Grading in the Classroom: It’s Time for Change

It’s scary to talk about grading in the classroom

I want to talk about something that teachers tend to be very territorial about: grading. Talking about grading is hard. Our grades are sacred – they are the final word on whether, in our professional opinion, our students demonstrated success in our classroom. The Grade Book is often the one aspect of our classrooms that teachers have total control over, and it also holds a lot of power – one 59% can change a students’ life in innumerable ways. So, teachers ( myself included) are naturally very defensive when asked to talk about or grading practices. Funnily enough, we are rarely, if ever, actually TAUGHT how to grade. If we are to make grading in the classroom meaningful, though, it’s time for a drastic change in our approach.

When I first started teaching, I graded just as my cooperating teachers had done during my student teaching ( and the same way I had been graded as a student myself). I assigned grades to every single assignment, taking off points for lateness or an incorrect heading, sloppy handwriting, etc. Once I entered a grade in the Grade Book, there was no changing it. I offered extra credit randomly. I used rubrics for essays, but I always included an “effort” criteria so that I could have some flexibility. I thought this system worked, because it was the same system I had learned under, the same system my instructors used. When I looked at my Grade Book at the end of the quarter, the number of zeros for missing assignments was staggering. But enough students passed with decent grades that I thought, “My systems are fine, students just need to do the work on time.” 

My epiphany

Year after year, I encountered the same issues but I held steadfast to my beliefs around grading. In 2019 I started teaching seniors at a rural school in Massachusetts, where I suddenly experienced a slew of other issues that had little to do with academics, but had very real consequences when it came to grades. I could expect between 5-10 students absent each class, with many of them chronically so. Some because they were couch surfing with no permanent residence, others because they had no support system at home to get them up in time for school, and still others because they had to work during the day to help pay bills. I encountered students with significant reading and learning gaps who were simply not successful independent readers and had little support at home in order to get work done outside of class. A majority of my students were not in my class for the sake of intellectual improvement. They were there because the state told them they had to be, so they were simply collecting enough points to pass my class so they could be done with school. Put simply, learning was not happening for a majority of my students – and isn’t that what education is supposed to be about?

They were not in my class for the sake of intellectual improvement. They were there because the state told them they had to be, so they were simply collecting enough points to pass my class.

I was frustrated because I couldn’t understand why students wouldn’t want to learn, why they would work for a 60% and then stop. I thought that it was a community belief that had nothing to do with me, and that the only thing I could do was hold the line until the students figured it out. When the pandemic hit, our students suddenly more access than ever before. They had remote login options, they all had Chromebooks and wifi. Every lesson was recorded and every assignment available to students whether they came to class or not.

But nothing changed. Students still turned in work late, and students still didn’t come to class. Students who did work did the bare minimum without any real curiosity or interest in improving their skills. They still weren’t seeking o learn, they were just point-collecting. I looked at my gradebook, and it was dismal. Even without taking points off for late work, the average grade in each class was a D.

Self- reflection

If, I thought, most of my students were only earning D’s, I have to do something different. Honestly, until that point I didn’t even know there was anything I could do about my gradebook. The more I thought about it, the more I understood that there was no fundamental reason I couldn’t change my grading system to better support my students. But to really do it in a valid, consistent, and equitable way I needed to know more.

I started by reading the books Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman and Point-Less by Sarah M. Zerwin. The more I read, the more questions I had, and the more digging I began to do. It became clear that the concerns I had about my students were not unique to me. The crisis of students working to “earning points,” not learn, are not isolated beliefs, they are prevalent in schools across the country. Even worse, there is research that has told us for years that the way we grade is detrimental for students in so many ways, and yet little has been done to change it. There are ideas, and small movements here and there, but there are so many bigger things that keep this archaic system in place – from the college application process down to teachers’ own values – that make changing the way we grade a difficult topic to even discuss, let alone dismantle. I decided to start small, and learn by trial and error what could work. After all, I figured, we are already in a state of constant trial and error with hybrid teaching, playing with my grading practices would hardly be noticed.

Some of the changes I made came explicitly from those books. I:

• Included due dates as suggestions for students, but accepted all work any time.
• Gave immediate feedback by scoring each assignment on a rubric, and allowing students to redo any assignment where they were unsatisfied with their grade.
• Implemented semi self- paced learning, so that students were freer to master skills and content on their own timeline, rather than copy someone else’s work or be forced skip ahead to where I was and miss critical skills.

The result

By the end of the year, there was a palpable change in my classroom. Almost every student was mastering enough content to pass, and I was seeing a lot fewer zeros in my Gradebook overall. My relationships with chronically absent students grew because they felt comfortable asking for help, knowing there was still hope for them to pass if they were committed to doing the work. It was messy, and I made a lot of mistakes as I tried to figure out what worked for my students. In the end, this period of trial- and error gave me the courage to continue to change my grading practices because I could see my baby steps were working. It was so strange, because the entire year I had this feeling that I was breaking rules by going against many of the grading values I developed during my own school experience. If I kept this up, I felt like I could affect meaningful change in outcomes for my students.

I have held a firm belief since the beginning of my teaching career that the education system was, at best not meeting the needs of modern students and at worst perpetuating systemic racism and cultural assimilation towards a very narrow view of what academic achievement looks like. I believe that we teachers have the power to make changes in our own classrooms regardless of the state of the federal systems of education in which we participate. Making changes can seem like battling a many – headed Medusa – the more heads you defeat, twice as many seem to appear. I myself had no idea where to even find a sword. I have come to the conclusion that the best place to start is the one tool that teachers usually have the most autonomy over: grading. 

What happens now?

Over the next several weeks, I hope to make a case for every teacher to rethink their grading practices as they relate to the students we teach now. Not who we were as students, not who we think our students should be. As I will discuss, the logic of  “traditional” systems of grading are fundamentally flawed and only benefit a small number of our privileged students. The students who stand to benefit the most from public education (i.e. upward mobility) are often told through their grades that  they are not academically inclined and are left to fend for themselves or slip through the cracks. This HAS to change.

I hope that you’ll join me on this reflective journey as I share my research and commentary on the following:

1. How our current grading system evolved and why it persists
2. How our current grading systems reflect implicit bias
3. The relationship between grades and student motivation
4. A new definition of grading and achievement
5. Grading for equity and justice: success and achievement of skills and content
6. Teaching soft skills successfully without grading

I’d love for you to join the conversation! If you’re curious, I HIGHLY suggest reading Grading for Equity before or as you read my blog posts. It is a moving and thought- provoking examination of the grading system and how we can change it. This is where I started with my own research. What has been your experience with measuring student success through grading during pandemic teaching? Leave your thoughts below, or DM me on the gram! I would love to hear from you.