After the April Staff Collaboration morning, we received some requests for more information about Proficiency-Based Grading. Attached is a collection of articles we found useful, as well as some of the documents we created. Many of the articles refer to Standards-Based Grading... this is a movement (in the US) to assess on proficiency levels for EVERY learning outcome in the curriculum. Crazy talk! Many of the structures of SBG apply equally to teachers using fewer curricular organizers.
Please note that there are a few different level systems (some of this is from IB, some from Marzano, some from elsewhere...) and that different proponents have their own systems of converting levels to percentages when that is needed. As a result, you'll have to shift your thinking to each author's system. The philosophies have a lot of overlap, though!
Please let us know if you're interested in delving deeper. We're happy to share more about our experience.
-Tanya, Alex, Kevin
Verbs that elicit thinking at different performance levels.
An example of how to communicate this process to students and parents
The following articles are available through our EBSCO database.
Just copy and paste the title into the search box.
Chappuis, J. (2005). Helping Students Understand Assessment. Educational Leadership, 63(3), 39-43.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T. (2011). Grades That Show What Students Know. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 34.
Scriffiny, P. L. (2008). Seven Reasons for Standards-Based Grading. Educational Leadership, 66(2), 70.
Winger, T. (2005). Grading to Communicate. Educational Leadership, 63(3), 61.
Dueck, M. (2014) Grading Smarter Not Harder: Assessment strategies that motivate kids and help them learn. Alexandria, VA: ASCD
*Dueck is an administrator in Penticton. He has a lot of strategies for implementing these assessment philosophies, whether you switch to proficiency-based grading or not.
Marzano, R. (2006). Classroom Assessment & Grading that Work. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
*Marzano's book is in the resource section of the Sutherland library. It's much more technical than the other books on this list, but he's the guru of SBG.
O’Connor, K. (2009) How To Grade For Learning K-12, 3rd Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
*This book collects lots of other research and examples into one handy place, and puts them together to tell a compelling story about assessment.
Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work by