The last few years I have focused my professional learning goals around assessment and have put many different ideas into practice in my classroom. I no longer grade things like effort or use of class time and I no longer give marks for formative assessments. I don't just give students zeros for incomplete work, I work with the student, and parents if necessary, to get the work done. I will accept late assignments and allow students extra opportunities to demonstrate to me the concepts they have mastered, even if their mastery occurs later than when we learned the concepts in class.
No professional learning plan about assessment would be complete without Joe Bower's blog
for the love of learning. In his quest to abolish grading, Joe started a
Grading Moratorium, which many brave teachers have joined. I have thought many times of joining too but I have had a difficult time wrapping my head around these ideas of not assigning grades to assessments while complying with district policies. I have a lot of fear of not doing the same thing that my colleagues do. And if I don't have grades then how will my students compete with the other students in the school for prestigious end-of-the-year awards for top marks?
I feel like the frog in frogger. I am only two leaps from reaching my destination. I am standing on a turtle that is disappearing beneath my feet. I need to leap before I drown in the water but the only thing I can hop on is a crocodile, with its mouth wide open ready to devour me. I have to be sure to land on its tail where it is safe.
At this moment, abolishing grading feels like the crocodile's mouth, not its tail.
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