Grading for Equity - What It Is, Why It Matters, How It Can Transform Schools Classrooms

"Joe Feldman shows us how we can use grading to help students become the leaders of their own learning and lift the veil on how to succeed. . . . This must-have book will help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact."--Zaretta Hammond,Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain
Crack open the grading conversation
Here at last-and none too soon-is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today's schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students.
With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity provides A critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students' academic potential-practices that are still in place a century later

A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a "true north" orientation toward equitable grading practices
Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness
Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding

As Joe writes, "Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers." Each one of us should start by asking, "What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?" Then, let's make the choice to do things differently . . . with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.

List of contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE: MALLORY¿S DILEMMA
PART I: FOUNDATIONS
CHAPTER 1. WHAT MAKES GRADING SO DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT (AND EVEN HARDER TO CHANGE)?
Grading as Identity
Grading and Our ¿Web of Belief¿
Who Is This Book For?
Blending the Technical and Theoretical
How Is This Book Organized?
A Final Word
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF GRADING
The Twentieth Century Context
Impact on Schools
Grading in the Twentieth Century
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
PART II: THE CASE FOR CHANGE: HOW TRADITIONAL GRADING THWARTS EFFECTIVE AND EQUITABLE TEACHING AND LEARNING
CHAPTER 3. HOW TRADITIONAL GRADING STIFLES RISK-TAKING AND SUPPORTS THE ¿COMMODITY OF GRADES¿
Risk-Taking, Trust, and the Teacher¿Student Relationship
The ¿Commodity of Grades¿ and Extrinsic Motivation
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 4. TRADITIONAL GRADING HIDES INFORMATION, INVITES BIASES, AND PROVIDES MISLEADING INFORMATION
Traditional Grading Evaluates Both a Student¿s Content Knowledge as Well as Their Behaviors, and Invites Subjectivity and Bias
Implicit Bias and Traditional Grading
The ¿Omnibus¿ Grade: A Barrel-ful of Information in a Thimble-Size Container
A Tale of Two Students: Tangela and Isabel
Grade Hacks
The Impact of Variable and Unreliable Grading
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 5. TRADITIONAL GRADING DEMOTIVATES AND DISEMPOWERS
Disengagement and Disempowerment
Motivating Students to Do the Wrong Thing
So Where Do We Go From Here?
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 6. A NEW VISION OF GRADING
Supporting the Pillars: Coherence
A Measured Vision
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
PART III: EQUITABLE GRADING PRACTICES
CHAPTER 7. PRACTICES THAT ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE
The Zero
The 0-100-Percentage Scale: Early Use and Enduring Flaws
The 0¿100 Scale¿s Orientation Toward Failure
Minimum Grading
The 0¿4 Grading Scale
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 8. PRACTICES THAT ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE (CONTINUED)
The Problems With Averaging
Weighting More Recent Performance
Examining the Group Grade
Encouraging Productive Group Work Without a Group Grade
Our Accuracy Pillar: A Final Thought
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 9. PRACTICES THAT VALUE KNOWLEDGE, NOT ENVIRONMENT OR BEHAVIOR
Examining Extra Credit
If the Work Is Important, Require It; If It¿s Not, Don¿t Include It in the Grade
Grading the Work, Not the Timing of the Work
What¿s the Alternative to Lowering Grades for Late Work?
Alternative (Non-Grade) Consequences for Cheating
Excluding ¿Participation¿ and ¿Effort¿ From the Grade
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 10. PRACTICES THAT VALUE KNOWLEDGE, NOT ENVIRONMENT OR BEHAVIOR (CONTINUED)
Homework
The Impact of Including Homework in the Grade: Student Voices and Copying
Reframing Homework
Grades Based Entirely on Summative Assessment Performance
Grades to Teach Students, Not to Control Them
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 11. PRACTICES THAT SUPPORT HOPE AND A GROWTH MINDSET
Our Understanding of Motivation
Grades and Their Impact on Student Motivation
The Role of Mistakes in Learning
Minimum Grading (A Revisit)
Renaming Grades
Retakes and Redos
Retakes: Frequent Approaches
Retakes: Common Concerns
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 12. PRACTICES THAT ¿LIFT THE VEIL¿
The Veils in Our Schools, and ¿Hostile Attributional Bias¿
Rubrics: What Are They, and Why?
Scoring Rubrics and Grade Book Entries
Using Rubrics to Empower Students
¿Lifting the Veil¿ for Tests: The Opacity of Points
Beyond Points: Standards Scales
The Effects of Standards Transparency
Standards-Based Grade Books
Veils, Rubrics, and the ¿Real World¿
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 13. PRACTICES THAT BUILD ¿SOFT SKILLS¿ WITHOUT INCLUDING THEM IN THE GRADE
¿Soft Skills¿
Grading as Feedback
Preparation for the ¿Real World¿
Whose ¿Real World¿ Are We Talking About?
Connecting Soft Skills to Academic Success
Two Grades: Academic and ¿Soft Skills¿
The Twenty-First Century¿s Soft Skill: Self-Regulation
Creating a Community of Feedback
Student Trackers and Goal-Setting
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
CHAPTER 14. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: NICK AND CATHY
Nick: Rethinking Assessments: Getting Away From the Games, and Focusing on Learning
Cathy: A Clearer Vision of Excellence
Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider
EPILOGUE: A RETURN TO MALLORY¿S SCHOOL
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

About the author

Joe Feldman has worked in education at the local and national levels for over twenty years in both charter and district school contexts, and as a teacher, principal, and district administrator. He began his career as a high school English and American history teacher in Atlanta Public Schools and was the founding principal of a charter high school in Washington, DC. He has been the Director of Charter Schools for New York City Department of Education, the Director of K¿12 Instruction in Union City, California, and was a Fellow to the Chief of Staff for U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Joe is currently CEO of Crescendo Education Group (crescendoedgroup.org), a consulting organization that partners with schools and districts to help teachers use improved and more equitable grading and assessment practices. Joe graduated from Stanford University, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and NYU Law School. He is the author of several articles on grading, assessment, and equity, and the author of Teaching Without Bells: What We Can Learn from Powerful Practice in Small Schools (Paradigm). He lives in Oakland, California with his wife and two children.

Summary

This book delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today's schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students.

Product details

• Authors: Joe Feldman
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2018
• EAN: 9781506391571
• ISBN: 978-1-5063-9157-1
• No. of pages: 296
• Dimensions: 180 mm x 254 mm x 16 mm
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, USA, Bildungswesen: Organisation und Verwaltung, Unterrichten von Schülern mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf, Fachspezifischer Unterricht