If you’ve read this blog before, it might seem like all we do is focus on the challenges in education–so many aspects that need transformation! So many different kinds of students and families to support! So much to do with finite time! Well, folks, this entry will be a little different.
Including Students in the Grading Conversation
Often, when adults discuss grading, they exclude students from the conversation, even though students are the people impacted most by grades. So, in our partnerships with schools and school districts, we prioritize hearing directly from students to gain a deeper and more authentic understanding of how grading lands for them. Gathering feedback from students can help us to change our grading–and other parts of our pedagogy–to be more accurate reflections of what students know and can do, more resistant to both implicit and institutional biases that affect our students, and more helpful in strengthening students’ intrinsic motivation and growth mindset.
Below, you will find some quotations from students about things that their teachers do in their grading and/or pedagogy that students actually love or that help them to learn the content and strengthen their skills. Teachers are doing some truly wonderful things!
As you read, think: What trends am I noticing in these quotations? Are there patterns that I see emerging? What might this mean for my own practice?
Two things to note:
- All identifiers of students, teachers, and courses are anonymous.
We honor the exact voices of students and do not edit them unless it is to improve understanding of what they say; in that instance, you will notice brackets. - What Students Appreciate in Grading and Teaching
TRANSPARENT EXPECTATIONS
I feel a little bit of stress about my grades and that increases on tests, but it helps when teachers give study guides that look like what the test is going to look like, so I can feel like I’m prepared.
I actually like rubric grading because it helps you see the improvement that you’re making because it helps you figure out what pieces that you’re struggling in and what you could do to improve them. Because we can carry on that part to college.
FEEDBACK
My teacher always gives us practice questions during the lesson and also gives us the standards to study, which is good. And also if we do bad on a check, if we get a 2.5 or if we get a 2, the teacher writes down little notes that could help us on the test. They write down this was supposed to be this, this and that, this and that, which is helpful.
Not discouraging students in feedback, but telling them how they can build off what they already have is really helpful and I’m really appreciative for their grading style last year [and] their feedback.
When I get my grade back and it’s not a 100%, if there’s a comment on Canvas or in the Google Doc that I had my assignment turned in on, if there’s comments about where the points I missed came from, then I feel like that allows me to learn better because I get to reflect on my own mistakes and then try to fix it in future things. If it’s just, “You got a C on this,” and there’s no explanation, I often times don’t try to figure it out, I just accept it and move on. But if they provide an explanation, then I do try to learn from the mistakes I made in it.
I would go into the teacher, we would talk about the feedback and then, what’s been happening this year in my [subject] class that is very helpful is, the teacher would sit down with me and they would be like, “Okay, what are two goals that you can set for your next work that you’re going to write?[”] This is the first year that that’s ever happened. But that’s really nice.
RETAKES
Even if we do get a bad grade, if a majority of the class gets something wrong, which is usually what happens, the teacher will actually go over it the next day to show us all how to do it. And a lot of the standards show up again. And so if we did poorly on a test before, we are able to redo that standard and make that grade better.
One thing that my teacher does that makes learning a lot better, at least in my opinion, is when she grades something then gives it back to [me] with everything that I did wrong and gives us a chance to try it again. And that really helps, at least in my opinion.
Inviting Student Voices: How to Gather Meaningful Feedback
After reading this, you might be thinking, “I wonder whether my students would say something different,” or, “What exactly would my students say if I were to interview them?” Fantastic! And you’re right! We have no idea what our students would say about grading unless we ask them, unless we engage them in conversation, unless we offer inclusive pathways to hear their feedback. Here are some options for designing student feedback (and you might also know of more ways!) to get started:
1. Decide your goals
- Identify what you want to discover from your students
- Ask about specific grading and assessment practices––their opinions and feelings, their prior experiences, what has and hasn’t worked for them in previous classes and with other teachers, what they want (not just what they don’t want), what they would be open to trying, etc.
2. Design how you will get this information
- An anonymous survey…
- Might be a good format if you know your students share their knowledge most readily in writing or generally have a hard time expressing themselves in discussion.
- Can include questions that are quantitative (for example, using Likert Scale models) as well as qualitative (leaving opportunity for students to explain their responses).
- Can take less time, and you can get everyone’s opinions simultaneously.
- May limit the responses (and what you learn) because of its more restrictive format.
- A class discussion…
- Might be a good format if you know your students share their knowledge most readily through conversation.
- Can be open-ended questions, and you can adapt the questions based on their responses in the moment.
- May take more time and be difficult to keep focused on your goals.
- A combination of the two…
- Might be a good option if you know that some students share their knowledge most readily through conversation, whereas other students may not feel comfortable sharing their opinion in class, particularly if it is different from their peers’ opinions.
- Allows students to choose which format they would like to complete. While the students who prefer the survey are completing it, the students who prefer discussion could be participating in that.
- May take more of your time to design and review both formats.
3. Implement your design
Prepare students. Share your goals and let them know that you are looking at their responses to improve your practices.
Devote enough time during class so that students can respond thoughtfully and completely.
Analyze the results. Look for trends, outliers, and any patterns in the responses (e.g., Did high-achieving students answer differently than students who struggle? Did boys answer differently than girls? Did shy students answer differently than outgoing students?)
Share the results with your students. Explain (visually and/or verbally) the data trends and your next steps.
Strengthening Student-Teacher Relationships Through Listening
Ultimately, this can be a wonderful way to show our students love: by listening to their voices and their experiences, and dignifying them with changes to our teaching. St. Valentine would be so proud.
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