How to Grade for Mastery in Standards Based Learning
What is the difference between grading and scoring? Why should a teacher use both in his or her classroom? This post will explain the purpose, characteristics, and best practices for each.
Grading is the final evaluation of a student’s level of mastery achievement. Scoring is how a teacher tracks a student’s participation in the practice activities that develop the mastery of an objective.
What is Scoring in Standards-Based Learning?
Scoring is simply checking for student compliance in completing practice work. It is used for formative assessments. These compliance assignments should be focused on a specific target skill or objective, limited in number, and easily reviewed within a 10 – 15 minute period.
Why should teachers score formative assessments?
During formative assessments, a skill has not yet been mastered. It is unfair to grade students on any practice they are completing while trying to develop mastery. Therefore, student assignments that are independent or group practice activities should be scored instead of graded because they are designed to develop students’ skills.
A better way to record student compliance in completing homework or other practice work is scoring. Scoring is based upon the level of completion of the assignment/activity. It may be as simple as a check mark (√) or an X. Another simple system would be (2, 1, 0): 2 for completed, 1 for incomplete or late, 0 for non-submission.
How does scoring save valuable class time?
Scored work should be quickly checked (most often using a roster on a clipboard or gradebook) by the teacher. Immediately after scoring, the teacher should provide an answer key for students to self-check their work (encouraging metacognitive development).
Instead of reviewing every problem, the teacher should facilitate student engagement by having them ask specific questions about the assignment. This will target student needs and reduce the amount of time spent in review of the assignment. The targeted feedback the teacher provides will increase student engagement and metacognitive learning of the objective.
With the students evaluating, reviewing, and correcting their work, the teacher will save valuable time for planning and assessing the lesson and its objectives, while still having a recorded score for the students’ work.
What is Grading in Standards Based Learning?
Grading occurs when the teacher gives a summative assessment. These assessments are evidence of a student’s skill development.
All grading of summative assessments is done by the teacher using an established set of parameters or rubric points. Students should know the grading scale or rubric and the accepted level to demonstrate mastery of the objective(s) before the assessment is given.
Summative assessments should be given one time. If the majority of the students do not meet the established mastery level, the objective will need to be retaught. Student and teacher feedback are critical in the compliance part of a unit of study in order to ensure students are ready for the summative assessment.
When should teachers use scoring?
Scoring is done during the formative portion of a lesson or unit. It is based upon the level of completion of an assignment or activity. There should be far more of these scores in the grade book than summative grades.
Compliance assignments or activities should be short and easily checked as completed/partially-completed/not-completed. They should also be reviewable with an answer key within a 10-15-minute period. These assignments are meant to develop skills, generate feedback, and provide both the teacher and student with information critical to the learning process.
Since the formative (compliance) assignments occur at a greater rate than the mastery assessments, they should be weighted to hold a lesser value in the overall assessment of the student’s mastery.
When should teachers use grading?
Grading is done during the summative portion of a lesson or unit. It should be used to determine the level of students’ mastery of objectives. There should be fewer of these summative grades in your grade book than scores.
Mastery assessments should be limited in the number of attempts allowed on them, such as using a “once and done” policy. They are meant to be the evaluation of the student’s proficiency developed over the course of the lesson or unit. These scores are used to determine whether or not a class has sufficiently mastered the goals, objectives, or skills within the lesson or unit. Therefore, grades should hold a greater weighted value in the overall assessment of the student.
Example Grading System
A mastery grading system should weigh summative grades more heavily than formative scores. Compliance activities should be a smaller percentage of a student’s final course grade than summative assessments.
An example of a Weighted Grading System for Mastery Grading follows:
Compliance Grades: (40% of the overall student assessment)
Classwork: 10%
Homework: 10%
Notes/Participation: 20%
Mastery Grades: (60% of the overall student assessment)
Quizzes: 15%
Essays/Projects: 20%
Tests: 25%
When should students self-assess?
The teacher should grade mastery activities in order to analyze student mastery and misunderstandings. However, teachers might have students grade themselves on quizzes. Quizzes should be small (usually 10 problems or less), focused on a single topic or objective, and easily reviewed with an answer key.
Students are responsible for grading, correcting, and reporting their quiz results. They should also ask questions about their errors if they have difficulty understanding them during self-assessment.
Writing assignments, projects, and tests are teacher graded according to established levels of mastery or rubrics of achievement. It is critical that teachers provide written feedback on these assessments for students’ metacognitive development.
Review
Scoring is used during the formative practice of a lesson or unit. It is based upon the student’s level of completion of the assignment. It is meant to generate student engagement, critical feedback, and metacognitive skill development, while making the most efficient use of class and planning time.
Grading is used to determine the level of mastery achieved on summative assessments. Grading is done by the teacher for assessments, which should not have multiple retake opportunities. It determines whether or not the objective taught has been effectively mastered or needs to be retaught.
The importance of scoring is that it shows students how to earn 40% of their “grade” through compliance (participation in assignments.) This engagement buy-in creates more metacognitive skill development, which in turn generates higher mastery achievement (60% of their “Grade”).