help encourage productive behavior and socialize students into a common group by which they are more empowered than they might be as mere individuals.

Questions 2: So… are there ethical/political questions for teachers here?  How do you feel about your role as a “gatekeeper” that grants and prohibits persons to various paths by assigning grades?  Does recognition of this role change the way in which you might perform grading and reporting?  And is the disciplinary function of grading emancipatory or oppressive?  To what extent is it a mixture of both?  How do you feel about instituting social norms onto young minds?

Cheers,

Drew