An Ontario high school teacher plans to continue an alternative method of grading her students in the new school year after an experiment last semester.
Stacie Oliver teaches at AB Lucas High School in London, Ontario. she and she recently started a new method of determining the midterm and final grades of her students.
Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, Oliver said she and her students work together on grades twice a year, midterm and end of semester.
“Students propose their own grade on those two points and then they have to justify and show me that they’ve earned that grade,” Oliver explained.
“We have digital portfolios that they create throughout the semester that showcase not only their best work, but all the attempts they made along the way to get to that ‘showpiece,’ which is what they consider to be the best representation of their learning. .”
Oliver says students must show that their work meets the expectations of the provincial curriculum.
“They understand the curriculum document very well and can talk about how their work greatly meets and/or exceeds those expectations,” he said.
Known as “no grading,” Oliver said the method tries to change understanding of how to measure success in learning.
“There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that ratings are very subjective,” he said. “It’s hard to objectively say, ‘This number is the number that really captures the learning.’ What might be in my classroom, is it the same in another department, another subject, another school?”
But the most important aspect, Oliver says, is how students link self-esteem and identity to their grade number.
“What ends up happening is that they don’t feel like it’s all pointless because they can continue to do it, whether it’s a task or practice a skill, they can continue to practice it until they’re satisfied that they’ve accomplished it. I think that’s really important and it encourages students because then they want to learn and they want to improve,” she said.
Oliver said that students in each classroom have different attitudes about grades. She says the non-grading experiment allows students across that spectrum to take ownership of their learning.
“What ends up happening is that they don’t feel like it’s all pointless because they can continue to do it, whether it’s a task or practice a skill, they can continue to practice it until they’re satisfied that they’ve accomplished it. I think that’s really important and it encourages students because then they want to learn and they want to improve,” she said.
Oliver said she retains the authority, as a teacher, to tell a student they haven’t justified the grade they may be arguing about, but says most students’ evaluations of her work are pretty close to her own.
“If I had to change a rating, which didn’t happen very often, I was moving the ratings up. I’ve had students tell me they don’t want to appear arrogant or think too highly of themselves, so they give themselves a lower grade than they might have gotten otherwise,” she said.
Oliver says that his principal and the school board approve of the grading scheme and that he plans to continue it in the fall.
“My director has a huge stake in this thing we call ‘disqualification’ and so he’s been very supportive from the start, as has the board, so it’s been great.”