On Friday Report Cards for the first quarter of the
school year were released. Parents and students alike logged into SchoolTool,
locked their eyes onto the grades for each class and made a personal judgment
of whether those numbers were ‘good’, ‘bad’ or somewhere in-between. The
unfortunate thing about grades is that it is very difficult to give an accurate
reflection of an individual student as a learner with just a number. Yet, we
get so focused on the number we don’t often stop to think about the learning
taking place.
Take these two scenarios: Mike has a 97 in Science
class. He does all of his homework and he does well on tests and labs. He’s
engaged in classroom conversations, but he came into the school year with a
great deal of background knowledge on the subject matter. As a result, he doesn’t
need to put in a great deal of time or effort into the class because it comes
so easy for him. The 97 is a nice number, but there may not be a great deal of
learning taking place. Steve has a 68 in English class. He works very hard,
completes all of his homework, but really struggles with writing. Over the course
of the first quarter his hard work is starting to pay off. His writing and
reading comprehension are improving and a significant amount of learning and
growth is taking place. These are two very different grades telling two very
different stories. If you focus just on the number you don’t see the entire
picture and you can lose sight of the individual as a learner.
I’m not proposing that we throw grades out at this
point, but looking at them differently is a must. As educators we are changing
how we look at grades and how we ultimately give grades to students. We are
moving away from the days of “getting stuff done” and compliance as the
measuring stick for student performance. Our assessments are more authentic in
nature, students are engaged in much more rigorous and relevant learning
opportunities across all content areas, we are giving on-going, specific
feedback to students in order to promote growth, and the focus is much more
about essential skills than it is short term memory and regurgitating. It’s
about the process of learning and all of the experiences tied to it.
We need to start talking about the learning and
focus less on the numbers. High grades do not necessarily equate to more
learning just as lower grades do not necessarily equate to less learning and it
is very difficult to give an accurate reflection of an individual student as a
learner with a single number. Most of us would agree that our students are more
than just the number they receive from State Assessments, so we also need to
embrace the idea that our students are more than the grades on their report
cards.
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| Build 'em & Bust 'em |
Our students take part in a wide variety of
activities that can’t be quantified with a number. How do you put a number on
the incredible experiences our students have as part of our athletic teams or
as part of our performing groups or the musical or our many clubs or an Olweus
Classroom Meeting? Just this past weekend we had students participating in the
‘Build ‘em and Bust ‘em’ Bridge Building/Engineering competition at the MOST, another group of students participating in a First LEGO League competition
in Mexico (the school district, not the country) and starting Thursday evening 120 of our students will kick-off three performances of the musical, The Happy Elf.
These are just three examples
of the many amazing experiences our students are involved with as an extension
of the classroom experience. I would argue that the learning that took place in
preparation for these events and during these events might be greater than
experiences that are reflected in their report cards. It really is about
perspective. As adults we need to look at the whole picture, look at each
student individually as a learner, and not get so hung up on the numbers.  |
| LEGO Competition |
The current system has us trying to communicate growth
and learning in numbers. It isn’t easy and it isn’t perfect, but we continue to
work on it. As parents we need to continue to talk to our children about school
and their learning, not just about grades.
Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
@Sdunhamwgms
sdunham@westgenesee.org
