GRADING PRACTICES THAT INHIBIT LEARNING

When:              October 16, 2008, 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Where:             National Louis University  -  Lisle Campus

Cost:                Individual  $100        Team of Three-Five  $250

Why:  Student involvement in teaching/ learning and in assessment and communication can make significant contributions to improve achievement and positive attitudes about both learning and school.  Grading practices can encourage or inhibit learning.  The best thing you can do is make sure your grades convey meaningful, accurate information about student achievement.  If grades give sound information to students, then their perceptions and conclusions about themselves as learners, and decisions about future learning will be the best they can be.  There are many grading practices that inhibit learning.  Teachers may not be aware of the impact of their grading practices.  This workshop presents information for how to turn grading practices that inhibit learning into grading practices that can support and encourage learning.

Background:  The primary purpose of grades should be communication about achievement, with achievement being defined as performance measured against accepted, published standards and learning outcomes.  Feedback is so powerful in helping students identify what they know and are able to do and what they need to focus their learning on next.  Grades are one form of feedback.  If used properly, grades can support and encourage learning.   If used inappropriately, grades can inhibit learning.  Grading is a necessary form of feedback as parents wants grades to help them interpret student progress.   Ken O’Connor and Robert Marzano provide an excellent review of the research and suggestions for how to make the shifts to ensure that grades are consistent, accurate, meaningful, and support/encourage learning.  CEC’s Perry Soldwedel, Associate Director for Systems Thinking, will facilitate the training.

Goal:  The goal of this training is to build capacity of classroom teachers to make certain their grading practices are consistent, accurate, meaningful, and support learning.  Educators interested in examining their grading practices should ask the following questions:

• “How confident am I that the grades students get in my classroom/school/district are consistent, accurate, and meaningful, and that they support learning?”

• “How confident am I that the grades I assign students accurately reflect my school’s/district’s published content standards and desired learning outcomes?”

Outcomes:  To assist classroom teachers understand and be able to reflect on grading practices that support and encourage learning.

• Self-assess current grading practices and identify those that support learning and those that inhibit learning.
• Provide a clear and understandable vision of grading practices that do support and encourage learning.
• Use examples and models of grading practices that do promote continued learning.
• Provide strategies for how to turn grading practices that do not support learning into practices that do.
• Offer ideas for how students can be involved in using grades to help them set goals on what they need to learn next.  Engage students in self-reflection; let them keep track of and share their learning.

More Details:  This half-day workshop is a highly-interactive workshop in which participants are asked to conduct self assessments, and share personal grading practices, learn about how to separate academic grades from non-academic grades.  Learn about 15 fixes for “Broken Grades.”  The “fixes” are in four categories:  distorted achievement, low-quality or poorly organized evidence, inappropriate grade calculation, and linking grades more closely to student learning.

Registration:    Please register by October 1, 2008

For Further Information:    Contact Perry Soldwedel  perry.soldwedel@cecillinois.org