In 2015, I began imagining a no-grades classroom. I wasn’t sure what this meant at the time. All I knew is that the letters and numbers that I put alongside students’ names didn’t even come close to representing who they were as learners and what …
5 Routines for a Meaningful Final Grade Conference
In the beginning, we were learning how to talk about learning without numbers or letters. Now, we are just talking about evidence and learning. I think I have worked out some effective and efficient routines to confer for final reading grades, so I thought I would share five routines that have helped make this final conference with my seventh graders the most honest, positive conversation we’ve had about learning.
Assessment in the Reading Workshop without Grades: What did you read? What did you do with your reading? What did you learn?
Your assignment is a 2nd Quarter Summary blog post to me and your parents about what you’ve learned and how, using the standards and evidence from class. That is the first line of the “final exam” I wrote for our second quarter, seventh grade reading class. …
I’m a no-grades cheater.
“You can’t just declare that you have a growth mindset,” said Dweck. “Growth mindset is hard. Many educators are trying to skip the journey.” To do it right, Dweck says that many teachers have to change how they teach, offering more critical feedback and giving …
No Grading: I Think I Did it Wrong
After spending the summer researching assessment and grading, after meeting with colleagues and my principal about facilitating a no-grades classroom this school year, after resisting numbers and letter grades on student work for nearly nine weeks, after countless hours of writing narrative feedback to students …
Book Response: Rethinking Grading by Cathy Vatterott
I think this book is really helpful for teachers rethinking grades. Okay. In Rethinking Grading: Meaningful Assessment for Standards-Based Learning, Cathy Vatterott offers a framework for standards-based grading to reflect student progress and learning, and she provides examples from elementary, middle, and high schools. Still, …