Your Morning Boost - The One Leadership Strategy to Overcome Grading Reform Resistance

Welcome to your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. Here we amplify knowledge, widen reach, and broaden impact in education, delivering your daily dose of professional development. This program is sponsored by Grundmeyer Leader Services, where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time. Now, get ready. To amplify your day with your Morning Boost. All right, Happy Friday, Boosters, Welcome to Friday. It's been a great week so far. Hopefully it's been a good week for you in school as well, and got a weekend coming up that I know every single one of you, if you're listening to this show and you're an educator, you've earned a great weekend, so I'm excited about getting to that weekend together. We are back for the final day here with doctor Lang and doctor Townsley as we discuss grading practices. And here we go. We got one more question to finalize our week here, gentlemen, thank you for joining us. We're going to pay a couple of bills here quick, and then we'll be right back with that last question, question number five. All right, guys, here we go, question number five. I know we were been talking all week long about some just amazing stuff that you guys have in your book, have in the work that you do. So here we go. The question is changing grading practices often causes an implementation dep What is the one leadership behavior most effective for helping staff and the community successfully navigate and overcome that resistance. Yeah, well, you know, it's amazing when you're working on school improvement and you're in the trenches and you're really trying to focus on transformational change, just how often we forget about our customers, the students themselves, and that's where we got to bring them in. I've seen so many great examples and unfortunate to be a part of them as well in the schools that I've served of students being at the table celebrating sharing success stories where they've been able to have more clarity about what the expectations were for learning and high achievement and how they're able to really grasp and tackle them on all ends of the spectrum and then really set forth a path. And so you need to as a leader, identify opportunities to celebrate those successes with your school board and with your community. Perhaps even some business employers or community partners that would just love to see that clarity around some behavioral attributes or some twenty first century skills identified in standards, and just let the kids talk a little bit about their experience maybe before and after, or you know, what's different for you around learning. And I also think it's not a bad idea to reach out to some of your higher ED partners in the community and sort of maybe help quell some of those myths about well, they're going to be at a disadvantage if their grade card looks different or something like that, which we know is simply just not true based on that feedback that we've heard from higher ed institutions all around the world. But let's have the kid's voice involved. That's what that's that's. Where I would definitely lean into. Yeah, hard to disagree their chat, I think, and you know, I think about what this question is all about, the implementation DIP and the resources behind it. Like my school district, my former school district was unfortunately a case study in that regard for a while. And as we looked around, there were some classrooms that were really that there were teachers that were really rocking it, and there were some teachers that maybe weren't yet confident in what this grading shift was all about, and unfortunately that was maybe being communicated maybe subconsciously to the students in the classroom. And so now we've got students in the classroom who are uncertain about what grade they're getting and why and what this grade shift is all about. Well, that guarantee you almost guarantee you is going to translate back to home where a parent now. Is frustrated, uncertain and whatever. And so as you know, kind of looked around and tried to figure out, like what should we do about it, we said, got to start with the customer, got to start with a student. And a practice that we did was actually found out, was replicated and in a school. District in Illinois when I was out there last week. It's simply having stations think of like an early out dismissal, but not really an early out or just there's shortened periods during the school day and then students go through rotations like in the afternoon. So you can visualize that out there, boosters and those stations being something like what's a standard, Another station being something like, you know, what's a rubricer a scale? And how do I interpret it? Another you know, station being something like, you know, what's reassessment and how do I get involved in it? And so students are being taught like you know, five six mint station is all it is by somebody who knows this concept well and is helping students understand what it is and how they can be a benefactor of it. In my school district, we recorded those little sessions. We sent them home to parents so they can also see it. But what we were really hoping to do in this school district, Illinois, the theory of action, if you will, is students that get it equal parents that get it. And I think that's really what can help school districts, you know, accelerate through perhaps even avoid an implementation dip. Right, Like sometimes we think we want to just start sending out more information directly to parents, having more parent meetings, sending out more videos and things like that. Don't get me wrong, we should do those things, but let's go to the students first and when they get it, like the School of Illinois, like what they're you know, thinking about is is like who could actually teach the parents the best probably their kids. And so let's not forget about forget about the customer. As shed reminded. Us, that is awesome. That is really awesome stuff, guys. I tell you, it's really a shame that there's only five days in a week because I would have brought you guys back for even more of these. This is great. I'm don't have to do this again some time before we're done though. Today, you guys have given us a lot of knowledge, but I know there's a lot more left that we didn't tap into. How do our listeners get a hold of you if they want to reach out and learn some more, partner with you, ge get into the work that you guys are doing. How did they get in touch with you? Yeah? You know, we love to chat with people, consult them, ask questions, kick around ideas. I mean, certainly we're not the experts and the be all end all. I think the grading community as it might be larger, are great about that. I mean they're just really great about it. And schools are great, and I think that's what's awesome about our field. But and then I both like to curate resources and articles and things in different ways, and sometimes publications are even podcast episodes like this. So you can go to my websites, recalibrate dservices dot com or look me up on LinkedIn, Chad Lang and connect with me that way. I'm happy to do that and hopefully you find it helpful for your journey wherever you're at as a booster or just a school leader out there doing your thing. So thanks for the opportunity. Yes, Jad mentioned love to curate resources to really support you know, teachers administrators out there that really want to do this work at a high level, and so hop on Google and actually type in all things standards based grading, all things standards based grading. It will take you directly to my website where there's again you know, links to podcasts, links to articles, links to books, links to examples out there in the field. I think that's just a great resource for anyone out there listening. And I'm still on the old X at MC Townsley for those that are still hang out there on Twitter as I'm also experimenting out there in blue Sky, same handle at mc Townsley. Love to chat there da whatever it might. Be, to share ideas and kick around the latest research as well as chat alluded to. Well, I certainly follow all the stuff you guys do on the socials because you are very active, which is awesome. If you're looking for another article two. One of your latest articles we post on posted on the AWB Education web page two is how change Happens. I believe breaking the grading habit, think one step at a time if I nail that right. Excellent article right there. But again, you guys just have a wealth of knowledge and I'm glad that you're just willing to share it with us. Thanks again, gentlemen, really appreciate you being here this week. This has been a fun week and I think we're going to have to figure out when we're going to do this again, because, like I said, you have a lot of knowledge that can really help all of our leaders out there doing the great work every day Boosters. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful weekend because I know you have earned it. We'll be back again next week with some more on your Morning Boost. But until that time, thank you for listening. We will talk with you again next week. 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