Thursday, August 7, 2014

Chapter 8: Using Learning Targets to Guide Summative Assessments and Grading

Grading is one of the most laborious tasks a teacher endures as part of his/her job description.  However, if done correctly, it can provide a useful tool to help teachers and students know where they are in the scope of larger learning standards.   The authors take a pretty firm stance on the practice of grading such things as effort and behavior.  They advocate that feedback on such things should be kept separate from actual grading practices, but I believe that this is one area that makes grading so difficult.  Most teachers naturally feel for a student that works really hard and is trying his/her best to learn a new concept or complete an activity.  However, giving credit for effort does a complete disservice to the learning targets process.  The process, in its purest form, calls for student self-regulation against a target.  If grades are inflated, a student (and their parents) may get a false sense of where they are in the learning progression.  Honest feedback is key to student self-regulation against any performance of understanding.

The other common error we make in grading is a misalignment of the task to the true learning target.   If the target asks for a student to learn or demonstrate a particular skill, but the activity does not align with those expectations, it is difficult to determine if the student met the learning goal.  This is why pre-planning of the lesson becomes essential.

When creating a summative assessment, teachers following a true learning targets process should find it fairly straightforward to create their assessments.  First, if you are using the learning targets process, then there should be multiple opportunities within a unit of study to assess student progress.  This also allows a student to know exactly what to expect on the summative and have support measures built in throughout the unit.  The Assessment blueprint on pg. 137, gives a great example about how a well-planned unit with multiple learning targets can easily form an aligned summative assessment.  In my District, our assessment blue print this year will rely on Supporting and Readiness Standards as prescribed by the state.  However, a challenge for teachers will be making sure their daily learning targets align with the written curriculum but also the assessment.

Reflective Questions:

1.     How do you feel about students having an opportunity to re-do an assignment in which they received a poor grade?
2.     What is your opinion on grading students on effort? Or Progress?

3.     How confident are you that the grades you give students on their report cards truly reflect what they have learned?


  1. Answers 2 &3 -- Although I do not think grades should be based on effort, I do wish they were based on academic growth. When gifted students have zeros for formatives yet ace summatives, their C averages reflect effort—not mastery. Grades on report cards do not necessarily measure new learning. When pre-assessment and differentiation are missing, grades might only reflect a high achiever’s compliance. Grades, for the most part, illustrate the result or mastery of performance tasks.

    Answer 1 -- If mastery is mastery, why do we need to average resubmitted work (formative and summative) with the original? When students take the SAT, they can take it again and again and again if they are not satisfied with their scores, and universities accept the highest one. Allowing students to make additions and/or changes to the concepts in an assignment they had a hard time grasping, not only allows them to earn a higher grade, it allows them to gain the knowledge we were targeting in the first place. **Sometime last spring, I started following Reed Gillespie’s blog, and two of his entries changed my perspective about grading resubmitted work.

  2. Answer#1: I believe giving a student the opportunity to redo an assignment due to a poor grade should occur, but only if a few questions are asked beforehand... For what purpose are we allowing a student to redo the assignment? For what purpose is the student himself redoing the assignment? does the student know and understand why they did poorly on the assignment to begin with? Has there been specific and timely feedback provided to the student regarding clarity as to how the student can be more successful on this particular assignment if they choose to redo it? Is the student fully aware of what the expectation is of the assignment and what must be improved in order to gain a better grade this second time around? What kind of feedback was provided to the student before, during, and after the assignment for the student to know they were successful and mastered this assignment the 2nd time? Each of these questions should occur through conferencing with the student.

    Answer#2: I believe there is a difference between grading a student on effort versus grading a student on progress. Grading a student on effort is synonymous with compliance, and compliance does not provide us the evidence to how well our students are meeting the learning targets. Grading a student on progress can be effective and show growth toward mastery of the standards, but it must be clear to all involved parties exactly which tools we are using in order to measure this progress, have this evidence of progress documented, and be able to articulate this evidence and documentation to parents, and all other parties involved.

    Answer#3: I really liked what the book talked about on page 133, where it states, "Today's learning target should build on yesterday's learning target, and any one learning target should fit into a learning trajectory that goes on to something bigger- at some point, something big enough to be reported." I feel this idea is right in line with backwards design. If we're staying true to backwards design, than a student's grade on their report card should indeed truly reflect what they have learned.