SBG - Is It Worth It?

The Problem

This past week has been extremely disappointing for my SBG grading scheme, and is forcing me to evaluate different aspects of standards based grading in general. Two things that I’ve done have seem to flopped quite badly. First, I have tried to move to a mastery/conjunctive grading system, in hopes of raising some minimum standards that students should meet. Secondly, I tried to implement some gradual Student Initiated Assessment (SIA) rules to have the students take a more mature approach to assessment. Neither worked out very well.

SBG

In terms of conjunctive grading, I had separated the learning objectives into “A” standards and “B” standards. The idea was that all students need to meet some minimum requirements (the A standards). I don’t like the idea of how a higher achievement in a standard averages out against basic concepts. All basic concepts should be mastered in order to say that you’ve passed a course (or achieved some minimal mark like 65%). The bottom line is that I continued to have students do poorly on “A” standards through misconceptions, laziness, and even harmless mistakes. I can’t in good judgement have so many students sit at 65% because of a few mistakes. For now and in the foreseeable future, all standards will have equal weight for grade creation.

Good Marks Hunting

A more significant problem is the issue of SIA, and particularly for my Physics 12 students who are scrambling for good Term 1 marks. I had created several rules for the students to follow to get a SIA, and I thought they would minimize/fix the problems that I had last year. In fact, things are even worse this year. It is almost downright embarrassing as to how many students are continually approaching me to get a SIA done at the last minute.

Fairness

This second issue brings to a head some general problems that I have with SBG. First of all, because I do SBG it is possible that my students have an unfair advantage when getting a grade. The grades that I give to not contain a history or time value, and I have no problems with that. However, other classes that use traditional grading do incorporate time and history. Again, no problems there. Unfortunately both types of grades are lumped together and used for the same sole purpose of university admissions. Universities don’t know that we’re reporting on different things, and all grading systems are treated equally.

Character

The crux of the matter is not equality though. I steadfastly object to public education being used as a sorting hat for universities. Various people in BC Education agree with this, including district superintendents. No, for me the big issue is about personal integrity, and developing students with resilience and character. The fact that I have dozens of students with downturned faces, begging for a SIA, tells me something is very wrong. They got themselves into a pickle (in their minds) and now they want help out. Many of the students asking for SIA are like this. Worse, they don’t just ask for one, they ask for several and when they fail, they want more again. It’s unpalatable. The fact that I tried to implement controls to avoid this has not stopped the behaviour from surfacing.  Unfortunately, I made my bed and I now have to sleep in it (for one more week).

How Important are Learning Objectives?

From this, I am beginning to ask the Big Question. What is worth more, to show students through SBG that learning at any rate is admired and welcomed? Or that it is better to go through some hard knocks because that’s just how life is, and we need to assist students to self-regulate and respond to challenges? When I take a step back from grading, I actually defer to the goal of developing character. For example, for most students does it really matter if they master how objects react to forces when sliding on an incline? Probably not; and if it does matter to someone then they will get other chances to learn it in the future.

I still like many of the fundamental ideas of SBG. I completely agree with the idea that a student should not be punished for not learning something completely right the first time; that a student can learn at a different rate; that if students ultimately achieve the same goal in the end they should all get the same grade. In order to achieve this, SBG with on-going assessments is a necessity. It doesn’t do any good to tell students that the above is true, but then not offer them opportunities be graded at a later time. We can’t tell them that it’s ok to learn at a different rate but then not give them assessments that correspond to their rate. That would be hypocritical and dishonest.  Just to give a quick example of the power of SBG, last year I had several students studying, learning and improving upon kinematics in February, even though the topic was covered in September/October and there wasn’t a final exam until June.  That’s what real learning is, imo.

The Big Questions

In the end I am left with three overriding questions. 1. Is it possible to have a functioning SBG system which values on-going learning and assessment in a real and authentic manner? 2. If the answer to the above question is “yes”, then how is this done? Because it’s not happening now. 3. What is more important, to promote on-going learning and assessment, or to promote a more holistic education in hopes of modeling to students their need to be resilient and strong in adversity.

Your comments and questions are much appreciated.