there's a systematic process to taking learning goals and breaking them down into rubrics used for assessment. it's not hard to figure out. just takes a lot of time and planning on the front end., like figuring out what processes and knowledge is required for proficiency in a learning goal...and then what advanced would be...and then what doing it with some gaps in understanding, major gaps, etc. Marzano describes the process. that's a general, vague explanation i know. sorry. if i have time later i can type some stuff up from the book. (i probably won't)

and you CAN use a 100 point scale with SBG. it just isn't close to ideal. a 100 point scale is not designed for mastery of learning goals.

you CAN ALSO misuse a rubric with crappy planning and design.

you CAN ALSO use A B C D with SBG, it's just not ideal and best designed to reflect mastery of learning goals

it's not that i am vehemently against the scale itself, whatever u choose. it's that i'm vehemently against the paradigm that often accompanies traditional grading and 100 point scales.

[Edited on November 17, 2010 at 7:56 PM. Reason : ]

11/17/2010 7:52:48 PM

Quote :

"you have a big rubric where learning goal 1.02, 1.04 is assessed, etc."

but can't the assessment itself be subjective?

two teachers can look at the exact same sentence written in a paper and see separate things?

[Edited on November 17, 2010 at 8:02 PM. Reason : refdsds]

11/17/2010 8:01:10 PM

Quote :

"it's that i'm vehemently against the paradigm that often accompanies traditional grading and 100 point scales."

Just so we're clear-- you hate the "know 70% of the material, make a 70" paradigm.

Quote :

"that's just wrong. at least it's not at all what is explained in Marzano's Formative Assessment and SBG book."

1. It's true to the WWI example you cited (level 1: TLW know...; level 2: TLW describe; level 3: TLW compare...; level 4: TLW create). It's also true to all the examples given to me during professional development.

2. You're going to have to make some arguments that stand on their own merit. Hours upon hours of professional development have led me to associate "Marzano" with "impractical bullshit."

EDIT: nice-- this thread has finally led me to do some research on Marzano. The last time he was a honest-to-goodness classroom teacher was 1971. How typical.

[Edited on November 17, 2010 at 8:49 PM. Reason : ]

11/17/2010 8:40:51 PM

As a teacher, I can say that the amount of people in this thread with their head up their ass is a 4 out of 4 on a 4 point scale.

JK I didn't even read most of it because I am too busy working on lessons for tomorrow.

11/17/2010 8:53:59 PM

Quote :

"i'm sorry, but if you get out into the real world, and your boss gives you a deadline and the person thinks to themselves "oh well, if i don't get it in, i'll just get it done later" nope not gonna fly."

If you underperform at your job, or don't perform at all, or if you're job gets outsourced to another country, or your company fails to turn a/enough profit, etc. then you get fired. The "real world" of work and the educational sphere are not the same. I think that most people realize that you leave high school with virtually no marketable skills. Even the carpentry/plumbing/etc. classes that one might take at a career center only cover things that most people would learn in 2 weeks - a month on the job. Why does education have to have deadlines?

Schools socialize children to be able to function in the real world among other people. The main function of schools is not to instill discipline. In all honesty, you could take a high school grad with a 4.0, NHS, 2500 hours of community service, and numerous other accolades and they would fare no better in the job market than a high school grad D student. No one gives a shit about how one performs in high school, other than college admissions committees.

Quote :

"My parents were completely unable to help me with my math and science courses. Did that mean I failed out of high school? No. I had a home environment that encouraged (ie forced) me to do my homework and prepare for school. If I could not, I was encouraged to approach the teacher for additional help. That's what having a good home environment is all about, not your parents being personal tutors."

Doing your homework isn't necessarily going to result in good grades. The things to which you are exposed can have a significant effect on how well you understood certain things on standardized tests. Working hard is admirable, and I'm not trying to diminish its importance, but parents who have the ability and are willing to help their kids with schoolwork are giving their kids a great advantage. The potential of a middle-class student who comes from a supportive and helpful environment is not necessarily greater than the potential of a lower-class student whose parents can't read. Their results, however, are dramatically different. Society isn't meritocratic, and schools should account for this.

Quote :

"A '100' on 10th grade material means mastery of the material. Same as getting a '4' on the rubric. I would hope college-level work would be able to show mastery of 10th grade material. Are you proposing the kid gets auto credit towards 11th grade? Or even college courses? This makes no sense at all. They show the same mastery of material. Should the college 10th grader get a 5 on the 4 point rubric? How about automatically enrolled in college? "

I think you missed my point. How does a teacher determine what warrants a grade of 100? Do you take the best paper and set that as a standard. If not, the ones who are performing at a college-level, for instance, are being cheated, and receiving the same grades as people who are performing 2-3 grade levels below them. AP classes can eliminate some of this, but look at the disparity in AP class offerings at different schools.

My main point is that their should be some sort of school option that is compatible with what was posted by the OP. If people want to work at their own pace to finish high school then so be it. This is about meeting the requirements to obtain a high school diploma. Schools shouldn't function as substitute parents.

11/17/2010 9:20:10 PM

11/17/2010 9:36:11 PM

and StateOz

Quote :

"Just so we're clear-- you hate the "know 70% of the material, make a 70" paradigm. "

yes, i do hate this. because you cannot at all align this to the fact that our job is to assess the learning goals as they are defined by SCOS.

covering "material" and then assessing how much "material" they know fits in well with EOC courses. so a 100 point scale works with these low level-regurgitate facts expectations.

so i understand your dilemma. you are required to teach kids to regurgitate information for EOC multiple choice tests. at the same time, you have pressure (from district personnel, from Marzano and other educators, from people like me) to actually make sure you're kids are learning the learning goals, which are mostly high level, i think.

the "know 70% of the material, make a 70" paradigm absolutely does not work with learning goals, as i've already said.

(we could have an argument on whether the learning goals are credible in the first place. personally i think they are, and i think the EOCs for the most part do not align with the LG)

Quote :

"but can't the assessment itself be subjective? two teachers can look at the exact same sentence written in a paper and see separate things?"

not really. not if the teacher is doing a good job at their job anyway. there are pretty concrete ways of telling if a student has met a learning goal or not if the teacher has taken enough time (breaking down learning goal into scaffolded assessments, checking nationally standardized test banks and exemplars, etc.)

[Edited on November 17, 2010 at 10:23 PM. Reason : oh, and StateOz speaks the truth. Me gusta!]

11/17/2010 10:20:12 PM

I wish they did this when I was a kid.
It would have saved me like 4 days a year of pretending to feel bad about not caring about school.

11/18/2010 12:55:52 AM

Quote :

"How does a teacher determine what warrants a grade of 100? Do you take the best paper and set that as a standard. "

i dont think this is the case (all of the time at least)
in both college and highschool i was in a few classes where no one in the class got an A.
i've also been in a few classes where almost everyone got an A.


i think i understand the rubic system youre talking about...but i do think that youre forgetting that most of the time when teachers pad grades or curve-it's to appease school boards and parents. when that happens is when youngins start passing when they don't deserve it.....regardless of the grading system you use.

ie- i had a professor who was put on probation and threaten termination b/c he failed too many students.....he started grading on a different scale after that....my point-he would have graded lighter whether it was out of 100 or rubic.

[Edited on November 18, 2010 at 8:04 AM. Reason : dtf]

11/18/2010 8:00:03 AM

^ Truth. I had this same situation at the school I was working for. Students there are used to being handed passing grades. I came along and started giving tests that required that they actually understood what was taught in class. Most of my students failed my first test because they didn't bother studying. The next test the students had done much better. Yet my department head told me I wasn't allowed to fail any of the students "because we don't do that here." Doesn't matter what scale I use at that point. Might as well not even give exams

11/18/2010 9:54:34 AM

Quote :

"How does a teacher determine what warrants a grade of 100?"

With a rubric. Why are rubrics and 100 point scales exclusive? It seems like its just a more precise version of what ohmy is talking about.

11/18/2010 10:21:54 AM

Quote :

"Doing your homework isn't necessarily going to result in good grades. "

Practice makes perfect. Several studies show correlation between increased homework/study time and increased test performance. You don't take some kid from a "supportive middle class family" and he automatically gets A's and gets into college without doing any work. The kids have to work and learn the material. Take any kid from any class, make him do his work, and he will get better. If homework isn't going to help get better grades then why do homework? Let's remove homework from schools instead of "F"s and see what happens.

Quote :

"The things to which you are exposed can have a significant effect on how well you understood certain things on standardized tests. Working hard is admirable, and I'm not trying to diminish its importance, but parents who have the ability and are willing to help their kids with schoolwork are giving their kids a great advantage. The potential of a middle-class student who comes from a supportive and helpful environment is not necessarily greater than the potential of a lower-class student whose parents can't read. Their results, however, are dramatically different."

So you're saying that in order to succeed, a kid has to have parents do their work for them? I succeeded just fine. My parents were incapable of helping me on work. They had no idea what was going on. For all intents and purposes my parents were illiterate. Did I fail out? No. They just said "do your work". I don't understand what you're getting at, besides a kid who has a supportive environment may have more success in school (that is, parents not doing their homework for them, but instead parents making the kid sit down and do their own work).

Quote :

"Society isn't meritocratic, and schools should account for this."

What the hell is this. "Hey kid, you're from a low income family. You're going into this class automatically." Are you trying to say that teachers should be raising these kids? They have after school tutoring, office hours, what more do you want? One kid asked this teacher I know if the teacher could adopt her. Let's start doing that. "Removing kids from homes" instead of "F"s. Brilliant.

11/18/2010 11:07:27 AM

nm

[Edited on November 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM. Reason : ]

11/18/2010 11:14:09 AM

Quote :

"not really. not if the teacher is doing a good job at their job anyway. there are pretty concrete ways of telling if a student has met a learning goal or not if the teacher has taken enough time (breaking down learning goal into scaffolded assessments, checking nationally standardized test banks and exemplars, etc.)"

So when we really get down to it, the problem is teachers that don't set clear and specific objectives and goals for their assignments and tests rather than any one particular grading scale or system?

11/18/2010 2:11:53 PM

I'm late to discussion, but in theory I agree with this concept

Quote :

"The change in educational philosophy is intended to encourage students to continue working toward mastery of material rather than accepting a failing grade and moving on."

My HS Jr & Sr English teacher quizzed us every week on grammar. If you didn't make a 90 or above, you retook the test the following week.* It could be pretty maddening if you had not "passed" and were slammed with 3+ quizzes every Friday.

*I'm not saying her methods have made me an expert grammarian today, but I sure as hell made sure I knew my shit that week.

11/19/2010 7:23:39 AM