5.- DIMENSIONAMIENTO PRELIMINAR
7.3. Distribución interior del velero
The conversion charts to arrive at letter grades for the hybrid SBRC (see Figure 5.6 above) were created by senior leadership with the sole intention of
teachers using them to calculate end of term final letter grades for the hybrid SBRC in grades 6-8. However, in the initial year of SBG and SBRC
implementation (2017-2018), SL-A and SL-C shared that some teachers began using this chart on individual assignments, even specifying letter grades on rubrics along with the corresponding numerical figures down to the decimal points from the conversion chart. For example, in the illustrative model in Figure 5.7 below, rather than identifying that a student was Meeting for their analysis, the teacher would give the student a distinct 3.6 score for their analysis, sometimes even including a letter grade A with this number.
Figure 5.7: Rubric with Number Distinction
Extends Meets Progressing Beginning
Analyse
Evidence In addition to meeting the standard, I strive for greater depth by analysing evidence through multiple lenses and by corroborating them with my previous analyses. I analyse evidence with logical reasoning, explaining how/why the evidence links to the claims and continually asking (and trying to answer) “so what?”, “who cares?” and “why does this matter?”
3.6
I begin to explain how/why evidence links to the claim, but the reasoning lacks clarity, depth, or contains logical fallacies. I summarize evidence that could be related to my claim, but I do not explain how/why the evidence links back to the claim.SL-A and SL-C also described some teachers wanting to delineate between a “high Meeting” and a “low Meeting.” For example, in the illustrative model in Figure 5.8 below, the teacher has circled the right side of the meeting category to signify that the student is a low meeting, or only just barely Meeting the standard as it is described in the rubric.
Figure 5.8: Rubric with High/Low Distinction
Extends Meets Progressing Beginning
Analyse
Evidence In addition to meeting the standard, I strive for greater depth by analysing evidence through multiple lenses and by corroborating them with my previous analyses. I analyse evidence with logical reasoning, explaining how/why the evidence links to the claims and continually asking (and trying to answer) “so what?”, “who cares?” and “why does this matter?” I begin to explain how/why evidence links to the claim, but the reasoning lacks clarity, depth, or contains logical fallacies. I summarize evidence that could be related to my claim, but I do not explain how/why the evidence links back to the claim.
Speaking on these idiosyncratic teacher grading practices, SL-C perceived that some teachers found it was hard to identify only four levels of performance for a standard and they felt the need to distinguish areas of subtlety. It was unclear how widespread these practices were, but it was occurring enough for the senior leaders to address the issue at a division-wide faculty meeting during the second semester of Year Two of my data collection (2017-2018). SL-B felt that some teachers’ continued practice of putting a letter grade on rubrics after SBGs and SBRCs had been implemented indicated a larger lack of understanding about the principles of standards-based assessment and grading. Teachers issuing numerical scores with letter grades and distinguishing between a high and low standards-based grade raises the question of how different the SBG and SBRC system was for students in the 2017-2018 school year when compared with the letter grade system of 2016-2017. I will return to these variations in teachers’ grading practices when I discuss them from students’ perspectives in chapter seven.
Other issues arose with determining the final letter grade for the hybrid SBRC. One was that teachers veered from the official school policy in arriving at the overall letter grade, a process described earlier in this chapter. SL-C shared that “you might have a student with a Meeting, Meeting, Progressing [on the
reporting standards] and they're getting a B+, and another student with a
Meeting, Meeting, Progressing and they're getting a B.” This issue was
widespread during the 2018-2019 school year and SL-C believed that the official policy of using the Excel calculator was rarely followed. If most teachers were not following the official school policy as SL-C perceived, it raises the questions of how teachers were arriving at the final letter grade standing for the hybrid SBRC, and how varied their practices were in this calculation. The possible implications for students of these practices were that the traditional issues of opaque and idiosyncratic grading practices in determining final grades were alive and well with the hybrid SBRC. These variations in teachers’ standards- based grading practices, as perceived by senior leadership, suggest that even during the second year of the SBRC implementation - one year after I had completed gathering focus group and questionnaire data - many teachers at the school were still struggling to reconcile the two grading systems being combined in the hybrid SBRC.
5.6 Conclusion
Reflecting on standards-based reform at the end of the 2018-19 school year, senior leadership recognized many of the positive changes that had occurred within assessment practices at the school. Some of these changes reflected technical aspects of SBGs: “People don't grade homework, we don't have extra credit anymore…we've separated behaviour from achievement” (SL- B). Other changes identified were at a broader level: “I hear more dialogue that's more concretely rooted in [students’] performance towards a learning standard as opposed to generalities about they received this grade on the test. So I think that link is more clear” (SL-C).
While senior leadership was quick to give credit for these changes, they also recognized that there was still a lot of work to be done. SL-B perceived a deeper “cultural shift” that still needed to occur for some teachers in
understanding “the why” behind the standards reform and shifting evaluative power traditionally held by teachers over to the students.
This chapter has provided a picture of the complicated process of SBG and SBRC reform at SIS and the many components which led to the final end of term grades. The transitory state of SIS, particularly during the first year of SBG and SBRC implementation, sets the backdrop from which students shared their perceptions about SBGs and SBRCs in chapter seven. First, however, in the next chapter I will discuss the iterative process I used to code focus group data, and then I will examine the meaning that students constructed from traditional letter grades and report cards. This examination will corroborate SL-C’s perception, stated earlier in this chapter, that students’ hyper letter grade focus directed their attention away from learning criteria, a phenomenon which likely contributed to letter grades functioning in purely summative ways.
Chapter Six: Results, Analysis and Discussion of Research Question 1: What
meanings do students construct from traditional letter grades and report cards?
6.1 Introduction
In this chapter I will use focus group data from my study to answer the research question, What meanings do students construct from traditional letter grades
and report cards? I will begin by describing the iterative process of developing a
coding framework and assigning those codes to focus group responses. Following this overview of the coding process I will analyse the key themes which became apparent during the coding process. These themes were parents’ influence on the meanings students constructed of letter grades, letter grade formulation, feedback from letter grades, grades as labels, and norm-referencing. Next, I will situate this analysis within the broader framework of my study by connecting the focus group findings to assessment theory, the work of Vygotsky and Wertsch, and the relevant grade and report card research. In discussing these findings within this framework I will identify gaps and overlaps between the two to formulate my analytical generalizations.