Bring Standards-Based Grading To Your School — SUCCESSFULLY! Part 1

A teacher's recent tweet. "Standards based report cards coming for us next year. No more isolated ABCDF. Don't really know how to grade like that yet!"

Another tweet from same teacher. "Was told yesterday that we're going to sb report cards next year. No idea how to start."

What a difficult challenge that has been laid down for this teacher and school. Is it possible to successfully implement a change like Standards-Based Grading (SBG) in six months? I'll answer that question with . . .

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Bring Standards-Based Grading To Your School — SUCCESSFULLY! Part 2


Screen Shot 2016-02-03 at 3.24.01 PM“Too many students walk through the schoolhouse door with one aim in mind: to get good grades. And all too often, the best way to reach this goal is to get with the program, avoid risk and serve up the answers the teacher wants, the way the teacher wants them. Good grades become a reward for compliance – but don’t have much to do with learning.”  
Daniel Pink — Drive

Congratulations! You’ve successfully navigated the planning and initial information sharing phase of an SBG roll-out. Sure there have been a few teachers and parents voicing their concerns but nothing major. And you’ve been approached by other teachers and parents eager to see the new grading system move along. There may even be a small contingent already exploring SBG principles in their classrooms. However, no substantive changes have happened yet. That is about to change.

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Bring Standards-Based Grading To Your School — SUCCESSFULLY! Part 3

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Although my school started with the end in mind, we quickly understood that change was much more about shifts in assessment and teaching practices and less about grades. Especially true when a mantra like ours is, “It’s about the learning, not the grading.” A blog post by Garnet Hillman and these strategies will help you understand that standards-based learning underpins the transition to standards-based grading. If you don’t align

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