Today, I was a part of my first, formal professional development day. Since we are the only high school in the school district, these don't happen very often. Each department has PLCs every few weeks, but this has been the first time I've seen all of the faculty together and had conversations with people outside of Foreign Language.
The major topic of discussion today was formative assessment, and in particular, proficiency scales. The idea is to create levels by which you can classify students according to their skills. The teachers are using a four-point scale, with three being the goal for every student, and four, the above and beyond.
The proficiency scales have a positive connotation. They list skills students have already achieved at various levels and never state deficiencies. However, the student can look at the level beyond where they're at to see where they can go next.
Sounds like a good idea to me, in theory. Teachers benefit: they can use them to think critically about where their students are, where they want them to be, and how they have to adjust curriculum to get there. Students benefit: they know what they are capable of now, and they are given a goal to work towards. Parents benefit, too: they get more specific information about how their students are doing, and they know areas where they can help their students to develop. They are good ways to increase communication between parent/student/teacher and a way to get everyone on the same page.
However, as one teacher was presenting her example, she mentioned how she presented the scales to her class. She explained how they worked, and then told them that "four is similar to 100%, and 3 is about 91%," etc. And everyone started asking questions about whether these were grades, and if they needed to be aligned with the classroom grade, and how they translate to an A-F scale. And then we really lost sight of the goal of proficiency scales.
In one of our group discussions today, we considered this quote: "Learning stops as soon as the grade is given." It's counter-intuitive to make proficiency scales into grades. They'll take the grade, accept that that's their level, and be done with it. The students who won't will be the students already at the 3rd level.
Maybe the students shouldn't even be presented with a number; maybe they should just see the categories, or be given a list of strengths, and a list of areas of development. The numbers seem to be lending to a grade. It's always about a grade in school. Even some teachers struggle with the idea of an evaluation without a number value. While I believe in the idea of proficiency scales, I have my doubts about their practicality in the classroom. I really hope that they don't end up being another grading scale and can be used for their original purpose, but it's going to take a lot of thinking outside of the box.
Malyssa,
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be so nice if students went to school and did the work just out of the benefit of learning? I think the "all powerful grade" can be such a downer. Students are constantly told they need to have that "passing grade." Awards are always given to the +A student and you also hear about parents giving students extra money for good grades or taking things away for the bad grades. I would love a school where grade wasn't the factor because students will work to the level they think is "ok" and just coast there. I think grades also give students that feeling they are not good enough when someone else gets a better score. I do like the idea of the 4 point scale that the teachers are developing. Could the students create their own rubric or goals to achieve? It would take time out of the curriculum to teach students how to set the goals and how to create a rubric for themselves but it seems that if they can create it they could possibly take more ownership over it. Keep us updated on how it goes!
We use a similar scale for 1st grade, but we used it a little differently. In 1st grade, we had an intervention block where we worked on SLE's.
ReplyDelete1.We would pick an SLE the students needed work in.
2.We would make and give an assessment to students to see their knowledge of the SLE.
3.We would split the students based on the assessment by the 4point scale to see who needed the most help and who would benefit from more exploration on the SLE.
4.We would evaluate students after one week to see their progress.
I think using the scale this way works out well, but the idea of using it as a report of skills sounds like a great idea. It would help everyone stay on the same page, like you said, and hopefully keep students motivated to want to move up higher in the scale. I am also interested in how this turns out so keep us updated!!
So it seemes like you have experienced the jy of sitting in a meeting and not accomplishing anything. I agree with you that scales like these are a good way to communicate progress between students teachers and parents. However, as long as there are numbers, studetns will assume that they are grades. Beyond that, if there is a limit (i.e. four is the highest score) then studetns might lose sight of the purpose of the scale (to see where they are so they can improve). Who knows what the answer is. All teachers can do is keep throwing out suggestions and hope that something will stick.
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