Report Cards and Grading

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Permalink Reply by Kim Lightle on February 24, 2010 at 3:59pm

Eric - How quickly do they plan on putting the new system in place? Is the new system one that the school district has developed or one that has already been developed? How much professional development has been scheduled for teachers and parents? Kim

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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on February 24, 2010 at 8:45pm

Kim,

We are planning on using the new system next school year. The new system will be one that our middle school is developing. Obviously we don't want to reinvent the wheel so we are going to be using bits and pieces of other systems. The committee is made up of a number of teachers and we have already had one parent meeting. As we continue on, we will have at least two more meetings with parents to discuss their thoughts. I'm thinking a good part of before school inservice will go to pd for teachers and I know the principal has planned a number of parent nights to get info out. The goal is to make it as easy transition wise as possible while still developing a report card that actually tells parents and teachers something. We shall see!

Eric

Kim Lightle said:

Eric - How quickly do they plan on putting the new system in place? Is the new system one that the school district has developed or one that has already been developed? How much professional development has been scheduled for teachers and parents? Kim

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Permalink Reply by Kim Lightle on February 25, 2010 at 7:58am

Sounds like the implementation plan has been well thought out - now to the actual plan!

Eric Biederbeck said:

Kim,

We are planning on using the new system next school year. The new system will be one that our middle school is developing. Obviously we don't want to reinvent the wheel so we are going to be using bits and pieces of other systems. The committee is made up of a number of teachers and we have already had one parent meeting. As we continue on, we will have at least two more meetings with parents to discuss their thoughts. I'm thinking a good part of before school inservice will go to pd for teachers and I know the principal has planned a number of parent nights to get info out. The goal is to make it as easy transition wise as possible while still developing a report card that actually tells parents and teachers something. We shall see!

Eric

Kim Lightle said:

Eric - How quickly do they plan on putting the new system in place? Is the new system one that the school district has developed or one that has already been developed? How much professional development has been scheduled for teachers and parents? Kim

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Permalink Reply by Karolee Smiley on February 28, 2010 at 2:34pm

The most important thing is to consider the purpose and use of the changes. How will it be use? Why do you need it? Will there be any accountability tied to this?

Our report card has the letter grade (A, B, C ,D, F), but we also have citizenship and work habits (O, S, N, U). The only thing that really counts with the school is the letter grade. Citizenship is sometimes used for participation in extracurricular activities. We used to have a rule that if there were two Us, you were not eligible for sports or clubs. We also have no U dances. Since the work habits does not have any accountability to it, no one seems to pay much attention to it. We use comment codes to provide explanations and details for the grade, so work habits seems redundant.

One of our neighboring districts has standards based report cards. They still provide a letter grade for the course (requested by the parents) but also mark how well students have mastered key standards. So, a student could have a C in science, but has not reached proficiency in cellular functions. Its a great idea, but I understand it is more labor intensive.

Logistics have quite a bit to do with it too. What kind of Student Information System you have can make it easier or harder to flex. It seems like what we do reflects what the system is set up to do. We can't change ours on site because our system is set district-wide.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on February 28, 2010 at 7:04pm

Interesting comments Karolee,

I think it is important that you mention that work habits don't seem to matter since there is no accountability- something I'll have to mention. I think we are heading in the direction of the neighboring district you mentioned- we want to keep letters (parent's feedback) but want to use more standards based info- this ties in with your comment about purpose- we want the report card to tell both parents and future teachers what the child knows and what he/she doesn't understand. I think it might at first be more labor intensive but could be beneficial in the long run.

We are using Grade Quick which looks like it can be optimized for what we want too so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the comments

Eric
Karolee Smiley said:

The most important thing is to consider the purpose and use of the changes. How will it be use? Why do you need it? Will there be any accountability tied to this?

Our report card has the letter grade (A, B, C ,D, F), but we also have citizenship and work habits (O, S, N, U). The only thing that really counts with the school is the letter grade. Citizenship is sometimes used for participation in extracurricular activities. We used to have a rule that if there were two Us, you were not eligible for sports or clubs. We also have no U dances. Since the work habits does not have any accountability to it, no one seems to pay much attention to it. We use comment codes to provide explanations and details for the grade, so work habits seems redundant.

One of our neighboring districts has standards based report cards. They still provide a letter grade for the course (requested by the parents) but also mark how well students have mastered key standards. So, a student could have a C in science, but has not reached proficiency in cellular functions. Its a great idea, but I understand it is more labor intensive.

Logistics have quite a bit to do with it too. What kind of Student Information System you have can make it easier or harder to flex. It seems like what we do reflects what the system is set up to do. We can't change ours on site because our system is set district-wide.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Jenkins on March 2, 2010 at 1:30pm

Hi Eric,

Actually, the first thing thing that comes to my mind is the way that certain school districts in Canada do report cards. I remember having this discussion with some friends from Space Camp and i'm pretty sure that much of their formal assessment process is similar to your wants. I'll check with a couple of folks.....In the mean time- Are their any Canadians in the house?

Eric Biederbeck said:

Interesting comments Karolee,

I think it is important that you mention that work habits don't seem to matter since there is no accountability- something I'll have to mention. I think we are heading in the direction of the neighboring district you mentioned- we want to keep letters (parent's feedback) but want to use more standards based info- this ties in with your comment about purpose- we want the report card to tell both parents and future teachers what the child knows and what he/she doesn't understand. I think it might at first be more labor intensive but could be beneficial in the long run.

We are using Grade Quick which looks like it can be optimized for what we want too so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the comments

Eric
Karolee Smiley said:

The most important thing is to consider the purpose and use of the changes. How will it be use? Why do you need it? Will there be any accountability tied to this?

Our report card has the letter grade (A, B, C ,D, F), but we also have citizenship and work habits (O, S, N, U). The only thing that really counts with the school is the letter grade. Citizenship is sometimes used for participation in extracurricular activities. We used to have a rule that if there were two Us, you were not eligible for sports or clubs. We also have no U dances. Since the work habits does not have any accountability to it, no one seems to pay much attention to it. We use comment codes to provide explanations and details for the grade, so work habits seems redundant.

One of our neighboring districts has standards based report cards. They still provide a letter grade for the course (requested by the parents) but also mark how well students have mastered key standards. So, a student could have a C in science, but has not reached proficiency in cellular functions. Its a great idea, but I understand it is more labor intensive.

Logistics have quite a bit to do with it too. What kind of Student Information System you have can make it easier or harder to flex. It seems like what we do reflects what the system is set up to do. We can't change ours on site because our system is set district-wide.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on March 3, 2010 at 9:42pm

Thanks Tom,

All the extra information I can garner will only help with our final decision.

Tom Jenkins said:

Hi Eric,

Actually, the first thing thing that comes to my mind is the way that certain school districts in Canada do report cards. I remember having this discussion with some friends from Space Camp and i'm pretty sure that much of their formal assessment process is similar to your wants. I'll check with a couple of folks.....In the mean time- Are their any Canadians in the house?

Eric Biederbeck said:

Interesting comments Karolee,

I think it is important that you mention that work habits don't seem to matter since there is no accountability- something I'll have to mention. I think we are heading in the direction of the neighboring district you mentioned- we want to keep letters (parent's feedback) but want to use more standards based info- this ties in with your comment about purpose- we want the report card to tell both parents and future teachers what the child knows and what he/she doesn't understand. I think it might at first be more labor intensive but could be beneficial in the long run.

We are using Grade Quick which looks like it can be optimized for what we want too so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the comments

Eric
Karolee Smiley said:

The most important thing is to consider the purpose and use of the changes. How will it be use? Why do you need it? Will there be any accountability tied to this?

Our report card has the letter grade (A, B, C ,D, F), but we also have citizenship and work habits (O, S, N, U). The only thing that really counts with the school is the letter grade. Citizenship is sometimes used for participation in extracurricular activities. We used to have a rule that if there were two Us, you were not eligible for sports or clubs. We also have no U dances. Since the work habits does not have any accountability to it, no one seems to pay much attention to it. We use comment codes to provide explanations and details for the grade, so work habits seems redundant.

One of our neighboring districts has standards based report cards. They still provide a letter grade for the course (requested by the parents) but also mark how well students have mastered key standards. So, a student could have a C in science, but has not reached proficiency in cellular functions. Its a great idea, but I understand it is more labor intensive.

Logistics have quite a bit to do with it too. What kind of Student Information System you have can make it easier or harder to flex. It seems like what we do reflects what the system is set up to do. We can't change ours on site because our system is set district-wide.

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Permalink Reply by Diane Munzar on March 10, 2010 at 6:48pm

Hi Eric,
I am a Canadian teacher teaching in Quebec... If you go to http://www.learnquebec.ca you may glean some interesting information about the use of rubrics, reform and overall evaluation we are now using. It is based on essential knowledges, broader areas of learning and cross-curricular competencies. There is also an online project building tool called DOTPLAN that is available on the site. It will show and explain how each competency is linked....
Our report card is all done electronically through GPI (Grics internet technologies). Although I use a rubric system I must eventually assign a number to each competency. this is am interesting process as we are right back to 20 years ago.. giving actual percentage marks to each section of the report card(as well as class averages). this seems very contrary to the whole idea of the reform- which is really based on each child having an individual report system that is not compared to anyone other than themselves.
In Language arts we give 4 separate grades.
Math -3 grades
Science- 3 grades
Social Studies- 3 grades
Visual Arts- 3 grades
Ethics, Religion and Culture- 2 grades
french- 4 grades

Overall we give the parents so much information that it really tells them very little. I have never in 25 years had a parent ask how a certain mark reflected their child's ability to succeed. They are VERY concerned about the class average and what it means.
We give effort marks as well as comments for each child every term. It seems that the comments are the most important to parents and if I had the choice I would give a pure ANECDOTAL report for each child.
Learning is a process for each child and should not be a reflection of where that child is compared to ANYONE else. It is so important to give each child a sense of some success.
I hope this helped...
Diane
P.S. In Quebec this is about the 10 change to how we report in my 28 years... Sad we haven't go tit right yet....

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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on March 12, 2010 at 9:11am

Thanks Diane,

That is helpful. I will check out those sites with our report card group! I agree that we really need to move parents away from comparing their child to other students. That really doesn't show much- you could have a child that compares favorably to everyone else in his or her class but that is because everyone else is working below grade level. Vice versa you could have a child who is the lowest student in his or her class but they are working three levels above their grade. Plus when you compare its important to talk abotu what you are comparing. Are you comparing their work ethic, their understanding of standards, their collaborative skills. There is so much that goes into getting that one grade, I think as you said its important to give parents anecdotal evidence.

Thanks again,

Eric

Diane Munzar said:

Hi Eric,
I am a Canadian teacher teaching in Quebec... If you go to http://www.learnquebec.ca you may glean some interesting information about the use of rubrics, reform and overall evaluation we are now using. It is based on essential knowledges, broader areas of learning and cross-curricular competencies. There is also an online project building tool called DOTPLAN that is available on the site. It will show and explain how each competency is linked....
Our report card is all done electronically through GPI (Grics internet technologies). Although I use a rubric system I must eventually assign a number to each competency. this is am interesting process as we are right back to 20 years ago.. giving actual percentage marks to each section of the report card(as well as class averages). this seems very contrary to the whole idea of the reform- which is really based on each child having an individual report system that is not compared to anyone other than themselves.
In Language arts we give 4 separate grades.
Math -3 grades
Science- 3 grades
Social Studies- 3 grades
Visual Arts- 3 grades
Ethics, Religion and Culture- 2 grades
french- 4 grades

Overall we give the parents so much information that it really tells them very little. I have never in 25 years had a parent ask how a certain mark reflected their child's ability to succeed. They are VERY concerned about the class average and what it means.
We give effort marks as well as comments for each child every term. It seems that the comments are the most important to parents and if I had the choice I would give a pure ANECDOTAL report for each child.
Learning is a process for each child and should not be a reflection of where that child is compared to ANYONE else. It is so important to give each child a sense of some success.
I hope this helped...
Diane
P.S. In Quebec this is about the 10 change to how we report in my 28 years... Sad we haven't go tit right yet....

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