Your Morning Boost - The Fatal Flaw of Grading: Why Your Averages Lie

Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome back to your morning boost. We're back at it again with our guests doctor Chad Lang and doctor Matt Townsley, as we are talking about grading reform and just doing a better job of providing accurate communication and a great glimpse into what our students are doing every day at school. Thank you, gentlemen for being back again today. I'm excited to see what question number two is going to bring to us for learning Boosters. If you've got a chance and have a done so already, take a look at doctor Townsland doctor Lang's work. We've got their information in our show notes here for you to be able to check out all of the great stuff they got going on. I guarantee you it's going to be worth your time. Well, gentlemen, before we get to question number two, do need to take a quick commercial break, but get your thinking hats on because we're going to come right back and dive right into another question on grading practices. We'll be right back after this. All right, gentlemen, here is question number two to kick us off for Tuesday today. The question is you and I've heard you guys do this a lot. You highlight the mathematical flaws of traditional grading. So what's the most damaging way that averaging dilutes a student's final grade? And then there's a two parter here, So then also, what's the clearest alternative to implement immediately? Well, probably my best answer to that would be a two prong double DZ, which would be utilizing the zero in one hundred point scale. It just has a six times more disproportionate impact when you average than getting a one. You'd have to get multiple, multiple multiple a's to negate the one poor performance. And the problem with the zero is is that it doesn't even typically demonstrate a poor performance. It demonstrates didn't submit, didn't participate, And that's not what the learning is. Thee iss are assessing. We have a responsibility to assess the learning standards, the expectations of learning. And so I can fully agree that I've a student opted out of a project or just didn't participate at all. But we have a serious behavioral problem on our hands and we've got to work on that aspect of it. And that's actually separate from purporting a grade and then averaging it in with some other performance. It actually doesn't tell us about either performance, A zero doesn't really tell us what they can know or do, and when averaged with an A, A seventy five percent or fifty percent in that particular case it was one hundred percent also doesn't tell us about their ability. So on both ends of the spectrum, while producing a metric that doesn't tell us anything about the learner, and that's not helpful to them, nor is it to us. And you know, make utilizing a system of greeting as at least at the very least equal intervals in which zero might be one of them, is a different matter. But averaging in and of itself punishes someone for their growth in learning within a standard during unit, and that's not something that we want to do, and that's not really how the real world works. Matt and I are big fans of doctor Tom Gusky, and my favorite analogy that he uses is, you know, when everybody starts out at a white belt and karate or taekwondo and they earn their way to a black belt, we don't give them a great belt. They're a black belt, and what's what they could once not do and they can do now is actually quite irrelevant. And we believe that learning is the same regardless. So the easy tip I would have to just as a starting micro approach is just replace this zero or the incomplete with a missing evidence indicator or a non numerical data piece that would indicate we don't have this and this is a red flag. We got to figure something out. But it's not calculating in towards an average as a disproportionate impact on really what it is that they can know or do. We get caught in that. You know, I don't have anything to hold over the student to make them do the work. And well, really like that is the part we should do, is make them do the work, make them show our evidence of learning. That's what we need in the first place. And yeah, we might have to be a little patient, keep work kind of have to get there. But yeah, that's a good point, doctor towns Lay. Anything you want to add. To that, yeah, I think just adjacent to what Chad said there. The what often comes along with the idea of averaging is what super BROOKRT nineteen anyone called Hodgepodge grading is just taking a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this, points for effort, points for participation, points for how well you know it and putting it all together, and then as Chad is looding to, like averaging it, and so there's like this thought of is that we just put a bunch of stuff together and then our student information system or electronic gradebook's going to crank out something to some certain level of precision that we're all going to know and get excited about. No, ninety three point seven is better than ninety three point six, but no one can really describe the difference other than one's better than the other. And so there's just like this allure of understanding what it's all about. There's this allure of really being familiar with what it's all about. But it's just a bunch of data points that gets crunched together over time, and they really don't mean a whole lot. And that's why, you know, Superkar called it Hodgepodge grading. And so you know, as Chatow is alluding to, there, you know, what can we do differently? Let's disaggregate all of that all that stuff, right, Like, all right, how much has Johnny in algebra class learned about one step equations? Let's let him know, as students and his parents know how much they know about one step equations. And then separately, let's let him and his parents know how much he knows about two step equations. Let'st them know how much he knows about or doesn't know about, you know, pythiagree AND's theorem, and as chatters alluding to, that's where we can can get to the uh the equal intervals. You know, a lot of schools are using like you know, beginning, developing proficient or something along those lines, as the scriptors maybe attaching a one to two and a three and a four to them. And that's again what is kind of the antidote I people are the opposite of of percentage based grading, is really being clear in this disaggregated manner, what are we communicating and how can we do it in a way that is not just you know, this allure of point five percent being you know, something we get excited about when our students' creed goes up. You know, you guys mentioned that yesterday too, about communication and that's really at the end of the day, what we're trying to do here right that great is a portion of the communication that we give to families and we give to students on their progress towards what we've identified as those those standards that they must meet to be able to show proficiency. So that's awesome, all right, So Monday we talked about some of those misconceptions today, talking about that averaging piece, how that dilutes, and an alternative to doing that stuff. Guys, this is great. It's a good start. It's a good start, all right, Educators, stay tuned. We're going to have more this week, so we'll be back again for another episode on Wednesday, as we bring doctor Lang and doctor Townsley back here to talk more on grading again. If you haven't done so already, please give us a like, a rating, or a review on your favorite podcast network or on YouTube. It certainly helps us keep this show going. We got an opportunity to that we would certainly appreciate it. Other than that, we'll see again tomorrow. Gentlemen. We'll see you guys tomorrow too. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again tomorrow. That concludes another episode of Your Morning Boost. We hope today's daily dose of professional development helps you amplify knowledge, wide in reach, and broaden impact. Your Morning Boost is an AWB Education production brought to you with the generous support of Grundmeier leader services. Join us again tomorrow for more. Until then, keep boosting your impact