Rethinking Grading

Shifting to Mastery and SBG

A new school year is upon us and it is important to take the time to rethink our grading systems. Many school districts are adopting new grading practices as we realize our traditional percentage-based grading systems were not actually doing a good job of communicating student learning. The Mastery Collaborative in New York City is just one example of  how educators are shifting to mastery grading to focus more on learning goals instead of compliance. In 2010, a state-wide standards based grading initiative began shifting teachers in Kentucky to find an effective way to measure learning by standard. We have all heard the buzz surrounding mastery and standards-based grading and slowly we are all trying to find our way to this more reliable and accurate way to communicate student learning.

​Time to Set Up a New Gradebook

Before you begin entering grades in that gradebook, take the time to really reflect on what your gradebook communicates to others about the priorities in your classroom. Do you value that students are able to follow the twenty step directions to create a poster like the example provided? Or do you value the creative process as long as the learning goal was reached? Do you value scores on multiple choice tests as an indicator of student learning, regardless of student reading or language acquisition level? Or do you value using a variety of ways to assess student learning? It is almost impossible to switch your grading system in the middle of a semester, so the time to do it is NOW!

I have put together the document below to revisit the idea of a 4-point mastery grading system. This might help you get a better understanding of how to begin shifting to the 4-point mastery grading system. It might also help you communicate this system to students, teachers, administrators and parents.  Feel free to make a copy and edit as needed!

​Please understand that the 4-point grading system was developed by Dr. Robert Marzano and is grounded in research. A link to his website can be found in the document below.

4-Point Grading Explained

​If you think you are ready to make the switch and you use the Aeries grading system, here is the blog post that helps you set up your gradebooks. If you use another system, there should be a rubric score setting that gets rid of percentages.

Be very careful to not use the 4-point rubric system with a percentage based gradebook!

A 2 on a 4-point rubric scale is a C and communicates that a student is progressing towards the learning goal. A 2 out of 4 in a percentage based gradebook is a 50%, which is typically an F. The fact that over 50 points on the percentage system equates to an F is just one of the many issues educators are beginning to realize. 

Your grading system is an extremely important idea to ponder, and I suggest you start the dialogue with your professional learning community and administrators and soon as you figure out the direction you want to take. It might get a little messy, but it will be well worth the effort.

And a quick side-note: 4-Point rubrics are MUCH easier and more efficient to use!

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