Outcomes Based Grading and Reporting

1. Outcomes Based Grading and Reporting Development Committee ECS, Grade 2 and 3 Report Card August 29, 2011

2. Outcomes for today... • Understand the rationale for outcomes based grading and reporting. • Understand the role of alignment between grades in the essential skills. • Understand the difference between grades and marks. • Review the Grade 1 report card. • Discuss next steps.

3. Why Outcomes Based Grading? • Supports learning • Improves communication • Provides consistency and fairness • Students know the target and how to achieve goals • Provides a system of accountability for teaching and learning.

4. Teachers are reporting... • “…that they find it difficult to teach in a standards based system and report in a traditional manner.”

5. Outcomes Based Grading and Traditional Outcomes Based Traditional Directly related to outcomes Achievement only Individual marks Quality assessments Targets known to students and parents Data is important and public Related to assessment methods Includes achievement, behaviour, effort, etc. Includes group marks Variation in assessment quality Targets known to teachers Data is owned by teacher Modified from a handout by O’Connor 2004

6. Do Current Reporting Systems Communicate Achievement? • Grades teachers assign are only as sound as the assessments they use to gather the information. • Different factors are used by different teachers to determine the grade i.e. effort, attitude, etc. • Different assessments, weights, factors, are built into a grade • Effective communication • Report level of academic achievement • Report other relevant student characteristics separately “But are they Learning?” Stiggins and Knight 1997 pp. 60-61

7. Do you know the difference? • Grades or grading: • “The number or letter reported at the end of a period of time as a summary statement of student performance.” O’Connor • Marks or marking and scores or scoring: • “The number, letter, or words placed on any single student assessment (test, performance task, etc).” O’Connor

8. Outcomes Based Grading and Reporting • Aspects of this systemic change: • Reporting on achievement of outcomes • Limiting reporting to essential skills at each grade level • Focus on major content areas at early grades i.e. Reading, Math, Writing • Reporting on learning skills • Skills that research supports as having the greatest impact on student achievement • Use rubrics to report on learning skills • Define the learning skills for clarity and use clear marks for reporting • Provide the rubrics to students and parents. • Support students in growth based on the rubrics

9. Learning Skills Reporting • “Strong effort, active participation, and positive attitude are highly valued attributes, but they are reporting variables, not grading variables.” • Ken O’Connor, How to Grade for Learning (2002)

10. Top 10 Reasons to Implement Standards Based Grading and Reporting • Supports learning • Improves communication • Provides credibility to grades • Provides true picture of what students are able to do • Provides alignment to teaching standards, reporting performance on the standards, and provincial assessments of the standards • Provides multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate proficiency • Provides for alignment and focus of instruction • Provides equity in grading by removing nonacademic indicators from the grade • Provides consistency throughout the district • Provides for accountability for teaching to the standards

11. Doug Reeves:on Assessment for Learning The consequence for a student who fails to meet a standard is not a low mark… ...but an opportunity to re-learn and try again.

12. Robert Marzanoon changing Grading Practices “Why would anyone want to change current grading practices? The answer is quite simple: grades are so imprecise that they are almost meaningless.”

13. Elementary Standards-Based Report Card Guidelines • Base grades on student achievement only • Use summative rather than formative evidence • Only include work that can be verified as the student’s own work • Do not assign zeros for missing work, late work, incomplete assignments, or dishonesty.

14. “One symbol (letter grade or percent) cannot do justice to the different degrees of learning a student acquires across all learning outcomes.” Tombari and Borich

15. View Life Skills and Rubrics • View Grade One Report Card