Grading Accountability

• Can’t do students: Students that struggle with concepts and skills and are unable to complete assignments based on their skill gaps. They need regular, predictable and targeted support for learning the content. Systems in place to support these students include: RTI - Response to Intervention, MTSS - Multi-Tiered System of Supports, SAS - Strategies for Academic Success.

• Didn’t do students: Students that occasionally do not complete assignments, sometimes due to a skill gap, other times due to outside circumstances. When this becomes habitual, the teacher must determine the target support offered for either  “Can’t do” or “Won’t do” students.

• Won’t do students: Students that consistently do not complete assignments based on willingness and not skill ability. Please follow your building protocol for direction for supporting these students.

• Punitive grading: Lowering a student’s grade based on their behavior and not their skill level. For example: points off for turning in an assignment late, formatting errors, not having their name on the paper or limiting reassessment opportunities for full credit. 

• Grade Inflation: Offering extra credit for any reason (giving more points to a student on an assignment than possible). Raising a student’s grade based on compliance and not their skill level (giving participation/completion points for completing an assignment or participating in learning, curving a grade, using sliding grading scales, dropping the lowest score, ect.).

Assessment

• Homework/Practice: The reinforcement or extension of learning beyond the classroom.  It is intended to promote skill mastery, provide opportunities for students to go further with their own desire to acquire knowledge, and complete work that is unfinished. The focus should be on the feedback to improve understanding of content or demonstration of a skill. 

• Formative: Using an assessment for the purpose of determining what has been learned, giving feedback and modifying instruction in order to support mastery of the targeted content or skill.  It is assessment “for” learning, not assessment “of” learning.   

• Summative: Formal assessment “of” the learning that takes place at the end of a unit of study.  It is used for verification of the student’s current skill level for reporting. 

• Reassessment:  Allowing a student to show they have reached a higher level of proficiency after completing a summative assessment. This may be through formal feedback and refinement conferences, embedded reassessment, or student initiated reassessment requests, e.g. reassessment contracts.  Any student who does not receive the highest grade possible on a summative assessment may choose to reassess following your building’s reassessment procedures.  

• Self Assessment: Students using feedback from student-centered assessments to make judgements about what they know and don’t know.  Students can explain what the scores on a student self-assessment mean relative to their status on specific proficiency scales.  

Proficiency Scales: Tools used to articulate learning progressions, inform lesson-planning and assessment.

• Standards: The state, national or professional expected outcomes that teachers use to build curriculum. The intended benchmark for learning.

  • Priority Standard: Essential standards that are taught and assessed for mastery. All components of the standard must be formally assessed. They have been agreed upon by the grade level or department and have been vertically aligned with grades or classes above and below.

  • Supporting Standard: Necessary standards for learning that support the priority standard content. These standards can be used in the learning progression of the priority standard’s content and may be assessed.  

  • Exposure Standard: Standards that are covered when time allows. This can be used to support or enrich learning of the priority standards and may or may not be assessed. 

• Vertical Alignment: Ensuring continuity of the content and skills learning progression for grades/classes above and below yours through a joint effort among collaborative teams.

• Cognitive Complexity: The difficulty of thinking required for the task

  • Webb’s DOK (Depth of Knowledge): A leveled system used to determine cognitive complexity, or knowledge rigor of an academic standard, curricular activity, and assessment item.  It is used to determine the assessments, or activities students need to complete in order to meet the appropriate cognitive demand of a standard. (How much knowledge/content does a student need in order to achieve the standard) Below are the DOK levels moving from less rigorous (1) to most rigorous (4).

    • 1 (Recall), 2 (Skill), 3 (Strategic Thinking), 4 (Extended thinking)

  • Bloom’s Taxonomy: A leveled system used to determine and distinguish different levels of cognition. (How hard does a student need to think about the content in order to achieve the standard?) Below are the levels moving from less rigorous (1) to most rigorous (6).

    • 1 (Remember), 2 (Understand), 3 (Apply), 4 (Analyze), 5 (Evaluate), 6 (Create)

Proficiency Levels: District descriptors that teachers are expected to use to communicate proficiency using the language below. Posters to display in student friendly language: Bike or Puzzle

• 0 = Not Enough Evidence: The student has not completed enough work to be accurately assessed or the student has not submitted work.

• 1 = Beginning: The student needs significant assistance to be partially successful on level 2 descriptors.

• 2 = Developing: The student understands specific vocabulary and foundational procedures as described.

• 3 = Proficient: The student independently demonstrates competence of the content as taught and meets the standard as described.

• 4 = Advanced: The student demonstrates in-depth inferences and applications of the content taught.

Learning Progression/Ladder: The purposeful sequencing of teaching and learning expectations. A blueprint for teacher instruction, student learning and assessment.

Learning Target: The deconstructed elements of a standard that are used in the development of learning progressions.  They are the “benchmarks” that lessons, activities, and practice assignments are created in order for students to learn and demonstrate content or skills understanding. 

• Learning Objective: Same as a Learning Target