Background: Standards Based Grading
Standards Based Grading is simply the practice of rearranging your grade-book so that students get a grade for a standard or topic rather then for an assignment.
This practice has led me to change how I assess: quizzes are categorized by standards so that a student might take one quiz but receive multiple grades for that quiz. Then it becomes clear to me that a student should be allowed to demonstrate growth in a standard or topic, so giving them 2nd and 3rd opportunities seems like a no-brainer, as long as it doesn’t take up an inordinate amount of time for me.
One other thing that can happen is that how something is assessed becomes more flexible. A test can replace a grade that was initially given from a quiz. A conversation can change a grade that came from a project.
I always wanted to…
One thing I always wanted to try was to allow students to do “video explanation reassessments” where students explained their work on a short video and then submitted that to me to assess their understanding. I even had students use Flipgrid in the Fall semester of this year anticipating that possibility, but we were always just “too busy in class” to explore that option further.
Then Distance Learning happened. I could no longer give students assessments in the traditional format. But students were expecting the possibility of “retaking” their quizzes for higher grades, since that’s what I had allowed up until we were stuck at home. I wanted to give students the opportunity to demonstrate understanding of previous topics, yet wanted more confidence that they were the origins of what was written and held forth as a demonstration of understanding.
Enter the video explanations. Here’s my prompt for students:
Here’s what I want you to do: find 3 questions in the same section of the textbook that are similar to the quiz. Do them without your notes or a calculator (if it’s a non-calculator quiz). Then record a video of you explaining how to do them (you can use the record video button in Schoology messages). I don’t need to see YOU but I do need to see YOUR WORK in the video.
If you need to do other practice problems before trying the “official” problems, do as many as you need to so that you can do the official ones without your notes and without a calculator (if it’s a non-calculator quiz).
Some students had problems submitting a video through Schoology, so I offered alternatives, such as uploading it to Google Drive and sharing the link, or putting it in a class Flipgrid that I created the last day we were together[1].
The Result
And many students created really insightful videos! Are there students who cheated and used other resources to solve the problems? Probably. But often I could tell who was “faking it” and I can say with confidence that the vast majority students who took me up on this did the work honestly. I could see their thinking and know whether they had done the work on their own.
And what did this have students doing? Working on previous topics that they didn’t understand, going back and doing practice problems and working to the point of being able to present the math. During this time of Distance Learning, I declare that a win! So what if it is “easier” than what they would have had to do if class was in session? So what if they don’t retain the information as well as they would have, had they been required to turn in practice problems to demonstrate that they’ve been doing spaced practice? At this point, I am happy to help students earn the grade the want by demonstrating understanding in non-traditional ways.
Conclusion: My Future Classroom WILL Be Different
I know that the Coronavirus has brought way more pain and suffering to even being to make a comparison of the good vs bad that is coming out of this. I am very sad for those who have lost loved ones during this time and I do not want to ignore that. But in one small way, this situation has improved my classroom by forcing my hand into allowing alternative assessments for my students, and I am thankful for the small positives that we get in this dark time. I will make an effort to allow future classes to submit explanation videos to demonstrate their understanding, and my future students will be better because of that.
Edit: I asked a few students what they thought and I just HAD to include the only response I’ve gotten back so far:
“personally i’m not a good test/quiz taker when it comes to math! I like doing these videos because I don’t feel so stressed that i’m gonna fail! With the videos you can go at your own pace solving the problems! I hope this helps! Thank you for allowing us to do this it helped my grade a lot and I feel much better about the content of the class!”
[1] I created it so that students could present their projects simultaneously. I had the next 3-4 days planned to be presentations of projects, but the coronavirus cut that short, so we used Flipgrid instead to “present all at once” and then students could watch one another’s presentations.
Hilbert's Hotel 