Formative Assessment

Part I: Abolish Grading

Quitting smoking

Part II: Replace Grading

grading without grading

Gather & Share

never need tests for gathering

never need grades for sharing

passion

you mean we did this for nothing

do this and you'll get that

learning becomes a chore

work

am I smart?

&

why am I smart?

external

natural ability

difficulty

luck

internal

effort

growth mindset

vs

fixed mindset

good

how do we best help them be good?

ruth butler

1. grades

2. comments

3. grades + comments

10 of 12

.800

88-0

3 years

2,326

6.6

6.9

80

ego

vs

task

focus

gaokao

zyhuanguan

gaofen dineng

=

high score but low ability

what am I learning

vs

how well am I doing

Push

how motivated are you?

vs

how are you motivated?

lazy

or

rational

why waste my time proving how good I am over and over again, when I could be getting better.

risk aversion

limits pushing

serve

grades breed selfishness

artifical competition

subconscious curve

neighbours are

competitors

collaborative inequalities

credit inequality

learning inequality

collaboration > competition

ideas

imagination

&

creativity

REproduce

or

produce

rubrics

when i get 80%, I stop

will i get an A?

superficial

and

shallow

pursuit of intellectual exploration

outperforms

distraction of achieving good grades

persist

mistakes

&

failures

something that should

have never happened

or

something to learn from

mitakes are our friends

you will never create

something new if you

are not prepared to be

wrong

learned helplessness

high achievers persist towards

high grades

avoid

low achievers persist towards avoiding low grades

quit

Students should experience their

successes and failures not as

reward and punishment but as

information

Rather than do things

to kids, I work with them.

Grading without grading

averaging averages

1.collect stuff - portfolio - performance - electronic

2.professional judgement - observe

always watching & listening

what we see everyday > how they test

3.how are kids learning? ask them!

eerily accurate

www.joebower.org

here is how i replace grading

what i see

Here is where you observe

This isn't about what you like or don't like

No judgement

I prefer point form

be descriptive

be literal

be metaphorical

suggestions

I typically phrase suggestions one of two ways

For things they do well, I suggest that they "continue to ..."

For things they could improve on

I suggest that they "consider next time to ..."

Again, I prefer point-form

questions

Here is where I ask insightful questions

to encourage my students to reflect upon their learning

stay away from questions that have one word answers

or have right or wrong answers

The whole idea is to invoke thoughtfulness

applications

you can use this as:

a teacher assessment

a guide for your two-way verbal conversations

student self-assessment

a teacher's self assessment of an exemplar

or a guide for one-way written comments

student peer assessment

here is why we need to abolish grading

carol dweck

mindset

john wooden

yong zhao

catching up or leading the way

Sometimes I do mention things I don't see