Rethinking Grades: Why Standards-Based Grading Is the Shift Your Classroom Needs

I made the switch to standards based grading and I will never go back!

When I first entered into the teaching world, I hadn't even taken my first class related to classroom management or even how to teach. I was thrown in because I had experience in my field - hello Career and Technical Education! Do I recommend this for anyone? Not really. But I had always wanted to be a teacher and the Creative World was my passion. I dived head first and made a LOT of mistakes in my first year, but I also learned a lot more in the process.

I first learned that the points based system I was taught with was inherently subjective and a lot of the time was based on whether the teacher liked me or not. Now, I was a good student and my teachers usually liked me, but I remember the few who didn't and how much harder I had to work in their classes to please them and get the grade I wanted and felt I deserved.

I was introduced to my own implicit biases, by students, colleagues, and supervisors. 

First in the form of the imagery I used in the classroom. I provided a ton of examples of imagery I wanted students to recreate or learn from, only to realize a ton of the images I included were based on white skin tones. I got to see firsthand how my search patterns and the algorithms worked in real time when I asked students to then search for a "portrait" and saw more than just my own reflection appear in their browsers. 

I made a correction that day. I made a point to include reflections of all my students.

I was starting to grow as an educator - if I had standards based grading, at this point, I was probably at a 1 - 1.5 on the scale.

Then I was accused of singling a few loud students out because they weren't white. I had to think to myself, WAS I singling them out? Or were they just being disruptive on a more regular basis. I started to check myself every time I called out a student for being disruptive - would I call out this other student if they were being disruptive? 

I grew again. I'd made it to a 2.

Sitting down to grade projects, I thought back to my own college days when our professor would put images up for critique in the same order every time so we all knew who had taken the images and the commentary seemed to be the same based on the person - the same class "favorite" would get praise while the student who the teacher seemed to just tolerate got harsher critique. One day, we asked him to put the images into a random order and give feedback that way and the commentary shifted! No one knew who had taken what image and so they were guessing. The students who were "tolerated" started to receive praise and the students who seemed to slide by, they got an earful of how they could improve.

I checked myself again. Was I doing that? Was I giving critique differently or grading differently? I found myself wanting to dock a student points because they hadn't put in the effort that I expected them to.

Now I was approaching a 3.

As the months went on, I would reevaluate lessons I'd given in one period and adjust for the next. My first class was deemed my guinea pigs.

At the end of this first year, I was worn out! But I felt much stronger in my ability to teach the content and control the classroom. 

That's when the school announced we were moving to standards based grading.

I spent the next year researching and learning everything I could I found a GREAT book specifically aimed at Career and Technical Education Standards and leadership skills that really helped me move the marker and fully understand the concept of standards based as skill based rather than points based as a way to gain compliance or feel power.

The purpose of Standards Based Grading is to help a student GROW and to build TRANSFERABLE SKILLS that will benefit them well beyond your classroom or your content area - and that mindset shift was the pivotal point for me.

So, if you have ever looked at a student’s final grade and thought, this does not actually tell me what they can do, you are not alone.

Traditional points-based grading often rewards task completion more than skill development. 

SBG focuses on what students know and can do. It allows teachers, students, and families to track progress on specific learning goals. Instead of asking, What grade did I get?, students begin to ask, What did I learn and what can I do next?

If you are interested in making this shift but do not know where to begin, I created a free Standards Based Grading Quickstart Guide to help. This resource is designed for teachers in CTE, arts, and other skill-based classrooms who want their grading to reflect student learning more accurately.

Click Here to Download the free SBG Quickstart Guide and start building a grading system that works.