“Rigor” is one of those education buzzwords that we hear all the time as teachers. We’re all expected to provide rigorous opportunities without a common definition of the term. Often, as I speak with educators and administrators about rigor, I notice a lot of inconsistencies and misconceptions in describing what rigor actually means. I’m here to debunk the myths about rigor and provide a clear definition as a starting point to creating truly rigorous classroom environments. Rigor is, in essence, creating an academically, intellectually, and personally challenging learning environment ( Williamson & Blackburn, 2013). It means not only providing rich, complex tasks that encourage curiosity, risk-taking, and high engagement, but…
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It’s Time to Get Rid of Extra Credit
When I first started teaching, I offered all kinds of random extra credit. If students brought me supplies, like tissues. If students saw a movie related to the novel we were studying in class. If students finished their work early, and I had them do random tasks around the classroom. I also had enrichment tasks ready for extra credit too. It took me a long time to realize that my extra credit opportunities were inequitable, and let me to get rid of extra credit. Let me explain why. WHY DO STUDENTS ASK FOR EXTRA CREDIT? What I came to realize, though was that the opportunities I was giving were unfair…
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How To: 5 Tips for Equitable and Meaningful Grading
After I read Grading For Equity and started my own research into the way we assign grades in the United States, I was eager to systematically evaluate each of my grading policies. Ultimately, I wanted to read every policy I have and be able to answer yes when I ask: does this policy support a final grade that provides a summary of student academic accomplishment in my course? Below are the steps I took along my journey to a more equitable and meaningful grading system. If you are interested in doing the same, I hope this helps you along the way! 1. Get to know the community in which you…
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Ditch These 5 Biased Grading Policies Now
What does a grade represent? In reality, grades don’t mean what we think they do. What we experienced as students and brought into our own class are largely biased grading policies that harm many of our students. In so many classrooms in schools across the country, a grade could represent any combination of the following: how many absences the student had the number of mistakes made early on in the quarter ( regardless of how much their skills grew toward the end) The student’s ability to get to class on time How often students turned in late work, regardless of their understanding of the material Teacher’s implicit biases toward students…
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The History of Grading in the US – What You Need to Know
In my quest to understand how I could make my grades have more meaning and be truly representative of my students’ success I had to ask – how did we get here? What does a grade “A” represent? Why does any number from 0-59 mean an F, but only 80 – 89 equal a B? The only answer I could come up with was “That’s the way it’s always been done.” Any rational human knows that is not usually a good enough reason to do something. So, if I couldn’t explain WHY I graded on an A-F scale, how could I justify ANY of the grades I gave to my…
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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,…
