1
Grading and Differentiation:
Reconcilable Differences?
A Practitioner’s
Journey
Carol Tomlinson
University of Virginia
To Untangle the Grading KnotWe need to consider two elements:
1) Grading issues of particular concern in a differentiated
classroom
2) Best practices in assessment
and grading
3) Whether best practices in assessment
& grading would adequately address
the issues related to grading &
differentiation.
Unless we understand both the issues related to academically diverse classrooms and best practices in assessment & grading (and theirinterrelationship) we’ll stay tied in a knot! And unless the former leads us to solve the latter, we have a problem as well.
2
The power of grades to impact
students’ lives creates a
responsibility for giving grades
in a way that reflects both
assessment best practice &
sensitivity to the human
beings we teach.
3
Some ?s about Grading &
Academic Diversity! How do learners benefit from a grading system that reminds everyone
that students who speak English as a second language do not perform
as well as students without disabilities or for whom English is not
their native tongue?
! What do we gain by telling our most able learners that they are
“excellent” on the basis of a standard that requires modest effort,
calls for n intellectual risk, necessitates no persistence, and demands
that they develop few academic coping skills?
! In what ways do our current grading practices motivate struggling or
advanced learners to persist in the face of difficulty?
! Is there an opportunity for struggling learners to encounter excellence
in our current grading practices?
! Is there an opportunity for advanced learners to encounter struggle in
our current grading practices?
Tomlinson
What is Fair in School?
Making Sure Everyone is Treated Exactly Alike?
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What’s Fair?Daniel was born with legs that won’t carry him.
What’s fair about that?
Juan’s dad doesn’t smile because his back is too tired from picking beans or apples or whatever is growing in somebody’s field in the next place.
Roy doesn’t have a dad, smiling or not.
What’s fair about that?
Elise doesn’t talk. She doesn’t know the language of the lunchroom table, so she has no voice. No friends.
Lavon doesn’t talk because he’s afraid. His mom is sick and maybe won’t get well. He is silent but his eyes get darker every day.
Jessie has a head full of ideas that should make him happy and probably would if there were someone to talk to about them. Allthose ideas make a wall between him and the people who step back when he talks.
What’s Fair?Matthias is sixteen now. He’s been an indentured servant to the alphabet for
over a decade. There is no end to his bondage in his view.
Lindeen means to make people happy and takes the wrong path every time she tries. All the kids hate her. She must know her compass is broken. She looks sad all the time, unless it is scared.
Derek is good in math and poor and Black and doesn’t know how to make the pieces of a life he imagines come together in the dreams he doesn’t tell his friends about because maybe they’d be mad. And they’re what he has and he can’t risk the loss of them.
What’s fair in those worlds?
What’s fair anywhere?
And all those lives come together in the place called school where fair is everything.
What is fair in the place that demands all those lives that know little of fairness when they come?
Tomlinson ‘04
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What is Fair in School?
1. What role should “fair” play in school?
2. What would “fair” mean in school in order for
school to work for the full diversity of
learners?
3. How does “fair” generally work in schools
now? How does that definition of fair play
out for various learners?
4. What would “fair” mean in regard to grades?
All learners need
a balanced success
to effort ratio
6
Struggling
Learners:
Heavy Effort
Little Success
Advanced
Learners:
Great Success,
Little Effort
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The Unspoken Effect of Grades
For some students, the certainty of praise
and success in school has become a drug;
they continually need more.
For many other students, year upon year of
“not good enough” has eroded their
intellectual self-confidence and resulted in
a kind of mind-numbing malaise.
Earl, L. (2003). Assessment as learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, p. 15.
What role should grades
play in regard to the
“success to effort” ratio?
In other words, can we
do anything to moderate
negative motivational
effects of grades?
8
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A Guide for Grown-Ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint Exupery
A belief in effort-based achievement is critical to success in school…
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Essential Question: To what degree would adhering to the key principles of
effective grading address the differentiation-related concerns about grading
while eliminating error and communicating clearly to students & parents?
We should seek to ensure that grades are:
1)RELIABLE—
That is, that if we were to use the same
measure a couple of days, weeks, or months
later, the results would be relatively the same
for a given student.
2) VALID—
That is, we actually measured what we meant
to measure.
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X = T + E
The Observed Score = the True Score + Error
The Grade We Give Really Indicates What the Student
Knows, Understands, and Can Do + Extraneous Factors
that Get in the Way of Indicating Precisely What the
Student Knows, Understands and Can Do.
For Grades to Be Valid, We Have to Do All We Can Do
to Eliminate Error.
That’s the Game Plan for Grading: To Ensure that Our
Grades are as Close as Possible to the Student’s
“True Score.”
To Minimize Error, We Need to Attend to:
Grading Variables:Eliminate any confusion about what the student will be expected to know,
understand, and do. Is the learning target absolutely clear?
Reporting Variables:Ensure that we report out clearly the factors that give a clear
multi-dimensional perspective on a particular student as a learner. Are
audiences clear about the student’s development as a learner?
“Knowing the Kid” Variables: Ensure that we adapt instruction based on accurate information in order to
support students in attaining the learning target. Am I doing what I can do
as a teacher to make sure the student has the best possible chance to hit
the learning target?
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Let’s examine
six key principles
of best-practice grading
to see if they would
help us eliminate
error, address concerns that
arise in regard to grading &
differentiation, & help balance
the success to effort ratio.
Principles of Effective Grading & Reporting
Principle #1
• It’s unwise to
over-grade
student work
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Diagnostic/Pre-assessment - assessment which takes place
prior to instruction; designed to determine a student's
attitude, skills or knowledge in order to identify student
needs.
Formative/On-Going - Assessment designed to provide
direction for improvement and/or adjustment to a
program for individual students or for a whole class,
e.g. observation, quizzes, homework, instructional
questions, exit cards, initial drafts/attempts, etc..
Summative/Final - Assessment/evaluation designed to
provide information to be used in making judgment
about a student’s achievement at the end of a
sequence of instruction, e.g. final drafts/attempts,
tests, exams, assignments, projects, performances.
To Avoid Over-Grading
• Never grade pre-assessments
– Students have had no opportunity to learn
• Grade on-going assessments sparely
– Students need opportunity to practice, analyze work,
& learn from errors in a safe context
• Use summative assessments as primary data
for grading
– Make sure assessments are squarely focused on the
criteria specified to students (KUDs)
13
Students can be assessed or checked
on many things they do…
BUTeverything that is assessed and/or
checked does not need a score…
AND
every score should not be included in
the grade.
Kinds of feedback: Israel (1)
• 264 low and high ability year 7 pupils in 12 classes in 4 schools; analysis of 132 students at top and bottom of each class
• Same teaching, same aims, same teachers, same class work
• Three kinds of feedback: marks, comments, marks+comments
[Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol., 58 1-14]
Feedback Gain Attitude
grades none top +ve
none bottom -ve
comments 30% all +ve
both none top +ve
none bottom -ve
From a presentation by Dylan Wiliam - “Inside the Black Box”
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Principles of Effective Grading & Reporting
Principle #2
Grades should be
based on clearly
specified learning
goals
Clear Learning Goals Are:
• Known to the student and teacher throughout the learning cycle
• Essential rather than tangential or trivial
• The unambiguous focus of assessments
• The focus of feedback
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“Systems that are aligned - curriculum,
teaching, and assessment - have a
greater chance of success for students.”
Glenda Lappan, NCTM News Bulletin, October, 1998
Principles of Effective Grading & Reporting
Principle #3
Grades should be
criterion-based,
not norm-based
16
Perhaps the most serious
negative consequences
of traditional grading practices
have come from the use of
normative comparisons.
Preparing Teachers for A Changing World • Editors Darling-Hammond and John Bransford
Press. -Jossey-Bass • San Francisco. CA • P. 304
(1 of 4)
In a series of studies, Butler (1987, 1988)
and Butler and Nisan (1986) found that
normatively distributed grades resulted in
lower interest, less willingness to persist,
and lower performance compared
feedback.
Preparing Teachers for A Changing World • Editors Darling-Hammond and John Bransford • Jossey-Bass •San Francisco. CA • p.304
(2 of 4)
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Preparing Teachers for A Changing World • Editors Darling-Hammond and John Bransford • Jossey-Bass •San Francisco. CA • p. 304
(3 of 4)
In a classic study, Harackiewicz, Abrahams,
and Wageman (1987) found that evaluation
based on social norms reduced interest in a
task whereas evaluation based on achieving
a predetermined standard increased interest.
Preparing Teachers for A Changing World • Editors Darling-Hammond and John Bransford • Jossey-Bass •San Francisco. CA • P. 304
(4 of 4)
In a classic study, Harackiewicz, Abrahams,
and Wageman (1987) found that evaluation
based on social norms reduced interest in a
task whereas evaluation based on achieving
a predetermined standard increased interest.
Stipek’s (1996) general conclusion from this literature was
that evaluation, especially of difficult tasks, tends to
undermine intrinsic interest. However, the exception she
identified is noteworthy and foreshadows our own
recommendations for grading practices: “Substantive
evaluation that provides information about competencies
and guidance for future efforts, and evaluation that is
based on mastery rather than social norms, however,
appear not to have these negative effects and can even
enhance intrinsic interest in academic tasks.”
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In Norm-Based Grading Systems
The Human Factor Suffers:
• There will necessarily be winners and losers competing for scarce rewards.
• The implications for learning environment are predictably negative.
• The outcomes for both struggling and advanced learners carry high negatives as well.
In Norm-Based Grading Systems
Clarity of Communication Suffers
• A student might receive an “A” for being the best
performer in a group of low performers. An “A”
thus becomes the “best worst.”
• A student might make a “C” despite quality work
because the group of students is so strong. A
“C” then begins to mean, “Knows the stuff, but
doesn’t look so great compared to
the others.”
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“Grading on the curve makes learning a highly competitive
activity in which students compete against one another for
the few scarce rewards (high grades) distributed by the
teacher. Under these conditions, students readily see that
helping others become successful threatens their own
chances for success. As a result, learning becomes a game of
winners and losers; and because the number of rewards is
kept arbitrarily small, most students are forced to be
losers.”
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning: The 1996 ASCD Yearbook),
ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 18-19
Using a Criterion-Base for Grading
• Makes the meaning of grades clearer
• Removes the need for
winners and losers
• Helps align instruction
& grading
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Principles of Effective Grading and
Reporting
Principle # 4
Data used for grading
must be valid (measure
what we intend to measure).
That is, the data must be free
of “Grade Fog.”
Five Quality Standards for Assessment
•appropriate and clear target
•clear purpose
•method(s) matched to target (and purpose)
•appropriate sample of the learning domain
•control for all sources of interference
Based on the ideas of Rick Stiggins, ATI, Portland, OR
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Measure What you Mean to Measure
• If you want to determine a student’s ability
to demonstrate the relationship between
density & buoyancy, results shouldn’t be
clouded by:
– Lack of proficiency in writing in English
– A missing name on a paper
– Difficulty following directions
– Rewards for unused bathroom passes
Common Sources of Bias and Distortion
Problems that can occur with the student
Lack of reading skill
Emotional upset
Poor health
Lack of testwiseness
Evaluation anxiety
Problems that can occur with the setting
Physical conditions – light, heat, noise, etc.
Problems that can occur with the assessment itself
Directions lacking or unclear
Poorly worded questions/prompts
Insufficient time
Based on the ideas of Rick Stiggins
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Principles of Effective Grading and
Reporting
Principle # 5
Grade later in the
learning cycle
rather than
earlier.
“The key question is, “What information provides the
most accurate depiction of students’ learning at this
time?” In nearly all cases, the answer is “the most
current information.” If students demonstrate that
past assessment information no longer accurately
reflects their learning, that information must be
dropped and replaced by the new information.
Continuing to rely on past assessment data
miscommunicates students’ learning.”
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning: The 1996 ASCD Yearbook,
ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 21.
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“. . . students often say, “I have to get a B on the
final to pass this course.” But does that make
sense? If a final examination is truly
comprehensive and students’ scores accurately
reflect what they have learned, should a B level
of performance translate to a D for the course
grade?”
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning: The 1996 ASCD Yearbook,
ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 21.
In effective classrooms, one of the most
consistent practices of successful teachers
is the provision of multiple opportunities to learn.
The consequence for a student who
fails to meet a standard is not a low grade,
but rather the opportunity—indeed the
requirement—to resubmit his or
her work.
D. Reeves (2000, Dec.). Standards are not enough: Essential transformations for
school success. NASSP Bulletin, p. 11.
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Some Possible Solutions
What About Report Cards?
Principles of Effective Grading and
Reporting
Principle # 6
When it’s time for
report cards,
practice 3-P
grading.
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Report Card
3.33
B
B-
A-
A
C+
A
B+
Overall
Grade
Above
Grade
Level
Current GPA
French
Chorus
PE
English
US History
Science
Math
Below
Grade
Level
At
Grade
Level
Course Title
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Report Card (Marzano, 2000)
3.433.243.33Current GPA
BBBGeography
ACB-Chorus
B+AA-PE
AAAAm Lit
CBC+US History
BAAAP Physics
ACB+Alg II & Trig
NonacademicAcademicOverallCourse Title
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Report Card examples
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Too often, educational tests, grades,
and report cards are treated by
teachers as autopsies when they
should be viewed as physicals.
(Reeves 2000, p.10)
School report cards are still hopelessly
narrow, containing little information about
student achievement and concealing more
than they reveal.”
Mike Schmoker (2002)
The Trouble With Report
Cards…
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This Bridge
This bridge will only take you halfway there
To those mysterious lands you long to see.
Through Gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs
An moonlit woods where unicorns run free.
So come and walk awhile with me and share
The twisting trails and wondrous worlds I’ve
known. But this bridge will only take you
halfway there--
The last few steps you’ll have to take alone.
Shel Silverstein
A Light in the Attic