Student A: “Mom! I am so mad, I got an 89% in French for the semester so I wasn’t able to get straight A’s and my GPA will be lower than I want.”
Student B: “I’m not smart or good at school, so why should I bother trying?”
These quotes resemble two students regarding their grades and what they mean to them. On one hand, Student A feels the pressure to get good grades and most likely lacks intrinsic motivation to learn for the sake of learning. On the other hand, Student B, who also relies on extrinsic motivation, does not believe they can receive good grades so they simply do not bother trying to learn. From my experience of being a student for 17 years and my studies in education, the idea of grades, assigning a letter or number to value a student’s work, is traditionally flawed for student growth. Teachers aim for their students to learn specific material and meet benchmarks, but also want their students to critically think and learn for enjoyment. Implementing a system with grades provides an extrinsic reward for students to latch onto which then removes the likelihood of intrinsically learning. After viewing a presentation by Katie Hyken, Maureen LeVanti, and Jon Grice at the Illinois Art Education Association annual conference in 2017 about Standards Based Grading or Evidence Based Grading, I realized that the traditional system of grading can be modified to promote learning with the intention to learn.
I fear that this method may not be favored due to the intense work required and involvement of the teachers with students and teachers with their peers; however, school is for optimal learning and if that requires more work from the faculty, then it must be done. Standards Based Grading measures student’s efficiency on well-defined objectives. It assesses the individual progress students are making and requires them to use vocabulary when discussing grades. There is a four point scale used coordinating with these terms: Exceeding-4, Proficent-3, Approaching-2, and Not Meeting-1. I have attached a visual below to understand how this may be used in mathematics.
I argue that students should not be aware of the “points” assigned to each term, but simply rely on the vocabulary. It is important to note that students have the ability to resubmit assignments once they receive their language-based grade. Here is an example of how this method may be seen in the classroom.
Suzy: “Hello Ms.Miska, I noticed that I received approaching in the area of contrast. Why did that happen?”
Ms.Miska: “Do you remember what contrast means? Please explain to me how you used contrast in your photograph.”
Suzy: “Contrast is when light and dark values appear. I have a lot of gray values, but I have a little bit of black in this area of the photo.”
Ms. Miska: “It seems as though you know what the word means, but with contrast you need to have white with the black you have. Opposites are used to help create drama in a photograph. Try using a different setting in the dark room to push your lights and darks and let’s see if the contrast improves.”
This shows that students are more engaged with the vocabulary and the ability to improve their work. It also addresses how students can know the terms, but can struggle to apply them. This proves that standardized testing is not a helpful tool for assessment in the arts. Student A might think about how he/she can improve as opposed to how he/she can get and A and Student B might think about how he/she can achieve if he/she keeps trying instead of constantly feeling defeated. These very clear learning targets and time for self-reflection increase a student’s intrinsic motivation to learn and grow. Additionally, it is very helpful in the arts because students are more willing to take risks knowing they can rework art if it happens to be unsuccessful the first time.
It is obvious that Standards Based Grading is the ideal method of grading for students and administration. The points allow for administration to understand student growth with a qualitative value and the students are able to better understand their development and vocabulary terms in the course with the language expressing their growth. Students use the vocabulary more which is fantastic when administration comes to evaluate your classroom as well. Self-assessment is better because students know expectations better. Self-assessment is a life-long skill all people need and should be healthily practiced in the classroom. In the complicated world of assessment, this method is on the rise for improvement in student growth and measuring this student growth for administration purposes.