Traditional Grades vs. Rating on a continua

Traditional Grading

Subjective: a student can be given a grade based on their personality, effort, and/or whether or not the teacher and the student connect
One and Done: a student will often get a grade from one task. They are not able to try again if they learn more. Stigma-- you are a "C" student.
Lack of Transparency: a student may not even know how their work is being graded. If there are rubrics, they may not cover everything or even be shared with students.
Inconsistent meaning: a student gets an "A"in English. What does that mean? What skills did the student learn? What if we compare students across schools? Does the "A" mean the same?

Rating on a continua

Objective: a student's work will be rated on the continua. Everyone has the same information.
Revisions are learning: a student will be able to revise their work (all work) as needed.
Transparency: a student, a teacher, a parent, a community member can see what is being assessed for every student.
Personalized: a student can get personal help based off their ratings. They know where they are and what they are aiming for.
Non-judgmental: A student submits their work. They are where they are. But they also can see where they would like to be and work to get there.

So, What is a continua?

A continua is a competency broken into its skills. In the continua, there could be 1+ competencies. These are given to students at the beginning of their task. These are the skills that students will be demonstrating!

Anatomy of a Continua:

Competency

:a competency is a big statement that students can demonstrate

Skill

:a competency is too big to see what a student can do by itself, so it is broken into smaller pieces, called skills.

descriptors

:statements that describe what the student can do specifically. Combined, these descriptors say the student can do the skill. All the skills combined say the student can do the competency.

Levels

:CBE measures the same skills across time. The levels begin at 2 and go to 12. Each skill leads to level 12, College Level work. A student can get an M, meaning the skill was not seen.

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