Challenge 7A

Philosophy of Assessment

Grading Philosophy: I do not believe in grading because it fosters a “Fixed Mindset” within
students. Research shows that the most important determinant for student success is fostering
a “Growth Mindset” within students, so that they begin to believe that they can learn/do
anything they work towards. Furthermore grading is detrimental for many classrooms because
it adds extra work upon teachers who want to focus on time spent teaching, and learning new
educational strategies.
Formative assessments have been shown to be more beneficial for student learning
than Summative assessments especially when used for grading student learning. For this
reason, I will primarily be using and grading formative assessments, while avoiding the use of
summative assessments. My assignments will focus on quizzes, projects, groupwork, etc.
instead of tests and exams.
How my gradebook works: The research is clear that grading is detrimental to student learning
and is relied upon too much in standard education. However, it is not possible for teachers in
most school systems to completely forgo grading altogether. Therefore, it is important to find
ways of making grading less harmful for students.
In the traditional method of grading 60% of all possible grades are dedicated to representing
failure (I.E. “F”), which make this method of grading redundant. There are two different
methods I would be willing to use in my class that are both superior to the standard 0-100
scale.
One of these methods of grading is called “Minimum Grading” which generally set the
lowest a student can score on an assignment at 50% instead of 0%. On a traditional grading
scale 0-60% represent failure or an “F,” but this leads to students withdrawing from learning
when they receive too many “Fs” early in the year. To solve this problem 50% can be set as the
lowest grade I would give on an assignment.
Another grading method that I have considered is the 0-4 scale (which is based off of the
GPA scale). Unlike traditional grading (I.E. 0-100%) which dedicates only 1/5 of its scale to
success, the 0-4 scale dedicates 2/5 of possible grades to success. In traditional grading there is
no point in grading one assignment a 74 and another a 75 when it will be converted to a 0-4 for
GPA anyway. Of the two alternative grading methods shown I prefer the 0-4 scale as it allows
me as the teacher to focus more on teaching and spend less time grading.

Late Work philosophy: If your child doesn’t take out the garbage at home, the consequence is
that they have to take out the garbage. I view grading in the same way, students who don’t turn
in an assignment on its intended due date should be given extra time to turn it in without
having to worry about deducted points. By deducting points for late work, we disincentivize
students from completing assignments. My goal as a teacher is to ensure that students learn
the content, and for this reason I do not deduct points for late work. HOWEVER, logistically I
can’t have students turning in assignments from the beginning of the school year on the last
day of class and preventing me from grading other student’s assignments on time. For this
reason, I will accept all late work up to 30 days after its posted due date without deducting
from the grade for being late. Students who have unforeseen life altering events will be able to
receive an extended past due deadline beyond 30 days, as long as they let me know that they
will not be able to turn in the assignment on time.
MY LATE WORK PHILOSOPHY EXTENDS TO students wanting to REDO work. If a student
turns in an assignment on the due date and is unsatisfied with it then they have till the end of
the 30 days to redo the assignment and turn it in.

Homework Philosophy: There will be times where I “assign” homework, however I do not
believe in grading homework as this is unequitable for some students. The homework I assign
will be for the student’s benefit and will provide students content that will help them perform
better on assignments we will do in class. By assigning homework in this way I ensure that
students have the ability to partake in clubs, extracurricular activities, jobs, etc.

EXTRA CREDIT philosophy: Research shows that extra credit is unequitable for some students.
By giving extra credit I am giving an unfair advantage to students who have the time and
resources available to easily complete extra credit. Some students have afterschool obligations
which make it difficult for them to find the time to complete extra credit. Some students have
access to a stay-at-home parent that can help with the extra credit while others do not. For
these reasons I will NOT give out extra credit assignments.

Philosophy on cheating: Cheating is not allowed in this class! However, cheating will not be
punished except by having students redo the assignment which they cheated on in your own
work (not copied, plagiarized, etc.). Students will even be given the grade for the makeup work
they redo without any penalization against that grade. I believe that all assignments are
important and because of this must be completed by the students and must be graded fairly.
When a student turns in work that is not their own I cannot grade that work because my job is
to grade the work of each student, when a student cheats they are not turning in their own
work and therefore I cannot deduct any points from their grade because in my mind they have
not turned in their own assignment. I can however make students redo the assignment in their
own work and turn that in for a grade, which ends up benefiting the students by forcing them
to learn the content. Furthermore, I believe that if cheating is able to take place in my class that
it is my fault for structuring the class in a way that makes cheating possible. Cheating loses its
benefits for students in a class structured around the principles of Problem Based Learning, and
which has a focus on formative assessment over summative assessment.

What my summative assessments will look like: For the summative assessments I will give out,
I want students to focus less on tests/exams and more on projects that they create and present
to the rest of the class. Projects allow students the freedom necessary to research in way that
they will remember, especially if the project they are creating is being presented to the whole
class. I think time spent working on projects leads to long term learning and helps to develop
the problem solving skills necessary for the modern tech based job market most of these
students will be entering. Instead of giving out a test every few weeks it would be more
beneficial for my students to group up and create a presentation on content we are covering
and how we can use that information to make our lives, communities, and world better.
Students need to develop the skills necessary for teamwork and cooperation. To ensure
students cooperate I will have my summative assessments be based on the individual’s work
within the group and not as much on the group as a whole (which often leads to students take
up the majority of the work while the rest sit back.
When I do give out tests and exams I will make sure that in the preceding weeks,
students have the opportunity to submit one or two questions that they feel should be included
on the test. The students would be required to research the answer to their question(s) and
point out why they would be beneficial to include on the exam. This provides another learning
opportunity in disguise as it encourages all students to study the content in order to find
something that could be made into a test question. The students are incentivized to provide
questions because they know that if their test question might appear on the test giving them
the benefit of a question they are guaranteed to know the answer to because they are the one
who found it in the first place.

How I will ensure assessment as learning: One of the primary methods of formative
assessment I will incorporate is “Think, Pair, Share” which requires that all students actively
stay engaged in the content. “Think, Pair, Share” can be used as a formative assessment
because it will enable me to see what students already know/need to work on and gives other
students an opportunity to give peer feedback to the answers generated by their partner.
I will have students partake in self assessment so that they can gauge what they need to
work on and start thinking critically about steps for improvement. I will also have them give
peer feedback which would also help to improve students work quality by taking the notes for
improvement they receive from their peers.
I will use pre assessments often in the form of low stakes quizzes to gauge each students
current level of understanding. I will make sure these pre-quizzes are grade based off of
participation and not actual knowledge. By using this strategy, I can assess what content the
students need to focus on in order to succeed in the lesson plan.

How to make students work hard and perform well: Student need to be empowered to find
the inherent joy that comes from producing/creating meaningful work. They need to learn the
satisfaction that comes from achieving goals. These skills are what I will foster when I
implement Problem Based Learning strategies which trigger people’s natural curiosity for the
unknown and leads them to create work that they can be proud of. The more success they
experience the more of a “Growth Mindset” they will develop (this is the number one
determinate of student success). Everyone wants to have a purpose they can be working
toward and it will be my goal to ensure that they have the skills and resources available to find
what that is for them.
Peer feedback and self feedback are also critical for ensuring that students learn the
skills necessary to foster a community based around a “Growth Mindset” where students are
open to their work being critiqued and willing to take steps that will help them perfect the work
they produce. No first draft is ever perfect and it is important that students understand that
mastery takes accepting failures as opportunities for learning.
Sources:
“Grading for Equity”:
We can correct the 100-point scale's disproportionality toward failure by instituting a "minimum grade" - that is, setting a percentage such as 50
percent that no student can score below: We really don't need sixty different descriptions of an F.

As we saw earlier, the 0-100-point scale allocates three times as many gradations to failure as to meeting standards (60% vs. 21%), and
compared to the 0-4 scale, dedicates triple the proportion to failure and has half as many gradations representing meeting standards. Would we
prefer to use a grading scale in which nearly two-thirds is dedicated to failure and one/fifth to success, or a scale in which one-fifth is dedicated
to failure and two-fifths is dedicated to success?
Stepping back for a moment, how could we ever justify using a 100-point scale that is so oriented toward failure when we have an alternative
that is so much more aligned with how we want our students to understand their likelihood of success? Why would we use the 0-100 point
percentage scale to distinguish between the student who received a 74 percent and a 75 percent when we constantly, at least in high school,
translate the grade to a 0-4 for GPA calculation anyway, rendering that minute distinction irrelevant and forgotten?

Purpose and Benefit

Assessment seems so straight forward – until people start asking you questions about it, and
then you realize it is really pretty complicated. There is no “right answer” to how to assess
students, but it is important that you have thought it through and can explain why you are
doing what you are doing. There is so much to grading that you will need to get it down in
writing to fully know what you are doing and to ensure that your ideas all serve your essential
beliefs about teaching and learning.

Goals
Through completing this challenge (and years into the future) you should be able to get clear in
your head how you want to grade, what policies you want to have, and what grades should
mean so that you can explain and defend why you grade as you do.

Due Date(s)
Friday or Saturday, July 30th or 31st

Tools, Examples, and Resources

- Grading for Equity, Susan Blum podcast
- Lots of small group and whole class discussions
- Examples of philosophies
- A format to help you remember all the parts of a philosophy (below)
- If you plan to almost completely “ungrade,” you need this book

Criteria for Success

A strong philosophy should sound professional but be easy for others to understand, and it
should answer many of the major questions a philosophy should answer (see below). If a parent
or administrator asked you questions about your grading, you could hand this to them and they
would say, “Wonderful! Now I understand exactly why you are grading like you are.” A strong
philosophy should also make you feel satisfied and proud; it should give you the sense that you
know what you are doing and why you are doing it.
Steps in the Process/Detailed Instructions
You definitely don’t need to answer all of the questions in each section below! Respond to each
SET of questions as a whole. The section headings and the questions/prompts are just a starting
point to give you some ideas, but feel free to use them as your own sub-headings if you like.
The finished piece will likely be 1-3pp. single-spaced.

Template
1. My Foundational Beliefs About Grading
a. How would you summarize the argument that most assessment is just
“sorting”? How will you keep your assessment from just being “sorting,” or
should that be the goal of assessment? Assessment as sorting is when students
are left behind because they did not have prior knowledge that other students
did (generally from past experiences). I will keep my assessments from being
“sorting” by using small groups were MKOs can help teach and let work and
grading be based off of projects completed by students as a group. This would
help students catch up and encourage students who are farther ahead feel like
helping other students out if they are farther behind. More formative
assessments and less summative assessments (how much have your learned in
the last week?).
b. An “A” in one teacher’s class might “mean” something quite different from what
an “A” means in another teacher’s class – even another art teacher who teaches
the same level you do. What are some common “meanings” for grades? What do
you want grades to represent in your classes?
c. What does the research say about grades and grading? Where do you stand on
the debate as to the extent to which grades should be used at all? Is some form
of “ungrading” interesting to you?

2. How My Grade-Book Works

a. What is the point of assessment and grading? What should these things
accomplish?
b. What kind of grading scale do you plan to use? 4 point? 5 point? Cumulative
points? 100 Point? Non-cumulative grading? If a student gets no credit, is that a
zero? A 50? How does your plan relate to what you think grading should
accomplish?
c. How do you separate out non-academic points from academic so that everyone
involved is clear on how much of the grade represents what the student has
actually learned vs. other things that might contribute to a grade? How do you
feel about grading for effort vs. grading for how far a student has come from
where they started vs. grading for percentage of concepts mastered? How would
you parse out the various aspects of a grade (nonacademic, academic, etc.) What
does a student’s final grade in your class actually represent?
3. My Policies: It is tempting to use grades as a punishment. “No late work!” (Or lots of
points off for late work) “No re-do’s!” Many believe that being strict about such things
helps students get better at being prompt and working hard. But in fact, research shows
that it does not have this effect; it just causes students to withdraw from learning.
Learning becomes not so much about learning but about rewards and punishments.
Furthermore, it is dreadful to have students in your room who can no longer
mathematically pass the class. So, what is your plan for dealing with issues such as the
following?
a. What is your policy on late work?
b. What is your policy on re-doing work? What do you do when a student doesn’t
do well on a big assignment - tries but doesn’t get it? What do you do when a
student gives a half-hearted effort and receives a low grade?
c. What should happen when a student simply doesn’t do the assignment?
d. How will you avoid the issue of having students reach the point where they
cannot mathematically pass the class?
e. What is your policy on cheating and plagiarism?

4. How I Help Students Be Prompt and Work Hard (SOFT SKILLS IN THE BOOK) Being strict
about late work and re-do’s doesn’t help students learn to be more prompt and work
harder, but students do need to learn to be more prompt and work harder; how will you
help them with that?

5. What My Summative/Major Assessments Tend to Look Like: How will you ensure that
you are assessing what really matters/ things that will benefit students in the long run
vs. assessing random crap students will forget in 2 weeks?
a. How will you make sure students truly understand vs. have just memorized/are
just going through the motions?
b. How do authenticity and real audiences figure into assessment quality?
Authenticity means that students are creating material that is meaningful to
them, AND relevant to the real world. Real audiences means that students are
actually presenting their projects and ideas in front of the whole class and not
just to their partners or small groups.
c. What are examples of great assessments in your opinion? A great assessment
for a group project would be one that is graded on; relation to the material being
focused on, total participation among group members. Quizzes are also a great
assessment tool (can be used before exposure, during, and after)
d. How do you ensure that your assessments are a good match for your goals?
What are some examples of assessments that are a good match for specific
goals?

6. How I Ensure Assessment AS Learning: What is your plan for assessment for/as learning?
 a. How will you ensure that your assessment instruments, procedures, and scores
help learners want to learn and feel able to learn?
b. What does quality formative assessment and feedback look like in your
discipline? How will you maximize the quality and quantity of feedback that
students receive on a daily basis?
c. How do self-assessment and peer critique figure into your plan?
d. How do pre assessments figure into your plan?

7. Grading subjective assignments:

a. Do you use rubrics, and if so, what guidelines do you follow for creating quality
rubrics?
b. Why is grading student projects tricky even when a quality rubric is used? What
might be problematic about rubrics? What steps do you take to make your
grading of subjective assessments as objective as possible? What might be
problematic about objectivity?

8. Homework:
a. What are your feelings about homework? What guidelines do you follow for
assigning homework?
b. What are examples of poor homework assignments vs. quality homework
assignments?