Is A the New Average? or How will I change the world?

"You're not going to believe what my dentist asked me yesterday when I went for my checkup!"

I wasn't expecting too much out of the ordinary, after all, my colleague and I talk often and about everything. 

"He asked if the kids were getting smarter because most of his young clients tell him they are getting all As." My colleague then told me she sarcastically replied to her dentist, "Don't you know that A is the new average?"

We happened to be walking to our classrooms while having this conversation, and I promptly halted at the words, "A is the new average". It is very apparent that we have this issue on our campus, several factors involved: inflated grades, parent expectations, etc. But what shocked me was that for the first time the greater community was beginning to see the problem, meaning it is a huge problem.

I'm not going to get into why we have this problem or what should be done to combat it because I have learned that I can only affect what I can control, with the hope that by sharing what I do will slowly help to bring about change. So as part of my #youredustory blog challenge, I want to talk about how I will make the world a better place by staying true to my practice in my classroom.

Staying true to my practice means taking the emphasis, as much as I can, away from letter grades. It is so ingrained, with every activity or assignment garnering questions like, "How many points is this worth?" or "Is this worth a large part of my grade?". My response is always, "Do you plan on doing less than your best?". My students look at me like I've busted them somehow. Well, I have.

I've busted them for playing the game of school. My students have been conditioned to complete to do, not, complete to learn. Staying true to my practice means providing engaging learning opportunities that give my students purpose and authenticity. By no means have I mastered this, but I'm getting better. Our latest writing activity was writing book reviews that were published in our library. Only 1 student out of 166 asked the aforementioned questions. I'm making strides.

Staying true to my practice also means focusing on process, not product. Experience tells me that if I help my students focus on process, then naturally the final products will be their best work. I like to also help students realize that when you work, you use all the resources that are available. Halfway through the year and I am beginning to see students pull out resources, ask to use them, and begging for more time because they haven't gotten to use them yet.

Making the world a better place means helping my students realize their potential in spite of a grade system that has their focus in other places. The more I can empower a student to become a learner through the practices I use as a teacher, then little by little I have the potential to change the world through these empowered learners. 

To change the world, it is not likely that I will do anything on a grand scale. To change the world, I will make decisions on a small scale that will increases the chances of my students changing the world on a larger scale.

This is part of the #youredustory blog challenge. It's not too late to join.

The Week I Moderated #slowchatED

In my last post I introduced the twitter chat I was moderating the week of March 24, 2014: grading practices that encourage curiosity, risk taking, and help reduce the stigma of failure. Now I know that grading is a hot topic and selfishly I wanted to moderate because I needed to get my thoughts straight about grades. The conversation completely met my expectation. 

I first started off by getting participants to think about their own experience with grades from all perspectives: student, teacher, parent. I wasn't too surprised that most reacted the same way I felt, that grades don't really communicate the kind of learning that is really happening for our students. Several of us had negative feelings about grades on all three levels and thought that traditional grading practices just don't jive with what we are trying to get students to do. 

Next, I wanted to know what participants' grades truly reflected. I asked them to be honest. I know that no change can take place unless you "own" what it is you want changed. So, if we want to change the way our grading systems operate, we were going to have to own up to anything in our grades that caused them not to accurately reflect the learning we want to document from our students. Many teachers use rubrics and standard based grading, but several found that translating the rubric score into a percentage/letter grade just wasn't working and questioned the validity of the grade. I find myself in this boat. I strive to get my students away from the number, the letter, but ultimately it is the system we have. Peter Strawn said it best...

This is truly the conundrum and why our traditional system is flawed. Peter goes on to question...

I believe that students are so conditioned to go after the "A", but what does that mean? Most parents are also conditioned to think that if their child turns in all of their work that the child will receive an A. What has an "A" become? Documentation of compliance? This is where we, as professionals, will need to make sound, professional decisions. We know that we want our students to love learning, have several opportunities to reach proficiency, and not let failure deter them from success. We need to remember...

What I liked best about the conversation is that everyone was honest, helpful, and truly reflecting on their grading practices. One of my favorite questions asked participants to design their dream grading system. These responses are what grades should be all about:

This, too, is my dream and I plan to move more towards a system next year that fosters the love of learning and allows students to see their growth. I also want to involve the global community in that process, give my students a stage if you will. Feedback from more than the teacher is powerful. How am I going to do this? With baby steps. Goal #1:

It starts with creating the culture for learning. It will be hard to reprogram students and parents, but I am up to the challenge. The whole educational system is changing. The system used to grade the learning in that system needs to change too.


Bonus Material: One of my favorite tweets of the week:

This is a sign of good thought provoking conversation. #slowchatED is the perfect twitter chat that allows for deep thinking and the time to process all ideas. Kudos to David Theriault, the mastermind behind the chat, and may you find yourself involved in the conversation soon.

#slowchatED Week of 3/24/14

This week I'm moderating #slowchatED on twitter. It is great to have a chat where you can take a whole day to ponder a question, pop in and out, and have a wonderful conversation. I have long thought about grading in my classroom, realizing the way I received grades as a student is not the way I run my classroom now as a teacher. I have wanted to try standards based grading, but have often been the only one, or been flat out told "No" by an administrator who feared what parents would think. Well, it's time that I move beyond the philosophical and move towards real tangible strategies to use to make grades in my classroom be a true reflection of the kind of learning taking place for my students.

A few weeks ago Peter Strawn posted a great blog post, where he compared the game of soccer to learning. This solicited a comment from me and launched me into volunteering to moderate for #slowchatEd so I could have a conversation with anyone willing to participate. Then last week, I saw this tweet:

It seems as if students are beginning to understand the process of learning, seeing that traditional grading practices may not reflect what is really happening. So, this weeks #slowchatED will focus on grading practices that encourage curiosity, risk taking, and help reduce the stigma of failure.

Questions for the week are below and are subject to change, to reflect the flow of the conversation. 

• Q1 - What is your experience with grades? Positive,                    Negative? (as student, teacher, and/or parent)
• Q2 - What do your students' grades reflect? (completion,            mastery, practice, etc.)
• Q3 - Can traditional grades reflect the kind of                              learning we want from students? Do they allow                    for failure?
• Q4 - How can grades reflect curiosity and risk taking?                Should they?
• Q5 - How would you design your dream grading system?          What to include? Should you have one at all?
• Q6 - Based on this week's conversation. Will you change            your grading practices? Why/Why not? How?

Q1 will be tweeted Monday morning. Follow the #slowchatEd and join the conversation.