How to Argue with Standards-Based Learning

So you are a parent or student or teacher or community member who is currently facing the prospect of significant changes to education. You have heard the talk about standards-based learning and grading, maybe read articles or opinion pieces in the newspaper, maybe listened to a family member get upset or a neighbor or a colleague. And now you are ready to a) make a phone call, b) show up at an informational night, or c) write a letter to the editor.

In order to help you with this next step in the change process, here are some suggestions about how to argue with standards-based grading and learning.

Don’t challenge the intent, question the implementation.

If you are upset with the coming changes, do your homework and find out how your school and district is planning to implement them. The more you understand standards-based learning and grading, the more you will realize that it is not only logical, but will more readily prepare our young people for the learning they will face throughout their lives. Most professions have standards-based evaluation systems, most jobs require clear goals and proficiency in core skills, and most of our futures will require the ability to transfer skills and understanding to varied and challenging settings. One of the major purposes of school is to prepare our young people for the world they will inherit and influence, and the best way to do that it is provide them lots of instruction and practice with innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills. That’s what standards-based learning and grading is meant to enable.

“With well-designed pedagogy, we can empower kids with critical skills and help them turn passions into decisive life advantages. The role of education is no longer to teach content, but to help our children learn—in a world that rewards the innovative and punishes the formulaic.” ― Tony Wagner, Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era

So question the implementation, not the intent. Making significant changes in how we teach, instruct, assess, and report learning will not be easy, and your school and district should have a plan to allow for these changes while providing safety nets for our students. Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• What type of ongoing training will the teachers have to ensure they understand the purpose behind the changes?
• What type of support will the teachers have along the way? Who are the people in the building the teachers can go to when they have questions, run into obstacles, or aren’t sure what to do?
• Do the school leaders have a deep understanding of the why and the how of standards-based learning? Does the school board understand and support the changes?
• What supports are available for students while they are learning a new set of rules about learning? Who is available to answer their questions if their teachers cannot? Who will listen to them when they are frustrated?
• What supports are available for parents as they navigate these changes? Who do they talk to when things don’t make sense or their children are upset or they have questions about systems and structures that may look nothing like they are used to?
• What will the report cards and transcripts look like? Will they be different? Will our students still have a GPA? If not, what additional communication will the school be doing to ensure our students are not at a disadvantage?

Don’t attack the research, request resources.

Research is tricky when it comes to education. Because there are so many factors that influence success (and so many ways to measure success), there is little accurate or transferable research about any pedagogical methods. For example, while many opponents to standards-based learning will say there is “no research” to show that it’s better, they forget that there is also no research to show that it’s not. The research we need to rely on in education is the most recent understanding of how humans learn combined with what we know about the future. When we look at what we now know about the brain and learning, there is no way we can continue to practice education as we have for the last one hundred years; we must adapt our practices--as we do in every other profession--based on the latest understanding in the field. When we combine that research with what we are coming to understand about our present and our future, it’s even clearer that we need to be preparing students differently. Students used to come to school to learn from those who knew more than they did. The goal was for experts (teachers) to impart their wisdom to a new set of young people and then celebrate when those young people could repeat back what they learned. We felt successful when students mastered a set of knowledge, understanding, and skills that we determined they would need. Now, that is not enough. We have no idea what our students will need in 20 years. Their world will look nothing like ours in many ways, and so we need to prepare them to adapt, transfer skills and understanding to new situations, and solve problems that we haven’t even realized yet.

"We hear from employers regularly about how ill prepared graduates are, even graduates from elite colleges, to take on workplace responsibilities. How creativity and imagination have been schooled out of them. How they seem allergic to unstructured problems. How they seek constant micromanagement and the workplace equivalent of a daily, or even hourly grade." Wagner and Dintersmith

So request resources from the school. Ask them to bring in local business leaders to talk to the community about changing needs and skills. Read Most Likely to Succeed by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith--ask your school to purchase copies of this and run a book club. Get them to show the movie for the community. Email experts and researchers with your specific questions--so many of them are willing and excited to engage with the community and assist schools. Ask the school librarian to start a page on the website with resources, and request that they share titles that the school and teachers are reading to stay up to date on the latest research about learning and the latest best practices in pedagogy.

Don’t give in or give up, join in.

Finally, if you really want to write a letter, make phone calls, or show up at a meeting with something to say, let that something be in the name of improving education. Arguing that schools should stay the same or even return to the way they were for us is like arguing that we should bring back leeches in surgery, that we should revisit horse-drawn carriages in transportation, or be satisfied with the overpriced and clunky renewable energy sources. In all other areas of our lives we expect (and demand) progress and innovation. We want our tech people to be up to date on the latest bugs and fixes; we want our doctors to have access to the most recent studies; and we want our contractors using the most energy-efficient materials in our homes. In no other profession do we value the past and fear the future as heavily as we do in education. We want faster internet, we want more effective cancer drugs, and we want safer cars. So why don't we want the same for our schools? Why don't we expect our teachers and administrators to act on the latest research about learning? Why aren’t we demanding that that our local and national education leaders understand how the brain works? Why aren’t we furious at colleges and universities for holding fast to antiquated admissions and pedagogical practices (and charging hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so)? Why aren’t we holding our schools to the same standards of progress and innovation we demand in the rest of our lives?

"Even the most elite schools do no prepare students for the reality of work as it is today, let alone what it will become in the future. Most large organizations are undergoing a massive transformation as they move from industrial to innovation-economy business models. The students that thrive within today's education system are achievement driven, rule oriented, compliant, linear, singular in focus (i.e., a business or engineering major). The world of work today requires future leaders to be relationship or collaborative driven, rule-defining, creative and innovative, lateral and polymathic in focus. The gap is huge and sadly, I see only a few progressive school really stepping up to the transformation required to match that of our businesses."  Annmarie Neal - author of Leading From the Edge

Standards-based learning and grading is not going to change the world today or even tomorrow. And by no means is it the end game for the educational transformation that needs to occur. But based on what we now know about the brain, about learning, and about the future (and arguably, about the present), it is a a first step, a difficult, but achievable way forward. It has the potential to provide the foundation our schools and communities need to make real change, not for the sake of change, but for the sake of our future and our students' futures.

If you are really fired up, that’s great. Education needs more parents, teachers, students, and community members fired up. We need people willing to read, to listen, to question, to challenge, and to engage in the difficult but necessary transformation that is coming. Our schools are so intertwined with everything in our community, so steeped in tradition and weighed down by communal experience, and so intensely personal to each and every one of us that the only way we are going to make substantive, meaningful, and essential change is to join together and demand it.

So make that phone call, write that letter, and show up at that meeting fired up. But please consider fighting to make things better, not keep them the same.

Communicating with Families in a Standards-Based Class

One of the mistakes we made early on in our transition to standards-based grading and reporting was our communication with parents. Because we understood our students’ learning so much better than we had in the past, we assumed that reporting that learning to parents would not only help them understand the benefits of a standards-based system, but also see that we were intentionally addressing both strengths and struggles. So after a quarter of great learning and tracking and assessing, we sent detailed standards-based reports home with a key and a brief explanation. We waited for the praise to roll in.

What we forgot, however, was that most parents really want one thing above all else. They want to know we like their kids. Yes, most also want to know if they are being decent human beings, if they are getting their work done, where they are struggling, and where they are excelling, but if we know their kids well enough to appreciate the quirks, understand the contradictions, and ultimately enjoy the people they have raised, then parents are happy. Our mistake was showing that we knew their students academically, without taking the time to show we knew--and liked--them as people as well.

Having a comprehensive communication plan is vital in all classrooms, but maybe even more so as we transition to standards-based learning. The shift to a completely new method of teaching and grading can be a difficult change for students and parents, and forgetting to communicate what we often do best--which is getting to know our students--can make the transition even harder. Initially, tracking and reporting learning can take a lot of time for teachers, particularly if they are learning a new grade book tool or using technology differently for the first time; the idea of communicating in addition to standards-based reporting can cause stress and force teachers to steal time from other important tasks such as planning or assessing. Even so, it’s an essential part of the transition that can make the difference between class- and school-wide implementation success or failure.

In order to help teachers and schools avoid (or at least lessen) this aspect of implementation dip, we gathered suggestions and ideas we have seen teachers in our district use to successfully--and efficiently--build and maintain effective communication plans in a standards-based class.

The Plan: A comprehensive classroom communication plan has multiple purposes, which at times overlap. We have separated them here, but you’ll notice that some of the strategies cross parts, making the communication more efficient. Depending on your teaching situation and the number of students, you may need to adjust ideas to fit your context, and you and your colleagues may have other tried and true strategies to add to these lists.

Personal Connections: Parents want to know you care about their kid. This means occasional communications about specific, personal interactions, needs, successes, or other relevant updates.

• Personal emails: One teacher takes 20 minutes every Friday afternoon to send personal emails. She keeps a list of students and checks off when she emails their families. The emails are short and positive--one nice thing that the student did that week. She can usually get through 10 students each week, though says she tries to send one positive email to each family within the first month.
• Postcards or notes home: Like the emails, this is a great way to quickly connect. One teacher gets a set of mailing labels printed at the beginning of the year and pre-labels postcards (generic ones that the school prints). She keeps these next to her computer and tries to send one a day.
• Parent conferences: This is a common way to make personal connections, and teachers we talked to recommended always starting and ending the conferences with positive, personal stories or observations.
• Individual comments on standards-based reports (at end of unit, in the portal, or at reporting time): Most standards-based grading and reporting tools allow teachers to enter individual comments. While this can take extra time, a few positive and personal words can go a long way to showing parents you know their kids and care about their success.

Curriculum: Parents want to know what you’re doing in class. Letting them know the content you are using to practice important skills can help them feel connected to their kids, and can also give them ideas for conversations at home. If your standards are mostly skill-based, then communicating about content becomes even more important, as your reporting system may not include the rich, engaging choices you and the students are making about content. Some parents are really interested in the curriculum, while others just want to know that there is one, so it’s important to find a balance--consider a system that provides layers of detail that parents can access if they choose.

• Class and/or team blogs or websites: While it can be time-consuming to keep up a blog or website, many teachers are turning to their students to help, providing a relevant anchor task and another way to work on skills and collaboration. One teacher assigns small writing teams to the task each week, providing guidelines for updates, a chance to include photos, and practice at asking and responding to questions. Another updates his website each unit, providing detailed descriptions of what they will be studying, links to additional videos and related TED talks, and a calendar of summative assessments. In order to ensure the parents see these updates, he sends a group email to the parents.
• Google classroom or other LMS (learning management system): Many teachers use an LMS to organize tasks and assignments for students, and these can be used with parents as well. Parents can have access to their students’ sites, and some teachers set up views for parents within the system as well.
• Common blurb on top of standards-based reports: Most reporting tools allow teachers to write and post a common message for parents and families. This is an efficient way to provide an overview of the curriculum, but should not take the place of more detailed communication for parents who want it.
• Weekly emails from students to parents: This is one of our favorites, and can be used for a variety of purposes. One team of teachers has their students write to their families every Friday. They carve out 30 minutes to reflect on the week in a variety of categories, including content, habits, skills, and questions. The students cc their home-room teachers, and the teachers have set up the emails to go directly into a folder (so they don’t fill up their inboxes!).  The expectation is that this is communication between student and family, but the teachers can monitor what’s being communicated if necessary. Parents have loved this, and often reply to their kids (parents are told that teachers will not reply to these emails!).

Habits and Behaviors: Parents want to know their kid is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and what to do (or what you’re doing) if they’re not. So many parents get in the habit of checking online portals for completion, which can cause misunderstandings and stress when they are not accurate or updated regularly. Constant checking like this can lead to a much greater focus on compliance than on learning, so it’s important to develop a system that allows accountability and provides necessary information without distracting from what is most important.

• Weekly emails from students to parents: Getting students to keep track of their own work completion can help them practice positive executive functioning skills. Having students include a to-do list in their weekly email keeps parents informed and prevents having to communicate this in other ways. Early in the year, this may require more organization on the teacher’s part (ensuring the lists are accurate!), but as time goes on, there will only be a handful of students who need continued guidance (and this is ok--students’ executive functioning skills develop at different rates through adolescence). These emails are also a great place to ask students to reflect on their behaviors or habits for the week--providing guiding questions can be helpful. One teacher we know also has a few email templates for students who need more structure, with questions already entered.
• Weekly contact from core teachers: Teachers who work on a team can collaborate on this type of communication. One team we work with has 4 teachers and 80 middle school students. They meet once a week to formally talk about students anyway, and during this time they create a google doc list of any significant habits/behaviors or missing work issues that need to be communicated to parents. The core teacher (homeroom teacher) then writes emails home to the students on their list that need communication. They found this system to be effective, and quickly realized that they did not need to email home every time a student missed an assignment--they were able to coordinate with each other to use school time to address most issues, and those that couldn’t be resolved could then be communicated.
• Summary habits scores in standards-based reports: It’s the teacher’s job to improve problem habits and behaviors, not just to report them, so we strongly suggest using the formal reporting system for summative habit scores only--and combining this with personal comments and follow up communication as necessary.

Learning: Finally, parents do also want to know how their kid is progressing in skills--where they excel and where they struggle. Some want to know this so they can help at home, some want to know what questions to ask, and others want to make sure their children are progressing as expected. Teachers in standards-based classrooms have LOTS of information about learning to share, and we caution you to work with families to determine the level of information that is most useful and desired. The level of detail we need as teachers is not always what parents need or want, and can lead to overload, frustration, and disconnection.

• Unit and/or marking period reports: During these formal reporting periods, teachers will have the most accurate, summative data about the learning targets to report. It’s important to let parents and students know that while summative, these current levels of achievement are just that, current. They can change as the learning changes. Make sure there is a simple key with explanations of what they will see, as well as any other contextual information that is relevant to the report. If sending a standards-based report home for the first time, we highly recommend an email or letter prior to receiving it, and an opportunity for questions or feedback after receiving it.
• Portal: Many standards-based grading tools offer a portal, where parents and students can check their progress and achievement whenever they want. This can be confusing to parents new to standards-based grading, particularly if you previously had a portal based on completion and points. Be sure to clearly communicate to parents and students about what will be updated and when, how it’s different than an assignment-based portal, and all of the other ways they have to see how their students are doing in your class.

There is no single tool that can quickly and comprehensively communicate all of the above purposes at the same time, and wishing that the standards-based grade book tool could take care of it all will just lead to frustration for everyone. Developing new and effective ways to communicate with our families during the transition to a standards-based system may be a bit more time consuming initially, but making sure that families feel included during the changes will provide the safety and trust we all need to improve learning.

Here is a template with an example of a full communication plan for a team. Feel free to use as is or adapt for your needs!

Have other strategies you use to build relationships and communicate for a variety of purposes? Let us know!

Imagine the Possibilities: Romancing SBL

We’ve been thinking a lot lately about why SBL is so important. For the past 8 years, this has been almost our sole focus, first as classroom teachers trying to make it work, and then as instructional leaders, helping others make it work. And after almost a decade, we are not yet burnt out; in fact, despite frustrations and obstacles and curveballs and exhaustion, we are more energized than ever. Why? Because SBL has the potential to transform education in really cool ways.

If you haven’t yet watched Dr. Robert Duke’s amazing lecture at Cornell University, clear your schedule for the next hour and do so. It’s called “Why Students Don’t Learn What We Think We Teach,” and centered within 50 minutes of insight and humor, he talks about the balance between romance and precision. So often, Duke says, we think learners need to master the details--precision--before they can truly experience the romance of a discipline or a subject or a topic. But the problem is that the precision is hard. It requires patience and perseverance and reflection. It requires sweat and failure and doubt. All of that is important--vital, actually--but why on earth would anyone struggle through all of that precision? Why take the time to sweat and fail and doubt and practice and reflect and repeat? Because of the romance. Because of the possibilities that precision open up.

The same is true of SBL. It’s so easy to get caught up in the precision of the transformation and forget the romance. We spend so much time on targets and scales and assessments and reporting; we dive into the measuring and the calibrating and the tracking so we can more accurately communicate about learning. This is all vital. And it’s hard. So hard (See: This SBL Thing is Freakin’ Hard). We want teachers to be patient, to be reflective, to persevere, to fail, to sweat, and to keep trying. We say it’s better for learning (true), and that it will improve engagement (true), and that we will have much more honest and clear communication (true). But if we don’t balance that precision with the romance of possibility, then we risk getting lost in the details and losing sight of what can be.

So, set aside your targets and scales and grade-books and KUDs and common assessments for a few minutes, and let yourself be romanced. Imagine the possibilities that SBL allows!

Imagine if we had no bells.

What if the schedule was driven by interest and need rather than by bells? Bells were instituted in schools to efficiently move large numbers of students in and out of classrooms. They are a system of control that signify the start and/or end of usually equal blocks of time someone has determined is necessary. Google “Bell Schedules” and poke around at the first few you find. Here are some interesting things we found:

• A school in Connecticut: 5th period is from 12:13-1:06
• A school in California: Period 2: 8:48-9:36
• A school in Arizona: Period 6: 11:19-12:12

In some schools bells ring every 28 minutes (to accommodate middle and high school needs with a single bell system), some ring every 53 minutes, and some every 90 minutes. In some schools there is a bell to signify the start of class, a bell to signify the end of class, and a warning bell to signify that the bell that will signify the start of the next class is about to ring. When you stop to think about it, it’s nuts. When was the last time you met a friend for lunch at 12:13? When was the last time you had a meeting with your financial planner at 9:36? How can any learner, particularly adolescent learners, be expected to reach any understanding or depth when switching activities every 28 or 42 or 53 or even 87 minutes?

We could overhaul the schedule. Imagine what it could look like (and sound like!) if students moved when we and they determined it was time based on learning needs and interest. Students might build their own weekly or monthly schedules (with help from an advisor), and may spend 28 minutes on certain tasks and 3 hours on others. If we have a way to track and monitor learning--and if students understand their own strengths and challenges more than they ever have--then we no longer have to live by the bell. If we are working together as a school on transferable skills, then we will no longer need to chunk the day into equal-size blocks, and can instead flex our time to meet the needs of our learners. What would it look like? How would it be organized? What are the obstacles? No idea. But imagine if we could figure it out.

Imagine if we had no disciplines.

What if we didn’t sort learning into content areas? Content or discipline areas allow us to organize sets of knowledge, skills, and understandings into manageable silos. Students talk about having “history work,” or doing “English” or going to “science class.” But we all know that’s not real. None of us break our days into disciplines. Sure, we focus on different types of tasks throughout the day, but could you actually label your tasks based on discipline? Scientists do science, but aren’t they also communicating through writing (English) and calculating (math) and looking at historical precedence (history) and graphically expressing findings (art)? Writers are writing, but aren’t they also pitching their ideas (public speaking), researching background (science or history) and depending on the topic of the writing, incorporating all sorts of other content areas? Life is not sorted by discipline.

We could reorganize learning. Imagine what it would feel like to be in a building organized by topics or themes rather than disciplines. Students might be based in a sustainability hub, working to solve problems and make the community a better place. To do so, they would need to learn relevant math and history and science and art and language, but these would all now be in service to the central theme or topic. Teachers with expertise in a certain areas would do deep dives with students, acting as mentors and facilitators and even at times, lecturers. Hubs would need to be grounded in transferable skills, and together we would work to create learning targets that help students push their current abilities and challenge existing understandings. Students could track their own learning (with lots of guidance and help from the teachers), set goals, and reflect constantly; we could graduate students who are curious, self-directed, and who are not only prepared to change the world, but have already been doing so. What would it look like? How would it be organized? What are the obstacles? No idea. But imagine if we could figure it out.

Imagine if we had no locks on the doors.

What if school never closed? When I was in college in New Hampshire, we made a yearly middle-of-the-night trek to Freeport, Maine to visit LL Bean. While we could have made the two hour drive in the morning or afternoon, knowing that we could show up at 2:00 in the morning was just novel enough that it made it irresistible. If you aren’t from New England, you may not know that the store in Maine doesn’t have locks on the doors. They are always open--weekends, nights, holidays. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Most schools open their doors around 7:00 am and close around 4:00 pm, with exceptions for some club or sporting events. This is true 5 days a week, 181 days a year. There may be a few summer school classes, or an innovative evening class for students, but for the most part, school runs at predictable and regular times for limited hours, days, and weeks.

We could reimagine the days. Imagine what it would be like to come into the building on a Saturday morning and see dozens of students and a handful of teachers working on a project together. Students might decide they need access to the stage, so they sign up and show up. A teacher might decide to run a three hour workshop on a Tuesday night for anyone who wants to attend--students or community members. The school might decide to offer night classes for juniors and seniors who need their sleep during the day, or who want to be part of internships. Families could learn together in the summer, community organizations could take advantage of the facilities, teachers could pursue their own learning, and students could offer to teach courses to students. While many of these activities are allowed at schools now--often with special permission and lots of planning and money to pay someone to show up with a key--they could become the norm. If we are focused on transferable skills and have ways to document and track learning, then that learning can truly become the constant and how and when students learn can be so much more creative and flexible. What would it look like? How would it be organized? What are the obstacles? No idea. But imagine if we could figure it out.

Romance and Precision

It’s amazing to imagine the possibilities for the future of public education. There are so many cool, innovative ideas out there, and even more that no one has thought of yet. Each year we learn more and more about the brain and learning, and each year our world changes faster than we ever imagined it could. SBL is a result of those understandings, and each year we struggle to make changes to our systems that align with what we currently know while anticipating needs for the future.

We must dive deep into the precision of the work, learning how to write effective targets and scales, learning how to assess transferable skills rather than content knowledge, learning how to instruct students at all different readiness levels, and figuring out how to track, report, and respond to the learning. We must dig in and determine the best way to communicate about learning with students, with parents, with colleges, with careers, and with each other. We need to challenge our own experiences and understandings in order to challenge our students. And all the while, we need to keep doing the daily work of building relationships with our learners and maintaining enough sanity and energy to do this effectively (and sustainably). That’s not easy. The precision required for SBL will take time and sweat and failure and perseverance and reflection, and we may even want to give up. That’s why we must continue to imagine the possibilities...and keep the romance alive.

Grain Size Matters: Determining the Scope of Learning Targets

There have been many questions lately in the schools where we work about the scope of our learning targets. How big or small should they be?  How general and how specific?  Are they meant to show student achievement for the whole year, or for a shorter period of learning? How do we track and report different types of targets?

After years of working with learning targets in our own classroom and in classrooms throughout our district, we have some answers (many of which will lead to more questions). Please note that our answers are based on our particular context around targets and grading here in our district, and might vary in other contexts.

When writing targets, we must consider grain size, meaning the scope of the targets and how much time we expect it to take for students to meet or surpass them (knowing that time is the variable and the learning of the target is the constant). Here are the three most common grain sizes we are seeing in our district and when and how we might use each.

Yearlong Target: A yearlong target is a target that you anticipate will take the entire year for students to become proficient in. Yearlong targets must be broken into unit (or specific learning period) targets before you track and report them. Students (actually, all humans) need to see incremental growth in order to stick with learning, so when writing targets, we must determine the appropriate level of achievement in the skill over a smaller period of time. If we are scoring using a 1-4 scale, we cannot report 1s and 2s all year and expect students and parents to understand that learning is happening; in addition, these scores are too broad to be useful to us as teachers when we are trying to respond to our data in order to differentiate. Here is a blog we wrote about this very issue using a marathon metaphor. For the first 6 weeks of training (of an 18 week program), the runner cannot be expected to run the full 26.2 miles; her 6 week target might be 10 miles, so her distance achievement at that time should be based on the appropriate expectation. Thus, she would be scored on her achievement of the week six goal at that time, not week 18. This is the same for learning.

It may be easier to think of yearlong targets as “standards” that need to be broken into parts or shifted into incremental chunks, or interim targets. Interim targets (see below: repeating or unit) are precise and specific, and provide smaller destinations--where students should be along the way in order to be prepared to meet the yearlong standard.

• Tracking and Reporting: We suggest that you track and report the interim targets only, as these are the ones that will provide data that allows you to be responsive with your instruction, and will provide appropriate level feedback about progress to students and parents. The goal of reporting is to be accurate and clear, so our scores must tie directly to the language of the target.

Example of Yearlong Target: Note the number of parts in this standard; it may not be realistic to expect students to be proficient in all parts of this standard early in the year, so breaking it into achievable parts and then writing scales will help us instruct and provide feedback.

I have a clear thesis with organizer; my purpose is appropriate to my audience and to the assignment; my leads support my thesis and organizer, and introduce subtopics; my purpose stays consistent throughout my paper.

Repeating Target: A repeating target is a target you will repeat in multiple units or over multiple reporting periods, and you anticipate students will reach proficiency each time with different content. This is the most common type of transferable target, often being introduced and heavily instructed in an early unit, and then brought back throughout the year. For example, targets that ask students to show cause and effect, that ask students to make claims, or that ask students to create models would all be targets that could repeat over and over with new (and perhaps more complex) content.

• Tracking and Reporting: If you have set up your standards-based gradebook by unit, then you will include this target in each unit, entering scores that show achievement of that target with the specific content of the unit. When you do this, the “most recent” score calculation will be within the unit only, so a score of a 4 in your final unit will not replace a score of a 3 in an earlier unit. The scores live within the unit. If you have set up your gradebook by year, however, then you will enter the target only once, and each new score will replace the one before, regardless of unit content. See this document to help you decide which set-up works best for your course.

Example of Repeating Target: Note that this target will be instructed, practiced, and assessed in multiple units with different content; in later units, more time can be put on the practice, as instruction will be much more targeted based on need.

Output: Purpose:	I have a clear thesis/claim with a single idea; the claim requires simple evidence and no analysis to prove.	I have a clear thesis/claim with more than one idea; the claim requires a single type of evidence and limited analysis to prove.	I have a clear thesis/claim with multiple relational  ideas; the claim  requires multiple types of evidence and substantive analysis to prove.	I have a clear, complex thesis/claim that includes multiple arguments; the claim requires an organized evidence strategy and  analysis that includes inference. .

Unit Target: A unit target is a target that appears in only one unit or trimester, and is not be repeated for the full class once that unit/trimester is complete. These targets should still be transferable within the unit, meaning that they cannot be single-score targets. Students should be able to practice these throughout the unit with a variety of content in order to improve over time. In addition, just because the target will not formally repeat, students who did not meet proficiency should still have opportunity to show new learning later in the year. Our job is to ensure students learn, not just to teach, which means that unit targets may need to be readdressed for some or all of our students.

• Tracking and Reporting: These targets are entered at the beginning of the unit, and tracked and reported throughout. Once the unit is complete, the final score will stand throughout the rest of the year and will appear on all reports and in the portal. If there is new learning later in the year, you will need to go back to that unit, add an assessment, and enter new scores for any students who have shown new learning (this new assessment will not have any effect on the other students, as no new data will be entered for them).

Example of Unit Target:

Reading: Rhetorical Analysis	I am currently working towards the next level.	I can locate/observe rhetorical devices in a text and can explain what they are.	I can analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance a specific POV or purpose in a text.	I can analyze the effect of multiple rhetorical devices on the text as a whole, considering context and audience.

Remember that the goal of reporting is always clear, accurate communication of achievement, and our targets and scales should assist in that communication. The grain size can help make these targets clear, provide instructional specificity, and communicate incremental (and effective) progress to our learners.

Standards-Based Learning and Special Education

Guest Blogger: Sarah Crum, Special Educator at CVUHS

scrum@cssu.org

The thing about working in a standards based teaching environment is that it invokes new questions. I don’t believe that I have any more questions about my teaching than I did before, but I am certain that my questions are different than they used to be. One of the most genuine questions that I have and that I hear from teachers who are shifting to standards based learning and assessing is “what do I do when I can’t get a kid to the target?” Here at CVU, teachers develop classroom targets that articulate the skills being taught and assessed in the class. Accompanying that target is a four point scale that defines the foundational skills (a 1 and a 2 on the scale) leading up to the target (a 3 on the scale) as well as beyond the target (a 4 on the scale). Teachers develop intentional instructional activities to meet students at their current skill level and help to move them forward on scale. This scale is also used for assessment purposes and gives students feedback about what they are able to do and what they need to do next. Teachers are currently able to give feedback in increments of .5, when evidence indicates achievement in both levels.

Gone are the days when we could just give fewer problems on the math sheet or give more points for perseverance. It is no longer adequate to alter the rubric to account for student effort or to reflect our compassion for a student’s individual struggles. In a true standards based system, I, as the teacher, have to be able to define, and report out, on what a student can do. This requires that I actually know what the student can do, not which areas of the rubric the student could not achieve nor what habits of learning or achievement deficits are preventing the student from succeeding. I have to actually be able to clearly articulate what each student is able to do. This is an ambitious task.

To support teachers in this endeavor, it is helpful to begin to categorize the types of accommodations, modifications, and differentiation one might use. Jung & Guskey, in their article Standards-based grading and reporting: A model for special education, 2007, publish a flow chart and explanation that gives guidance to teachers in distinguishing between accommodations and modifications for students who are struggling. Using that model, we have developed a more detailed flow chart that articulates specific scenarios for modification and the implications for reporting that are specific to our school’s approach to SBL.

Click on flow chart link above to see as a PDF

Accommodation vs Modification

For any classroom task or activity, the first step is to ask oneself if the task at hand is an appropriate expectation without being adapted. Many classroom activities will fall into this category as intentional groupings or purpose of the task reveal that adaptation is not needed. However, there will also be many instances when a teacher will know that there needs to be some sort of adaptation of the task to render it accessible to a student or group of students. This often looks like planning one lesson but thinking about the types of adjustments that are made for different levels of reading or students who may struggle to maintain attention. This is still one lesson, but includes accommodations or differing approaches that allow students to access the learning. At this point, the teacher asks whether these adaptations allow the student to demonstrate the given standard or whether the adaptation fundamentally changes the standard. For instance, if the standard is a critical thinking target, then adjusting for different reading levels does not impact the standard itself, and the adaptation is an accommodation. However, if the standard being assessed is a reading comprehension target, then a student who needs an adapted reading level may also need a modified standard.

Types of Modifications

We have found that the students who require modified standards generally fall into three categories: needing temporarily shifted scales, needing shifted scales, or needing new scales. However, it is important to note that students may fluctuate between categories. It is also important to note that in our experience, the percentage of students who require shifted scales or new scales is quite low: about 5% of students, five out of a grade level of 100 students, or perhaps one student in your class of twenty.

Temporary Shifted Scale: Backing Out Targets Primarily for Instruction

This type of modification requires taking the classroom target and spending quality time articulating the two and the one as well as a couple of steps below. It helps the teacher plan for instruction, maybe breaking the learning down into smaller steps. These students may need classroom activities & tasks designed at the two, one, or even below to make incremental steps towards the three. But by the end of the unit, these students can perform consistently on the typical classroom targets (may be receiving 1.5, 2, 2.5), but have clearly made significant progress in learning throughout the unit because they started at the 1 or below. These students typically feel good about their progress and their grade is an accurate reflection of their mastery of those targets. This modification can be, and should be used, for any student who is struggling to show progress on the classroom scale. However, adding an accommodation to an IEP, 504, or EST is an important step for those students who have a plan so that communication is clear. An example accommodation is as follows: Use shifted targets to clearly define small, incremental steps in learning. This level of modification applies to the majority of mainstreamed students with disabilities.

Shifted Scale: Backing Out Targets for Instruction & Assessment

Again, this type of modification requires taking the classroom target and backing it out by articulating the two, the one and below. Then, like using a ruler, the teacher assesses the student on a different set of 1-4, but using the same targets and skills so that the ultimate goal is to get back on the classroom targets. This is a student who may start the unit two or three steps below the one and work towards making the one on the regular classroom target. This student now has a new scale: the original course target of a one has become this student’s three. The expected growth for the student is the same as peers in that we would hope a student would jump maybe two slots on a scale and should receive a grade that reflects that achievement (this prevents a student who has jumped from a negative 2, so to speak, to the 1 from receiving a D in the class when the amount of growth is the same as peers). The number of targets that are backed out may vary, and depending on the student and the team, can decide the appropriate credit reported; the class name can be changed on a high school transcript if appropriate. This is the type of scenario where it may be appropriate to share the whole scale with the student and/or family (depending on the situation), so that they are clear about their child's skills in comparison to peers. This can be really delicate and would be done on a case by case basis. The Shifted Scale may be incorporated into the IEP goals, but an accommodation agreed upon by the team is also included. This type of modification typically applies to students with more significant disabilities. However, it is important that the school district is willing to make this level of modification available to any student.

New Scale: Developing Learning Goals for an Individual Student

This student is significantly below the targets in most areas and needs separate learning goals for class: New Scales, that may relate to the classroom targets, but aren't necessarily in perfect alignment with the classroom targets. In this case, they aren't really backed out targets. The classroom teachers and special educator take data on what the student can do and develop learning goals that make sense for that student in the mainstream classroom. Because the scale is different, the course name on the transcript in high school can be different. Showing the typical classroom targets may not be appropriate here; the family may already be aware of the need for an alternate curriculum. However, it is important to communicate with the IEP team that this student needs a New Scale and that this decision is made as an IEP team. This level of accommodation typically applies to more intensive needs students and the New Scale may become some of the IEP goals for the student. It should also be listed as an accommodation for those students with a formal plan.

Source: Flowchart has been adapted from Jung, L. A., & Guskey, T. R. (2007). Standards-based grading and reporting: A model for special education. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(2), 48-53. Copyright 2007 by the Council for Exceptional Children.