MR. G - Blogs
Standard’s Based Grading: A No-Nonsense ExplanationStandards Based Grading (SBG) is a tool that has been used by teachers in the past to assess students, and it has recently been incorporated into BC’s new curriculum specifically pertaining to the Core Competencies. In this explanation, I want to give some background on why I think SBG is a useful tool in the classroom and how I plan to use it this year to assess students.SBG can be understood through a familiar analogy. When you search a business on Google, a rating appears just below the name of the business. It is a rating out of 5 stars. 5 stars is excellent; 1 star is not very good. This is great if you want a general impression of what others think about the business, but it doesn’t provide much more than that. If the business has 4 stars, it is not immediately clear why. Was it the customer service? Maybe the hours of operation are limited, or wait times are really long. In order to determine why a business received its rating, you would have to read through the hundreds, or even thousands, of comments. These comments explain exactly what the business owners would have to do if they were interested in improving the rating of their business. Google’s rating system is quick, simple and easy to understand, but doesn’t provide much more than a general impression.Contrast this to another website that uses a 5-star rating system: Airbnb. Airbnb is a website that allows people to rent out their houses to visitors and receive payment from those visitors. The website mediates the transaction and ensures both parties are satisfied at the end. Each listing on the website has a rating, similar to Google, but Airbnb breaks this down further into categories: Accuracy, Cleanliness, Communication, Location, Check-In, and Value. The listing is rated separately in each category. Now guests have more information in an easy to understand format. Perhaps a listing has great ratings in all categories except Communication. This tells guests that they might have to wait a long time for responses from their host, or maybe the host does not speak other languages and has trouble communicating effectively. Now the guest can decide if this is a concern, or if a low rating in this category is less important to them. It also gives the host an idea of how they might improve. If a host’s listing has a low rating on Cleanliness, they should look at the comments to see how they might improve in that category. It also tells them they don’t have to focus on improving the categories where they already have a high rating. Google’s rating system is very similar to traditional grading methods. The student receives a grade at the top of the test, which gives a general impression of their performance. However, if they want specific feedback on what they are doing well, and what areas they need to improve, they need to go through the test and try to analyze where they struggled. SBG is more similar to Airbnb’s system. Each unit is broken into different Learning Goals, similar to the categories used for rating each listing. Each question on an assessment tests the student on a Learning Goal. By the end of a quiz or test, there is clear feedback on what Learning Goals the student is struggling with, and how they can improve. Now, a student can focus on improving those areas specifically. I will be using colours instead of stars to indicate different levels of performance. I go into detail about these categories in a table in another document, but here is a brief summary. Green is a fully correct solution with clear and complete reasoning. Blue is a mostly correct solution, with minor errors or incomplete reasoning shown. Yellow is a somewhat correct solution, with at least one major error, but with some understanding of concepts demonstrated. Pink is a solution that is largely incorrect or where no work is shown. These colors are used for each Learning Goal in each unit, so they are very general by design. Each color corresponds to a letter grade as shown in the table.At the end of a unit, each student tabulates evidence of performance for each Learning Goal. I then sit down with each student to go over the evidence and we agree on an overall score for each Learning Goal, then for the unit as a whole. This system makes sure that the mark for the unit is a reflection of their level of understanding, taking into account all the different Learning Goals in the unit. This system does not take into account study habits or homework completion. This will be reflected in the Work Habits grade on the report card. If you have any questions, please speak with your student and do not hesitate to contact me at pgustainis@vsb.bc.ca. ................
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