Zach Diamond  0:03  
Welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast. Hello, and welcome to episode number 156 of the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Zach Diamond and I'm a middle school digital music teacher in Washington DC. And tonight I'm joined by Dacia Guffey, a social studies teacher and Canvas coach in Durham, North Carolina, and Paul O'Donoghue, a high school math teacher and track coach, both of whom are distinguished modern classrooms educators and expert mentors, and also returners to the podcast. So both of you have been on the podcast at least once before. Welcome back. Welcome back to the podcast Dacia and Paul, how are you? 

Dacia Guffey  1:03  
Doing great. Thank you for having us, Zach, we really appreciate the opportunity. 

Paul O'Donoghue  1:09  
Yeah, same year, Zach, good to be back.

Zach Diamond  1:10  
Yeah, we're super happy to have you back on the podcast. So we're going to talk about progression versus grades. That's how I wrote it on the document. And I want to kind of cut straight to the chase here. The the topic idea for this episode came up when Toni Rose and I were thinking about topics for this podcast season, because people ask all the time, if using a public tracker, you know, causes anxiety for students, or if students are anxious or nervous, or worried about having their data displayed publicly. And that's what I'd like to talk about here. My kind of line on this has always been that it's about how we frame the data that we're putting up on the board, in my case, or on the tracker, you know, if we frame it as progress data, it just feels very different to me, than if we were putting up their grades, right? If we were putting their grades up there, I can definitely see how that would cause anxiety. And I think that goes back to what we've been talking about previously this month, relating to grading on how there's like sort of this emotional weight to grades, whereas progress is a little bit more objective, a little bit less emotional. So, you know, that's where I'm coming from here. But I just want to have both of you talk a little bit more about this distinction. The distinction between displaying progress data and grades, right? So can you talk about that distinction, and maybe talk a little bit also about how you frame your trackers, with your students and in your own minds to alleviate that anxiety around displaying their their progress data publicly?

Dacia Guffey  2:42  
I think part of it is a having a conversation really early on about that fact that this classroom is not one where you're going to have bad grades. Like I want to really establish that hardcore when I start out, you know, when I start talking to the students about we're doing the modern classrooms model. And, you know, maybe you've never been exposed to this before. But one of the key things is you're not going to have bad grades in here. Because we're going to revise and we're going to reassess. And we're going to go back and fix the things we need to fix and change it, you know, do what we need to do to fix misunderstandings. So no one is going to have bad grades in here. And I think that is also a big culture shift as teachers because we've been so accustomed to I give you the assignment, you do the work I give you the grade we move on. And instead of being able to say okay, I've given you the assignment, let me give you really quality feedback on this assignment, go back and make edits and then let's revisit it because we tend to not build the breathing space within our own curriculum for that to even happen you know, I've done the pacing trackers in person and in the virtual environment, because I teach at the Virtual Academy now. And in person I gave my in there, this is high schoolers, I gave them little magnets so that like spaceships and they moved them across the board. And they loved it. They loved that sense of achievement that they were getting there. And then that forward momentum. And then with my virtual kids, we have like we've used the auto tracker, we've used game boards where they move little icons. And again, it's just really about achievement. It's like, look, you're moving through the levels of the game. That's what we're doing here. But you're really disassociating the idea that this is about who has the highest average or anything like that. That's like that's fundamental to the model to begin with. Before you even touch the pacing tracker, I think

Paul O'Donoghue  4:49  
I definitely focus at the start of year to really emphasize to kids the importance of or I should say how important self pacing is, and can be in a Classroom, I start my year in with a unit zero. And one of the first activities we do is, is we make origami butterflies. And I start this activity by playing a YouTube video at the front of the room for everyone to watch at the same time, and I don't pause or rewind the video or anything, I just let it play. And within seconds, kids are freaking out about, you know that it's going too fast, and they can't keep up. And it's about a three minute video. And at the end kids have crumbled their papers, they've ripped it, they have a couple folds, because they're so frustrated and stressed. And inevitably, there's also a few kids that have been able to keep up and finished it. So you get this huge range of, you know, ability, just unable to in watching this video. And then I say to the kids, okay, so clearly, it didn't work for everyone. Now I want you all to open your own devices, find this video and complete the butterfly, the origami butterfly at your own pace. And then when you're done, I want you to hang it around the room, you know, we'll we'll we'll put it up on the bulletin boards. And so by the end of class, we have, you know, if it's classic 30, with 30 butterflies around the room. And I talked to the kids about how, you know, when we were all watching at the same pace, it didn't work for everybody. And we all needed something different. And so then when you went to watch it on your own or work with a partner, you were able to do what works for you. And so that activity really helps with with telling kids about how, in a self paced classroom, you're doing what works for you. And there's going to be some lessons and some units where you're going to learn quickly, and you're going to, you're going to need less time. And there's gonna be other lessons and units and units where you need more time. And so I really heart, I really emphasize that the start of the year about, you know, you're gonna get a chance to self pace in this class. And so that leads into the Progress Tracker. And by the time I sort of introduced that to students, we've talked so much already about self pacing, and that how we're all kind of, we're gonna go at the speed that works for us. And so it immediately shifts the focus away from what your grade gonna be just to really how much time do you need.

Zach Diamond  6:55  
How do you help students shift their mindset, in that same in that same way that you're shifting your mindset to progress as opposed to grades? How do you help the students see that in that in that way?

Dacia Guffey  7:05  
It is, it is a difficult transition. They've just been so very intentionally programmed to to value that grade point average no matter what. Yeah, it does also, in my own mind, tie back to a lot of ideas about grading for equity. And the problem that I have fundamentally with, like 100 point scale, just out the gate. But we spent a lot of time in my class, just spending, bending, like the first couple of units, dragging them back way from the culture of completion into the culture of mastery. And, you know, and that's a hard shift. I think another piece of it, that's the big that I see the kids who are normally like that a honor roll students, they get more frustrated with it. Yeah. Then the kids who have struggled, yeah. Because with the kids who have struggled academically, I'm going, it's fine. But we'll just look at it again. And here's some guiding questions. And here's some extra scaffolding for you. And they're like, really, you mean, I'm not just a failure? Because I failed it this first time. No, we're, we're learning together. Do go back, we do it again. And then versus some of my kids who are used to Well, I'm a good kid, and I did the work and I use complete sentences. So I get an A right? And I'm like, No, not Not really. 

Zach Diamond  8:38  
Yeah, yeah, it makes you realize how much those kids are sort of driven by grades. Right? Which, which I think when, when push comes to shove, I guess, like when, when you start looking at when you start sending them back, like you said, and making them redo or revise their work. And they complain about it, it makes it's, it's, I guess, strange to say, but it's almost a little sad, right? It's like, these are our best students. And what's driving them is this sort of like, it's not real, it's the it's the grade layer, right? But the actual learning that's underneath, you know, it's we need to, we need to tap into that

Paul O'Donoghue  9:18  
I'll often have kids come up to me, like holding their, their practice worksheet for whatever lesson they're on, look like they're trying to turn it into me like they're trying to give it to me, because they're so they're sort of so conditioned to that, that completion is progress, which will lead to a grade, right? Like just getting the assignment done is worth something, whether or not you sort of showed any understanding on it. And so I'm always sending kids back just because I I'll say like, listen, these aren't, you know, you're not doing this for me. I'm not collecting this, like I barely collect anything in class, you know, for my students other than mastery checks, and so that's a huge shift to getting kids to realize that their progress is going to come from actually understanding. And they're not just sort of checking boxes and of completion. So I think that's sort of another important part of this, too, that it's not really progress. Progress by completion, it's progress by understanding, right, and then the grades kind of follow, like, then your grades become from mastery and understanding. And not just because you've completed a bunch of assignments. And the same goes for the students with those executive functioning struggles, who just struggled to turn things in on time, or struggle to turn things in at all, and then their grades get crushed from it. So they get a zero in the gradebook, and then it just, you know, they're and then they're failing when it's reflecting just their completion of something rather than, you know, their actual understanding of the content.

Dacia Guffey  10:40  
I think more hesitancy comes from parents and administrators rather than the kids. To be real honest, I think most of the time when teachers are like, Ooh, I'm scared of that. It's not even the kids, it's they're worried about parents being feeling, you know, not right about it, or worried about administrators pushing back on it. And again, it does come back down to is it? How are you framing it? And I think putting a lot of positives, like, having shout outs on your pacing tracker, if you're projecting it on the board, you know, recognizing that forward momentum for what it is, is is is helpful, as well. But I think that that a lot of the, you know, worry about, or anxiety from educators about the power strikers stems more from how parents and admins gonna react than it does from the kids themselves.

Zach Diamond  11:41  
I mean, the students see it too, like the students used that tracker. You know, we talked a little bit about the motivation that they get from from moving ahead from seeing an X show up, they asked me, Mr. Diamond, I submitted lesson one, where's my X? I didn't I don't see my x yet. Like, they want that thing. So it motivates them. But also they use it. Like, I'll use it in discussions, if they asked me what to do. I'll say, well, What lesson are you want? And they like, look up the tracker. And they say, Oh, I'm on lesson three. Okay, I know what to do. And it's like, it's a very tangible thing that's useful in the classroom. And so, you know, people push back for everything. And I think that a lot, lots of times, people will sort of critique innovative approaches to things without applying the same critique to what's happening currently, which I think is also not working. And so, you know, having that having discussions like this one, where we can talk about how we're framing the data that we are putting in front of the classes helps us to communicate this with parents to communicate this with administrators who may be hesitant to let us do that, or to have that happening in the classrooms. You know, this is why it's so important to frame it this way. I had a student this year, a brand new students in my class, a seventh grader, who on the very first day, I showed them the tracker, and he said to me, that's going to be up there every day. And I was like, yeah, and he was like, everyone's gonna see everyone's progress. And I was like, yeah, and he was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do all these lessons, then. I was like, Okay, if that's how you want to look at it, great, I think you should do the lessons, because you want to do the lessons, was the closest I've ever come to having a student who, who really was afraid of the tracker, he wasn't afraid of it, It energized him.

Paul O'Donoghue  13:28  
I think what I want to continue focusing on this year is just, you know, individualizing, the learning experience, and making kids, you know, feel like their needs are being met, you know, versus needing to keep the pace, you know, keep up with the pace that the teacher is setting. So those, you know, the students that are ready to move ahead, I want to make sure to challenge them so that they're enjoying school enjoying the challenge. But I also want to focus on those kids that have had those bad experiences and, and, you know, try to give them that redemption year so they can taste that little bit of success that can hopefully kind of lead them into a good start of their high school career. So that's my goal. It's a tall task. But yeah, I'm going to keep at it.

Zach Diamond  14:11  
Listeners, remember, you can always email us at podcast at modern classrooms.org. And you can find the show notes for this episode at podcast dot modern classrooms.org/156. We'll have this episode's transcript uploaded on Friday, so be sure to check back in the show notes if you'd like to access that. And thank you all for listening. We'll be back next Sunday. Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at WWW dot modern classrooms.org. And you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at Learn dot modern classrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Look at Instagram at modern class proj. That's p r o. J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast.