Let’s Talk Grading

Note: You can find this post as a printable PDF document at the bottom of this page.

Introduction

Assessment practices that promote student learning are best accomplished by using formative assessment, not summative assessment. Few students can determine their areas of strength, areas where improvement is needed, and next steps from any form of a score or summative assessment.

Yet summative assessment does serve an important communication function. Summative scores are important in summarizing information to make the communication readily digestible. This is the same reason it can be preferable to know the numeric number of the temperature (“it’s 20oC”) as opposed to a 500-word description of the current weather. Likewise, when we consider student academic performance it can be useful to know the score a student earned in an academic subject instead of viewing hours of video to understand their performance. Whether it is measuring temperatures or academic performance, scores work well assuming everyone understands what the score represents. Therefore, it is vital we have shared understanding between teachers, students, and parents of what our grades mean. Even better is if we can explain this understanding to others who might not have grasped it yet.

Which is where this guide comes into play.

The intention of this resource is to highlight some of the pertinent factors when determining a grade for both student academic performance and learning behaviours.

Determining the Learning Destination

But before examining the actual grades that are given to both student academic performance and learning behaviours, there are some best practices that will help make grading a more consistent and valid endeavour.

Before students ever receive a grade on their evidence, they should know the learning destination. We determine the learning destination by looking at the curricular outcomes (to determine the overall destination) and the indicators (which give us the depth and breadth of the outcome).

The outcomes and indicators are ultimately the basis upon which we determine the success criteria. Success criteria is important because it highlights for students what they need to know and be able to do in order to hit the mark. In short, success criteria is written in student-friendly language and explains how the student can successfully meet the outcome. (Note: In reality, success criteria are best used daily and will change depending on where a student is on a learning progression. But for the purposes of this discussion, we will define success criteria as the criteria that would help a student understand if they have successfully met the outcome.)

In summary, defining the learning destination is about ensuring that students understand what the outcome asks them to know, understand, and/or be able to do – and success criteria are the statements that help students understand if their evidence matches the expectation.

Collecting Evidence

Once the learning destination has been determined, the next task is to engage in learning opportunities to help students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to reach the learning destination. This is the point where formative assessment (feedback) becomes important. Formative assessment is giving feedback so that students understand where their evidence is in relation to the learning destination, and what their next steps might be.

Formative assessment is vital as it helps the student grow and it informs teachers about what might be the next learning challenge a student requires, or the next step in their learning progression. In fact, in PSSD we believe that formative assessment is so important that we require students to have the opportunity to receive formative assessment before submitting evidence to be assessed summatively. (This expectation is detailed in PSSD Administrative Procedure 414 – Assessment.)

In addition, collected triangulated evidence is very important. Triangulated evidence is evidence that is either gathered as products, observations, or conversations. Collecting evidence in this manner is important for two reasons:

Many of the outcomes of the Saskatchewan curriculum are written in such a way that it is desirable to have a variety of different evidence formats. In fact, many outcomes are better assessed through conversations or observations as opposed to through products (which have been the typical evidence format that receives a grade).
We want to give students the best possibility of demonstrating what they know and are able to do, in whatever format highlights their abilities. (So long as this evidence format fits with the outcome.)

Once success criteria are defined, collecting evidence through any of the three formats becomes much easier. Often teachers worry that collecting triangulated evidence will be difficult or time consuming, but many times once they have had the opportunity to define success criteria, they find that collecting evidence in any format is very manageable.

Grading Academic Evidence

Once evidence is collected there will come a point when teachers need to arrive at a score for reporting purposes. Again, as noted in the introduction, grading is not the best tool to promote learning, but it does have its place.

In PSSD, grades in 1-9 are reported using a proficiency scale. These grades are reported using alpha scores and correspond to the levels listed below.

PSSD Proficiency Levels Gr 1-9 - May 2022.pdf

It is important to note that the top four levels indicate that the evidence has met the outcome at some level of proficiency. To understand how to distinguish the levels of proficiency though, we need to understand complexity. The language used in defining each of the levels refers to “complex” and “simple.” This language aligns with Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is the framework used to create the outcomes and indicators listed in the Saskatchewan curriculum.

In short, within Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs have an associated level of complexity that range from simple to complex. Simple verbs would be those associated with the “remember” level of Bloom’s – verbs such as, “define, list, repeat.” Higher complexity is indicated by levels such as “analyze,” “evaluate,” and “create” that would correspond to verbs such as “differentiate,” “appraise” and “design,” respectively. When we say that the evidence that a student has provided is evidence of mastery, we are saying that the evidence meets the full complexity of the outcome (and associated indicators). When we say that a students’ evidence is beginning, it means that the evidence meets some of the simple indicators of an outcome, but not the more complex indicators.

As an example, an outcome may include indicators that range from recall to evaluation. If the student’s evidence successfully shows the ability to recall but does not show evidence of the ability to apply or evaluate, then an appropriate grade would be “beginning.”

Let’s look at an example. The following is an outcome and the associated indicators from Social Studies 7:

When looking at the verbs involved in the outcome and the indicators, there are different levels involved:

- - Investigate:
    - Usually this is categorized as a type of analysis, which is a higher order type of thinking. Success here would equate to Mastery level if done well.
  - Survey:
    - Again, a type of analysis, as it involves identifying relationships. Same as above.
  - Compare:
    - Depending on the type of question asked, this could be either understand, analysis, or evaluation. Again, equates to Mastery, if done well.
  - Describe:
    - Most often associated with the knowledge/recall level, which is the simplest form of Bloom’s taxonomy. Would equate to the Approaching level, or perhaps the Beginning level if there are errors.
  - Chart:
    - Most likely at the knowledge/recall level. Same as above.

Once this has been established, proficiency level is determined by what has been demonstrated by the evidence. As examples, student evidence that shows the ability to:

survey and investigate, especially as applied to new situations not analyzed in class, would be assigned a level of “Mastery.”
compare, survey, investigate, but makes some errors in these processes would likely best be given a level of “Proficient.”
describe but not compare, investigate or survey would likely be assigned a level of “Approaching.”
have some success with describing and charting, but includes errors in these processes as well, would be assigned a level of “Beginning.”

These are simplistic examples but hopefully they provide a starting point for teachers to determine the level of proficiency that student evidence earns.

Finally, it can be difficult to keep a number of Bloom’s verbs in mind when determining the proficiency level of provided evidence. A shorthand way to think about assessing student evidence is as follows:

Mastery = student evidence is Sophisticated
Proficiency = student evidence is Competent
Approaching = student evidence is Partial
Beginning = student evidence is Novice

Another Useful Grading Structure

While the proficiency levels are defined using Bloom’s verbs, another complexity continuum that can be useful when grading is John Hattie’s Surface-Deep-Transfer structure. These are, again, different levels of understanding that can be used as rules of thumb when attempting to determine a level of student evidence.

Surface learning is when students gain an initial understanding of the concepts, skills, and strategies associated with a subject area. Deep learning is when students understand the connections between related concepts instead of viewing items as individual components. Finally, transfer learning is when students can take what they know and understand and apply this to new scenarios and different concepts. (Hattie, Fisher and Frey, Visible Learning for Mathematics, 2017)

While not perfectly synonymous, these different levels can act as rules-of-thumb when trying to determine the level of student evidence on the PSSD grading scale. For example, if a student’s evidence involves evidence of transfer, this aligns with the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, and therefore is likely evidence of Mastery. Deep understanding involves knowing the connections between concepts, which often aligns with a Proficient level of evidence. Surface learning is understanding the basic components, which often aligns with the Beginning level, and when there is only partial success at the Deep/Proficient level, this is often a match for the Approaching level of proficiency. This is summarized in the visual below:

What level is this poster - update.pdf

Two Other Grading Factors

Once the grading scale is understood there are two other factors to consider when grading: delayed determination of proficiency level, and professional judgment.

Delayed determination

As mentioned above, there is an expectation that students receive formative assessment opportunities (feedback) before getting summative feedback (grades). This provides an opportunity for students to grow and improve using the provided feedback before receiving a score/grade. Also, the process of delaying scoring student evidence allows for learning progressions to advance before levels are determined. Once an adequate body of evidence has been collected a teacher can decide the proficiency level of the student evidence. This avoids the issue where when only a small sample of evidence has been collected, it can be difficult to determine a proficiency level. Likewise, with little evidence a proficiency level might be awarded that will dramatically change when further evidence is collected. We can avoid these wild swings and be more accurate if grading is delayed until a sufficient amount of evidence is collected in relation to the outcome. This does not mean that student evidence is just ignored or not evaluated by the teacher until a sufficient amount is created. Feedback (comment only) can be shared that will move learning forward. As well, teachers may want to track the student performance without sharing the scores with students. This allows teachers to quickly see if progress is being made while at the same time giving students the opportunity to take their next steps without fearing that a grade will be applied to their first attempts to learn.

Professional judgment

Finally, when determining the grade for student evidence, teachers must use professional judgment to determine appropriate grades. Simply allowing an algorithm to determine a grade does not meet the professional responsibilities that teachers have when it comes to grading. Teachers are encouraged to use electronic gradebooks to track evidence and report grades, but if an algorithm is used to determine the grade, teachers should verify that the mathematically determined grade matches the level of evidence collected from the student.

In addition, teachers may find that collected evidence is not all at the same level and will need to make some judgments about what level best describes the evidence. To do this, teachers should consider the following four factors:

Depth of Evidence
- Not all evidence is as complex as other evidence. If a student demonstrates full understanding of a very simple concept, this rarely indicates mastery of the whole outcome. Teachers should check what level the collected evidence meets, regardless of the number of questions answered correctly or incorrectly. Look at the level of thinking demonstrated – not the number of questions right or wrong.
Triangulation
- Collected evidence should both meet the requirements of the outcome (the evidence for some outcomes is better met through conversation as opposed to products, for example), and should allow students to demonstrate the strengths they have (as appropriate). Teachers should be sure to use triangulated evidence when determining grades.
Most Recent
- We would expect performance/evidence to improve as students progress through the year and improve their abilities. As such, students should not be penalized for early attempts when their later attempts indicate they have achieved a higher level of proficiency. The Saskatchewan curriculum includes outcomes that students should know and be able to do by the end of the course, so if later evidence is stronger than previous evidence, the previous evidence can be ignored when it comes to determining a student grade.
Most Often
- Sometimes student performance does not proceed along a nice positive linear progression. Instead performance may be strong then perhaps dip off, which can be confusing for teachers when trying to determine a proficiency level. In these cases, it may be useful to determine what level of proficiency the evidence has demonstrated most often. This can give a starting point for a level that can then be adjusted using some of the other considerations noted above for professional judgment.

Using the combination of the above four factors, teachers can feel confident that they have exerted professional judgment when determining grades! If after looking at these four factors a grade can still not be determined, it might be best to collect more evidence from the student (perhaps through a conversation/interview).

Grading Academic Achievement in Grades 10-12

All of the above that has been discussed holds true for grades 10-12, with the exception that grades are reported using percentages instead of levels. To help PSSD educators, a conversion chart has been developed. Student evidence is first scored and a level is determined, and then the chart is used to determine the appropriate percentage score for the outcome. Levels on this chart include pluses and minuses to give some possibility to further distinguish the different levels into low, mid, and high ranges. For example, a teacher may determine that student evidence falls into the proficiency level, but does have some errors that make it an example of low proficiency, so decide to award a 3-, with an associated percentage score of 80%.

The full chart is located below:

Proficiency Levels and Percentages 10 -12 - revised Aug 2022.pdf

Scoring Behaviours

Aside from academic proficiency, learning behaviours are also scored in PSSD. The grades assigned to learning behaviours in PSSD are frequency-based. The learning behaviours have been written so that they are observable characteristics, and the grades indicate how frequently these characteristics have been observed. There are different learning behaviours for elementary and high school students, but the grading scale remains the same across all grade levels. These frequency scores are summarized in the diagram below:

PSSD Behaviour Scale Diagram.pdf

As mentioned, there are different behaviours scored at different grade levels.

Elementary students receive behaviour grades on eight characteristics, organized into four categories:

Lifelong Learner (LL)

Sets goals and uses feedback for improvement
Perseveres when challenged and seeks assistance when needed

Sense of Self and Community (SSC)

Demonstrates an inclusive attitude towards people and is respectful of property
Takes responsibility for and manages own behaviour

Engaged Citizen (EC)

Engages in classroom activities
Contributes positively to the classroom and school community

Work Habits (WH)

Displays positive and productive work ethic
Demonstrates organizational skills, including completing work on time as requested

High school students receive three behaviour grades:

Engagement (contributes, takes initiative, seeks and acts upon feedback)
Respect (inclusive attitude towards others, respectful of property, follows directions)
Responsibility (submits work on time, arrives prepared, honours commitments)

As mentioned previously, all scores are frequency based for all learning behaviours.

Want more info on assessment, especially areas outside of grading? You can find them on the both the PD Modules page, as well as the Resources and Supports page or the PSSD Adventures in Assessment website.

Those who would like a PDF version of the above article can find it below.

Lets Talk Grading.pdf