Tom Waters

Are the current shifts in grading practices worth it? Think about all the time, effort, and resources used to shift from a 100-point grading scale to a 5-point scale. Is it actually worth it? Is there, or will there be, an actual return on the investment? The costs are high. The investments are weighty. Is standards-based grading worth it? Here's a serious look at the what, the why, and the cost of standards-based grading. The Costs of Standards-Based Grading If you've experienced a district who changed to "standards-based" grading and reporting, you've undoubtedly experienced some of the costs. Here are a few: Leadership training including principals, curriculum teams, and board of trustees. Teacher training. Public information meetings. Parent-teacher meetings. Changes in grading software. Changes in classroom grading and assessment practices. Misunderstandings by students. Another "new" way with an array of misconceptions. Oppo...

Assessment often falls under the hate mail category, standardized testing. And rightfully so. Here are three ways that you can improve assessment practices on your campus. What will these ideas in this post do for you? improve reliability data sets that are simpler to interpret data that's actionable, quickly reporting that details learning, not just a grade information that can lead to highly-reliable evaluations of curricular programs Data Dashboards A data dashboard is a simple way to combine the most important metrics in ways that improve reflective practice. The data on a dashboard need to vary from sensitive data that show weekly student growth to qualitative results from parent surveys. Read more on Data is Not the Solution for Teachers   A defining characteristic of effective dashboards is the combination of district/campus determined metrics and teacher-developed metrics. This increases involvement in the assessment and evaluation pro...

Data is not new to education, but its use has many iterations. What are connected educators saying about data best practices? Why do amazing educators embrace data? How is data currently used to improve performance? What words of caution do thought leaders provide? How Do Your Teams Measure Success? Goals and plans are useless without targets. I can have the best plan, but where is it taking me? How will I know when I get there? The same applies for schools. Data does nothing alone. It requires context, culture, and targets to take on meaning. I Never Heard a Number Explain Itself A bit of caution on measurement. There is always a story behind the numbers. Qualitative observations are essential. - Douglas Reeves  @DouglasReeves Contextual factors are always present within the classroom, the school, and the home. Those factors do impact numbers. We can change contextual factors, but it takes we. When we ask why in response to data, it's easy to blame the only adult in t...

Sensitive data comes from assessments that give reliable feedback to educators about student growth. Previously, I promised to give a list of tools that can be used to shift from lethargic data to sensitive data. Here are sensitive data sources for elementary and middle-level schools that can improve your ability to make confident instructional leadership decisions. Read about the difference in Lethargic Data and Sensitive Data Here . Reading Cloze for Overall Reading Growth This tool is old. It's been researched and used for decades. It is easy to create, quick to use, and gives solid data on student growth. The cloze works because it takes students into the reading process and requires them to make connections within a text to infer words that are missing from the text. It focuses on both students' ability to negotiate print and construct meaning. And this research review shows how Spelling is a Predictor of Reading Comprehension all the way up to 10th grade. A...

Here's a concept - sensitive data. Sensitive data are the numerical outputs that fluctuate easily. They are different than lethargic data , which does not move easily. That may not sound very good. It may sound technical and strange, so let's look at some examples. The first quarter is over. What do we look for to determine results? Do you look for the percent of students who scored above a 70 on a single test? This is lethargic data. It doesn't tell you what you really need to know. Lethargic Data A passing rate (the percentage of students who scored above a 70) is lethargic because it doesn't show growth well. It doesn't respond quickly to changes in student performance. It isn't all that reliable. I'd really love to go into the research statistics, but then you'd probably stop reading. So let's just talk the logic. Lethargic Data in Action Imagine 30% of your students are slightly below level and you give an on-level test at the end ...

Three days into the unit, and we have no clue if the students understand it or not. What do we do? We design a quick quiz to give to them right? A quiz will tell us whether they know it or not. Or does it? Limitations of a Quiz Does a quiz really expose the missing gaps in student understanding? Can a quiz expose the misconceptions?  It probably can tell you the factual knowledge they can recall. It probably can tell you if they can identify correct understandings. Properly designed, it might even force higher level analysis. But it probably doesn't tell you their misunderstandings. To do that, the quiz would need to be open-ended written responses. But that's a large time investment. So quick quizzes are limited because they are looking for correct answers, not misconceptions. And addressing misunderstanding is one of the most critical purposes of instruction. It is necessary for ensuring long-term student success. Misconceptions can seriously undermine future learn...

Pinterest TeamTomWaters Vocabulary Board They just don't understand a word I say! They act like we have never done this before! Ugh...did anyone in the lower grades ever teach this? Ever heard this before...maybe in your own head? I know I have. Weeks after a unit, a student is asked to do a summary. She meekly and tenderly responds, "What is a summary ?" We just spent a whole unit working with summaries! You don't know what that is!?! The Problem is Vocabulary The problem is not the student. The problem is not the planning or teaching. The problem is vocabulary. Academic vocabulary instruction needs to be taught systemically across the district from year to year. This is the single most important spiral practice and teaching we can do. It builds the necessary background knowledge, so students aren't confused or lost when we say, "summary." Or when we say any other academic term. Teaching and Monitoring Vocabulary We can teach academi...

In a recent twitter conversation #sblchat, several tweets really hammered the point home: A7 - With Standards-Based Learning, we choose not to grade the practice while we are learning. We grade only once we've got it! #sblchat — Rik Rowe (@RoweRikW) May 12, 2016 A1 Purpose of grading is feedback on learning --- so SBG makes too much sense #sblchat — Donald Gately Ed.D. (@donald_gately) May 12, 2016 A3: Ongoing timely, descriptive feedback which guides instruction #sblchat — Jasper Fox Sr. (@jasperfoxsr) May 12, 2016 Grading is not the end result. It is merely a communication or reporting tool. Learning is the end result. And growth towards learning is what needs most critically to be measured and reported. Measuring Growth is... An idea for learning & grading. encouraging rewarding easy to automate and use technology evidence that effort works evidence that students are progressing toward goals evidence that teaching is or isn't work qui...

The principal calls you in for a meeting.  She pulls out your recent Common Assessment scores.  Everyone questions the quality of the test. You had no input on creating the test. O nly 30% of your students met the standard.  She then pulls out your team scores and shows that two other teachers' are 3 points higher than yours. What in the world is wrong with this scenario? Big Problem with the Common Assessments First, the statistics are horrible. Not the scores, but the actual mathematics. The single largest problem with these assessments is their lack of statistical reliability or correlation to anything.  Read more on the Dangers of Assessment Data . No more research terms, but essentially the same exact student can take the same exact test tomorrow and score 10 to 20 points higher or lower. That's what I mean by reliability - it is not measuring "pure" learning over time. Other major problems persist in the scenario above. But let's lo...