Participant #1:
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 124 of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. My name is Toni Rose Deanon, she/they pronouns, a community engagement manager here at MCP, and I am joined by high school computer science teacher and grading disruptor Megan Leich, she/her pronouns. Megan is also a DMCE and a mentor, and I've had really great moments with her, and so I'm really excited to have her here. Welcome, Megan. Thank you, Toni Rose. It's really exciting to be here and thank you for all of your engagement with my grading journey as well. Yeah, so thank you so much for saying yes to the podcast and just giving me some of your time. I know how busy you are. And so before we get started, what's bringing you joy lately? My students are definitely bringing me joy. I teach semester long classes, and so I have new students this month, and so I'm getting to know three classes of brand new students and their needs and joys and wants. And then I'm working on some really cool special projects. So I'm building a tool for canvas, which is our LMS. I'm working on a grading project at my site and I'm building a new department. So I have all sorts of fun projects that I have my hands in at school. And I really love that you're describing it as fun. Right. It's all about the mindset. That's kind of how I choose to approach every day. It's just a fun time. Absolutely. 


Okay, well, tell us more about who you are and how you started your MCP journey. Sure. So I actually started doing a lot of MCP principles years before MCP was a thing, or at least before I knew about it. I started as a chemistry teacher, and pretty early on, I switched to more of a blended model with my chemistry classes because I was noticing that students would get stuck at home. They didn't really need me for the content, but they would get stuck on the problem sets, and I wanted them doing the problem sets in class where I was there to help them. So I started doing that probably eleven or twelve years ago and, you know, built all my videos and changed that model. And then I became more and more unhappy with how the grading was working too. And so I started playing with different ways to assess and degrade my students in ways that honored their growth throughout their process. Right before the pandemic, I switched to computer science, and that was even more obvious that all of those things were still in play. So during the pandemic, I started, I wrote an innovation grant at my school to rewrite the computer science curriculum in a way that was more flexibly paced. And while I was doing that, ran across MCP, and since I was already working on that project, got involved with MCP, which is exactly what I was trying to do, and used that as a great I used that as motivation for me that there were other people doing this, and I wasn't doing it in a vacuum. So my computer science class is I don't call it self paced. I call it flexibly paced, but it's pacing. It allows students with prior computer science to come in and move from where they are, and students with no background in computer science to move from where they are. So it honors all of their backgrounds and allows them to grow and become computer scientists. That is a new phrase that I want to keep. Can you say that again? Flexibly paced. Flexible pacing or flexibly paced? Yeah, I had some issues with self paced because a lot of the students thought that they could pace however they wanted, and it was unlimited time. And so I started using flexible pace to give them the idea that there is flexibility and they need to stay in some time frame because semesters and school years are real. That is so rad. Thank you for a new phrase that I can start utilizing. This is great. 


So how did you come across MCP? I know that some of our listeners heard it from other podcasts or Google Search. How did you come across it? Yeah, I was thinking about that as I was preparing for this. I think I heard it in about three different places in the span of about two weeks or three weeks. Okay, so it Cult of Pedagogy. I ran across it there. I ran across it at a computer science conference somebody was presenting, and I ran into it somewhere else. And I don't remember where the somewhere else is, but I think just searching for flexibly paste or self pacing, things like that online, and I think I ran into it that way too. I sort of kept seeing it come up over and over. Okay, this thing's coming up over and over. I need to look into this. Yeah, the universe is like, you're not getting away from this. I thought, okay, well, I'll do the free course. And I went, this is exactly what I've been doing, and this is exactly what I want to do for my computer science class. Let's go. So it was really cool to have other people to talk to who are doing what I was trying to do because I've just been doing this in a vacuum. Like, oh, cool, I have a community now that I can work with. Yeah. And I think that that's really important to keep in mind too. Right. I know the three pillars, but I never knew how to implement it the most effective way in my classroom. And so in Modern Classroom approached me, I was like, duh, of course I'm going to implement this, say less. Well, we make changes as teachers. We're very siloed. It's not necessarily an entire team is going to make the change. So if we're going to make a change, we're often on our own, at least at my school. I've been making changes for years, but mostly on my own. And so it's really nice to have this community that I can throw ideas out to, that I can help other people who are also on their own and help us all get better. Yeah, and that was definitely something that I experienced when I was a teacher, too. It was very lonely trying to implement new things because some educators, again, are just like, no, I'm not implementing anything new. I've been doing whatever it is I've been doing, and I don't want to do anything else. But I was really fortunate that when I started implementing the model, it was at a school where there was like maybe ten to 15 educators who are all doing it. And so we did have that community in the school who was trying something new. So, yeah, definitely important to just kind of state that we need community to have these conversations and be thought partners with and get ideas, especially when we're siloed at our school. So okay, Megan, today's topic is all about grading for equity. We've gotten lots of great questions about grading and the Facebook group, and I bet our listeners are really curious as to how I chose our guests for this episode, which is you. So tell us more about how you got into grading for equity and what you're doing about it at your school. Sure. So I got into rethinking how I grade many years ago when I was teaching chemistry. And I just I noticed that I would have students who it could be they had a bad day on a test, could be they had something happen, but the grades at the end of the semester weren't matching what I knew the students knew it could do. Either they were inflated for various reasons because of my grade breakdowns, or they were deflated because the student had a bad day on a test. And so I was increasingly unhappy, increasingly looking for ways to sort of tweak the grades to match what the students knew and could do, and sort of increasingly unhappy with that sort of trying to fine tune grades when grades are supposed to be representing what the students know and can do. So I was increasingly unhappy with how that was working, and I went looking for other ways. What are some other ways that I can assess and then grade my students that really honors their journey and rewards them for growth? I had students who had failed the first test. And there was a limited way that they could come back from that. Even if they did know the stuff by the end of the course, that first test was always going to be with them, and I wanted ways that they could overcome that. So I started playing with different ways, bringing in reassessments and revisions into their journey, lots of feedback, more feedback than grades, and really showing ways that students could revisit topics and be rewarded for growth, as opposed to kind of giving up and moving on. When I switched to computer science, there's a large computer science group working in this area as well. And I don't know if I came across that because I was looking for it or not, but I found it. And there's a bunch of computer science professors and K twelve teachers that are all playing with this as well. So I found that community, and I designed my course. I think I said earlier, I did an innovation grant to entirely redesign my course to be flexibly paced, but also to involve these alternative grading methods. So it's been an interesting journey, figuring out how to assess, give feedback, and grade in a way that really allows students to grow at in a flexible way. The other thing I'm working on right now at my site is I am running a discussion with my faculty about rethinking how we grade. Last summer, several people read Grading for Equity by Jill Feldman. That sparked some conversations. We had already had several people working on different equitable grading practices. Our math department has been working with different grading paradigms. I have a math colleague in the math department that I've been working closely with for several years, back when I was teaching chemistry. And now so we have a few people around who have been doing different grading ideas. And as more and more people started reading that and then looking at what we were doing, we started this special project, I guess you could call it, looking at grading. So rethinking our grading practices, we're having faculty meetings where we just look at our grading, discuss how we grade, why we grade, the way we do, and ways to rethink that. That's so fascinating to me. I guess you were saying that you were getting increasingly unhappy. How did you catch that it was the grading that was affecting this unhappiness of how this unhappiness that was popping up for you? Because I think sometimes as educators, we tend to focus on just how we've been grading and we don't really evaluate how we grade, and there's been some kind of blame with whoever. Right. So how did you catch I guess what I'm asking is, like, the mindset, right? How did you determine that the grades were the issue and the grading system was the issue and not people per se? It was probably over a few years, but at the end of each term, I would look at my grades and sort of ask myself, do a check in with myself, did this grade accurate, accurately reflect what that student, what I feel like that student knows and can do? And there were just several times where that grade seemed too high because of inflation from participation grades or homework grades or things like that, but they really struggled with the content. And then there were other times where the student really knew the content. And I knew that from lab work and from discussions with the student. And they really struggled on tests. And that didn't feel right to me, that if a student really knew the material and really struggled to show it on a test, but I could have a conversation with them and they knew it at a deep level that wasn't working. And so the grade at the end of the course didn't feel right to me. The other thing that bothered me was I've had several students who came in, thought they knew something or thought they knew how to study and prepared for the first test and failed it outright, failed it, and then came in, worked with me. Relooked looked at their studying techniques, looked at their relationship with the material, their background coming into the course. There are all sorts of things at play and really turned things around and earned an A on the final. And so they progressed all the way through the course. They got better and better and better, but they were still weighed down by those early challenges as they were working on overcoming whatever it was that was keeping them from performing well at the beginning and having a student do so well at the end. But still being weighed down by the math, if you will, of those early grades really bothered me. I think you definitely were a lot better at it than I was. I just knew teaching that I hated grades and I couldn't articulate why I hated grades, I just hated them. So when I switched to modern classroom, I just always told my students, don't ask me about grades. As long as you look at the pacing tracker and you see where your progress is, that's what we're going to focus on instead of grades, right? Because I feel like we put a lot of weight on grades. Grades. And I really like the fact that you were super intentional with checking in with yourself at the end and really just saying, do these grades really reflect my students’ abilities? And I also just really love that you named that. Some students really do struggle with tests. That was me. I was definitely a student who struggled with tests because of testing anxiety. And so just keeping that in mind too, right? And I think that's why you were like, hey, I do a lot of feedback a lot, I do a lot of conversations and I do a lot of just checking in with my students to see where they are. And so I think those are some really valid points that you brought up and I love that we're talking about it. And so one of our pillars, as you know, for our model is mastery based learning. So what are some common mistakes when it comes to grading mastery? I know that you and I had a conversation about this as well. I think the first one is making sure that we all have a clear definition of what we mean when we say mastery. There are actually a lot of communities that are moving away from that word for a variety of reasons. But one of them is our students are not going to master something really at a deep level in high school or middle school or elementary school unless we are really careful at framing what it is that they're able to do. And that's one of the challenges we've had in the discussions at my school is if we say here's the standard or here's the thing that we're asking and we're assessing, they're still on a learning journey, they're going to be learning for a long time in these areas. They haven't actually completely mastered it yet. And that's where the sticking point of for a lot of people is. And so we really need to frame what the skill is or what the outcome is or what the standard is. Make sure we frame it at the right level if we're going to be grading for the quote unquote mastery of that skill. So being really clear what we're assessing using too many gradations is also a big pitfall. Making sure that you're very clear what the distinction is between each increment as you assess and then grade something. So if you're using a lot of people use four point scales, those are much easier to define the distinction between a one and a two than between an 85 and an 86. So using 100 point scale is really difficult to define the differences between each thing. The fewer gradations you give yourself, the more accurate and more reliable your grades will be. Making sure that you allow revisions so that it's not a oneshot deal. And then in that there's sort of a subheading of caution there that we don't end up with a hamster wheel of reassessment, I like to call it. You don't want that sort of louder, rinse and repeat, constant cycle of reassessment which weighs down the students and weighs down the teachers. That's not a sustainable model. So we have to structure it in a way that however, we're allowing students to revisit and reassess skills, outcomes, knowledge that there isn't just an endless hamster wheel and then making sure that we provide enough feedback so that they can be successful on future assessments. So I guess I have a question, a follow up question about the four point scale. You have a really good point about the four point scale versus the two point versus, like, the 86 to an 85. Right. So I know that we have schools who have mandated scaling grades. What would you recommend for teachers who have that very rigid grading policy in their schools? I would first really understand what the grading policy is and where there's wiggle. So if you have a rigid grading policy, if you can talk to somebody who's in charge of those decisions, see where the wiggle is, that would be the first thing I would do. If there is no wiggle, then I would look at the 100. If you're mandated to 100 point scale, I would look at that 100 point scale and break it up into four or five chunks and not do the 85, 86. It's so hard to define. If a student came to me with an 85 and said, why didn't I get an 86? I wouldn't be able to quantify that. That's really hard. There's just not 100 different gradations. So one of the first things I would do is break it into chunks. A lot of people have been advocating for starting rather than zero, starting at 50, so that there aren't one of the issues with 100 point scale is that there are more ways to get failing grades than to get passing grades. And so because there's more numbers involved. And so starting at 50 starting at 50 has always felt weird to me. You can get a 50 for not doing anything, which is why I like the zero to four scale, so that each chunk has its own width, if you will. But that's something you can do, is say, I'm not nothing below a 50. So, yeah, I think if you're stuck with a 100 point scale, I would consider making 50 or zero, even though it feels weird to give 50, give no work at 50. I agree. That has always felt a little strange to me, which is why I like the zero to four scale. But if you're stuck with 100 point scale, you could start at 50 and then 50, 60, 70, 80, 9100. It's a really great question. Yeah. And I love this process that I'm hearing right now, Megan, because I know that this is a struggle, a challenge that a lot of our educators have. Right. But I think you don't have to come up with the math or anything, but I think just keeping in mind four to five different chunks instead of, like, the whole 100 scoring right. No, I'm really grateful that you named that. It is very uncomfortable to start with a 50%. It's weird. It is. 50 for zero work has always felt weird to me, which is why I switched to zero to four. I'm okay with zero for zero work if the one then becomes you turned in something and you're working on it. 60 or 59 gradations of failing work just has always felt weird, too. Look at your chunks. Maybe chunk it as Fdcba or maybe chunk it as not yet. So anything below C and then CBA, you could chunk it that way into four. Yeah, because you can even utilize phrases instead of actual numbers, right? Like, you have the numbers in your head, but when you're providing it for students, you have phrases, right? Like not yet there, or almost there, whatever. Right? And so I think, like you said, again, looking at the grading policy, seeing where you can kind of work your magic would be really interesting. And I know when we think about math, right, and a student has a zero, that really does mess up that student's grade. And like you said, the motivation is low. There's lots of disappointment, there's a lot of shame that goes with that. And so even if when they even when students work really hard, it's really difficult to pull up that zero. And again, with a great point that you had is that allowing for revisions, right, but also creating guidelines on how many revisions, how often, and also the timeline for revisions. Right. So as an educator, you have the reins and that you can control all of that depending on the students that you're working with. So I would also say what things need to be done between revisions, making sure that you have deliverable things that have to be done to earn that next revision, to make sure the student has done the practice or met with you or whatever it is, to make sure that they're ready for that next revision. Yeah, that's a really good point, too, because I think sometimes that's a step that we're missing. That was definitely a step that I had to learn when I was implementing the model first and the first semester. And then one thing is you'd mentioned using words for your grades, and that's actually what I do for my projects. So my projects are assessed using what's called an Esnu rubric. So it's excellent, satisfactory, revised, not accessible. So not accessible is you didn't turn it in or I can't open it, or you sent me a bad file or something. That's really the not yet revised, you did it, but it doesn't meet the targets yet. You need to do some revisions and give it back to me. So neither of those earn credit yet. Those are required. You need to fix this and then satisfactory, you've met the targets and then excellent is that you've gone above and beyond in some way. And I give them some strategies for that. They include extra skills or they show really deep thinking in a couple of areas or something. But I give them suggestions in the rubric on how to achieve that excellent. If they want to, they're allowed to revise for any of those. So if they earn a satisfactory, they're absolutely allowed to revise to excellent if they want to. If they are in a revised, they have to revise. So revision is optional at satisfactory required for the other two. Got it. Okay. Do you think that there's a way that you could share that with us and share an example of your rubric? Sure, absolutely. Okay. And I'll put that in the show notes as well because I am I'm speechless when it comes to just the phrase not accessible. Because, you know, we've said not yet. Not accessible is more so like, hey, there's a problem. It doesn't necessarily mean it's on you, but it could be, hey, the link's not working, or we haven't accessed it or something. But I really love the phrasing of not accessible. I think that that just creates so much more space for students to make those revisions or turn in or do what they have to do to move up to that rubric. Right, right. For whatever reason, I can't give you feedback on it. We need to work together. We need to come together, figure out what the problem is, fix it, and then I'll look at it. Oh, my goodness. Okay, you are literally blowing my mind. I am really obsessed with words. I really like wording because thoughts, words, actions, and so just these few phrases that you've taught me in this episode is just really great. So I appreciate that. Fun fact on that is some LMSs can be hacked isn't really the right word, but can be hacked to actually display those instead of numbers. So on Canvas, for example, which is what we use, my grade book displays those words to the students rather than 0123. No way. So they actually see that on their records as excellent, satisfactory revised. That is really, really rad, I'm sure. I'm going to ask you a little bit more about canvas, too, because I had a year to explore it and I loved it, but I think I just scratched the surface, honestly, I didn't really get into all the cool features that Canvas has. Okay, so another question that pops up all the time, Megan, is that how do you grade the lesson classification? Right? Because in this model, we're always talking about the must do, should do, and aspire to do. How do you include that in a grading in the gradebook? Great question. So I only grade the must dos. I will give feedback on the should do's and aspire to do. I actually don't tell the students ahead of time what the shadows and aspire to do are. For the most part, everything appears to them as these are things you need to do. And I will excuse students from different things as needed, depending on how they pace through it. They have multiple paths through this course because it is built such that if they come in with experience, they can actually test out of units as well. So they can show me they know the skills of a unit and not have to do it and move past it. So even my shoes inspired, even my must do are a little bit flexible because if you test out of a unit, you're clearly not doing the must dos in that unit. But all my must dues are graded, or I should say are assessed. They're graded, complete and complete. But I do check the skills. So the way my course is structured, they build skills and skill demonstration is part of their grade, and then their projects are the other part of their grade. Because I feel very strongly that a student who doesn't have time and needs that processing time to get that must do on that lesson shouldn't be penalized for not doing the should do, the inspire to do. If my standards are written such that every student should be able to achieve all of the standards, given the time and given the support and given the pacing, most dues should be enough, should do and aspire to do are great. They'll deepen their skills. They'll make them faster at programming. They may see different aspects of the programming assignments or learn about different people. In computer science, there's activities that they enjoy doing, so they want to do those, and that's great. But I don't want to penalize students who need more time to learn it and make it so they can't get an A in the course. And that makes a lot of sense. So how do you mode it? Well, never mind. You just set it. So you don't typically tell your students ahead of time which ones they should do and aspire to do. Right, correct. Okay. And that makes a lot more sense because then students can just continue to go through their learning journey not knowing that something is optional. Okay, right. And they do know that we will be excused from things if we need more time. So they know that flexibility is there. So if a student's starting to get behind, they know that we'll have a conversation and I may excuse them from one or more of those things. And so they can breathe a little bit isn't building up, oh my gosh, I still have eight things and there's no way I'm going to make it to the end of this unit. And that makes a lot of sense, too. I know something that I did when I was teaching. I should have done a pretest to see who will test out so that they don't have to revisit or learn something that they already know one way that I worded it. To my students who are already aware of the skill that I was teaching, I always just said, this is just a reminder so that everyone's on the same page. But I really liked, again, the intent behind, hey, here's a test, and if you test out, you just continue working on what you're doing. And so, again, respecting our students time in our spaces is also really important. So thank you for. Naming that. And something I noticed to Megan, and I know you and I have had conversations about it outside of this episode, but you and I were talking about grading versus assessing. Yes. Do you want to give us a little bit more information about that? Sure. So I think at least in my experience as teachers, we tend to use the two words interchangeably. And assessing is really looking at what the student knows he can do and giving them feedback, but not necessarily putting a grade on it. And we can assess all the time. We should be assessing daily with our students as we have conversations with them, as they turn in practice, as we have them doing collaborative work. There should be constant assessing and constant feedback. But it doesn't mean that we need to grade everything. And as soon as we put a grade on it, whether we like it or not, a grade is a judgment. And we need to be careful making sure that those grades and our courses are structured in a way that those grades are meaningful and that those grades reward growth. And I think we need to be careful how we use the words as well, because if we switch our if we if we use two different words with different nuances interchangeably, then we're not being precise and clear about what we're saying. And I've actually had several conversations with other teachers where and I have a bad habit of this, too. I am also struggling with changing how I use those words. I have also tended to use them interchangeably, and I'm trying to break that habit because most of the time when I say grading, I actually mean assessing. So we need to be if we're having conversations with colleagues about what we're doing, we need to make sure that we're clear when we're assessing it when we're grading, and I think also just having common language. Right. So having conversations with colleagues about, like, hey, this is grading, this is assessing. We're going to continue to work on using these words the appropriate way. And I really like that you pointed out that, really, honestly, assessments or assessing happens every single day with all of the interactions that you have with students. Thank you so much, Megan. Assessing is what we do all the time. Yeah. As teachers, we're constantly assessing and hopefully giving feedback. Right. Assessing that shouldn't just be kept to ourselves. We need to make sure we're giving that feedback to the students in constructive and encouraging ways because we want them to grow. We want them to learn, and then we want them to demonstrate that learning. And it's a constant feedback loop. I mean, even just as human beings, you don't necessarily have to be a teacher. You are always assessing the situation. So I really like that and something that stood out to as great as a judgment. It really is. And when you say grading, really, we have to be meaningful with making sure that it aligns with what our students are capable of doing right? Okay, we're going to take a quick break for an announcement, and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about grading for equity. Hey, listeners, it's Tony Rose here with some announcements and reminders. If you and or your teacher bestie are interested in the Virtual Mentorship Program, we do have scholarships available. Make sure to check out modernclassrooms.org Scholarships. We have regional scholarships available for educators in Baltimore City, New York City, DC. Chicago, Tulsa County, and the Twin Cities that include full tuition, a year of implementation support, and a $500 stipend for finishing the program. We are continuing our scholarship across the state of Indiana, which includes implementation support and 30 PGPs. Any educator in the state can enroll right now at Modern Classrooms.org Indiana. We also have partnerships with districts across the country who are paying for educators to go through our training. As for professional learning, make sure to check out our webinars page on modernclassrooms.org webinars and to connect with our community. Join our Twitter chat on the first Wednesday of the month and our virtual meetup on the second Wednesday of the month, and we hope to connect with you outside of our podcast. All right, and now we're back with Megan, and I'm excited to continue having this conversation with you because I know that grading is something that a lot of teachers want to talk about, a lot of educators have lots of questions about. Right? And so you and I have had multiple conversations about grading for equity, and one thing that you taught me is that this work, this research, is done by white males, and you actually helped elevate people of color who are doing similar work for me because I'd ask, and so tell us more about that. So when I started really diving into this, as I said, I started my journey, started doing this on my own. And then I realized there was a whole community of people doing this and said, oh, look. And I really started reading and looking around a lot. I'm part of several groups online that are doing this, and I started looking at who I was reading. And a lot of the books that I've read are written are great books, really well done, but they're all written from the same standpoint, mostly white men and college professors. I said, okay, I want more voices in this. What are other people's experiences? What are some of the differences between different people's experiences based on their backgrounds and their sites and their schools and who's at their schools and all of that? And so I figured if I wanted to help teachers do this, I needed to understand different experiences so that if I was giving advice to somebody, I could have different lenses of, okay, these are some things you might run into at your school. Again, these are mostly colleges. So if I'm working in a high school level, what are some things that I need to be aware of? There are some also some really great resources out there written by other people, not necessarily books. There are some great books as well. Linda Nilsson has specifications. Grading. Star Saxtein has Hacking Assessment, which is a great one. Susan Bloom has a collection of sort of individual chapters from individual teachers both college and high school. And actually I think there might be an elementary school chapter in there as well, which is great. And again, different experiences and different people. So that's been fabulous. Courtney Sobers at Back East is doing as a college, teaches college chemistry. Clarissa sorensen unruth. So there's a whole bunch of really great people doing a bunch of really great stuff and they haven't all written books. And so it's taken going into some of these communities of like, discord, Facebook, slack, there's a bunch of different communities around grading and there are a lot of college professors, so I spend a lot of time with college professors. But it's really great conversations about how do we do this and how do we do this? Well, how do we do this? Equitably how do we support student learning? And then also really looking at what are the different people's experiences, who gets more pushback from the students, who gets challenged more when they try to disrupt something, who gets support as they try to do that? So that's been a really interesting and sort of important piece of the journey. Yeah, and I really like that you scold me on that, honestly, because when I looked up Grading for Equity and looked up the author, I was like shocked. And you were like, actually this is a thing. And so I appreciate you, again, just naming that and really looking for other voices in different lenses so that you can have better conversations with people in different communities. So thank you for doing that work for you and doing that work for the educators that you serve. And so you and I also talked about how we need to have conversations about our grading beliefs and experiences, something you mentioned earlier. Why do we grade the way that we do? And so how can we get educators to do more self reflection when it comes to their grading practices? And how can we start dismantling this cycle that we've really just normalized and accepted? And I guess another question too, I know it's a lot of questions, so you can answer all or one is how can we check our biases when we're grading as well? That's a great question. One of the pillars of Grading for Equity or alternative grading, or there's no actual agreed upon name for grading, not traditionally yet, but one of those pillars is that grades need to be biased, resistant, and so we really need to check that. So thank you for calling that one out. I think many of us grade the way we were graded. It's sort of a self perpetuating process, and we do what we know, so we grade the way we were graded, which is it's tricky because grading is I read an article recently, and they said one of the reasons that grading isn't really discussed is that's one of the last things that's really sort of the purview of the teacher. And so that's one of the things that administrators don't want to touch and people don't want to challenge. That's the prerogative of the teacher in their domain at their classroom. And so it's sort of a lightning rod of things that people don't want to talk about. And it's really important that we do talk about it and that we talk about it as teachers because it's really tough with school culture and teachers and teacher and administrator culture. This isn't something that you're going to want the administrators to come in and say, you will do it this way. It's much better if we as teachers reexamine what we do and really take some time to reflect. It's a lot less threatening if we do it ourselves. If somebody says, rethink how you're grading, that's going to feel like you're doing it wrong. If we think about it ourselves and say, you know what, why do I grade the way I do? What am I trying to communicate with my grades and to whom? Am I communicating to colleges? Am I communicating to parents? Am I communicating to students? Am I communicating to other teachers for the next level that the student is going to? The answer is probably yes to all of them. Then what do we want our grades to mean? Do our grades mean how hard a student works? Or do our grades mean what the student knows and can do? They're really taking a step back in a way that feels less threatening than somebody mandating it and checking in with ourselves. Why do we grade the way we do? Is that because that's the system we inherited? Or is that because it's a system that we truly believe in and that is something that can be really uncomfortable? Absolutely. This is one of those things that we don't look at very often, and it's something that tends to be a little core to our belief as teachers. Right. And we take our grades for whatever reason, we take our grades as some reflection of whether we're doing a good job. So if we take a step back and really look at what our grades reflect about what our students know and can do, that will really give us a much better handle on how our students are doing. That was a lot for me to process and everything you're saying right? Like, if we do it ourselves, it's more of, okay, this is something that I can do. But if someone were to come in and question us or tell us to do it, then it's like, Wait a minute, what do you mean? Right? You get up in arms about it. So I totally understand that. And so I think as an individual, we really want to continue to re examine and reflect our practices, especially grading practices, to be more specific. And so I love it. Grading does communicate things, and what does it communicate? And we see grading as a reflection of doing a good job. I mean, growing up as Filipino, right? Like, my parents really put a lot of emphasis on grades. And it was one of those things where if I got a 97, my mom would be like, why didn't you get a 100? And it was never just about learning, but it was about the numbers that I was coming home with. And that is very triggering for me. And I know when I decide to have children, if and when I decide to have children, I don't really want to focus on the grades. And I know people are like, well, grades are a thing because that's what colleges are looking for and all of that good stuff. And so I just I don't know, I just have lots of feelings that I think I need to also re examine and reflect on why I feel the way I feel about grades. Grades are tricky. As a society, we put a lot of emphasis on grades. They mean, and so we have to be careful. I know there are a lot of people who want to say things like grades don't matter or don't focus on the grades. And I think we have to be careful as educators, even if we want to say that, and even if we're saying that in the back of our heads, saying that to the students, I think, can backfire on us, because the students, they know grades matter. I teach high school. Their grades matter. They're applying to colleges. What's on their transcript does matter. And so if we tell them their grades don't matter, we've immediately lost their trust. They know grades matter, and we're telling them something totally different. And now we have no credibility. Credibility. So something we have no credibility. Right. So we have to be really careful with that language and that messaging. I think what's more authentic and more true is, yes, the grades matter. Acknowledge that and say, and we're going to get there in a different way that allows room for growth and allows you to present your best selves. So grades matter. Absolutely. Right. As a society, we haven't gotten away from that. I would love to get away from that. If I had the magic wand, I would make grades not matter. But they do. And so we need to make sure that our assessment and our grading throughout our course means that the grade at the end is more in their control so that they can earn the grade that they want. Yeah. Now, moving forward right. I will not say grades don't matter, because you're right. It's acknowledging the thing that has been how it is. And unfortunately, society is still pretty much focused on grading, so it does matter. And I love that you added that end piece. Right. And you can advocate for yourself, and you can make this experience yours, and you can show your growth. Right. And so I really love that end piece that you added. And another thing, too, that I was wondering, and I hate to switch it to canvas, but I'm going to switch it to canvas. When we're thinking about biases, is there a way in canvas? I think there is a way to cover names, right. When you're grading. Yes. You can remove in speed grader, you can hide the student names. Absolutely. And I found that to be really helpful, so that I'm not like, oh, well, Johnny had a bad day today, so I'm going to take points off. This other student and I had a really negative interaction, so I'm going to go ahead and take some points off. And I think that was another thing, too, that we hadn't covered, too. And I know that you had some questions, and so I'm going to mess up your flow a little bit. What does it really mean to grade for equity? Megan so there's slightly different takes on it, depending on who you're talking to. But overall, the premise is that grades should be accurate, so they should accurately reflect what a student knows and can do. They should be bias resistant, and they should be motivational and transparent. So you want whatever system you're using to accurately reflect what a student can do using clearly defined standards, outcomes, whatever language your site uses, they should be resistant to whatever biases are involved, whether that's, as you just named, student had a bad day, student was misbehaving in class, and we're grumpy about it. We're tired and getting increasingly grumpy about whatever mistakes students are making, whatever the biases are, our grades need to be resistant to those. They need to be motivational in that we want there to be room for growth. My stories of my students who may have failed the first test. And we're doing really well by the end of the term, but still being weighed down by that first test, which then makes my grades not accurate, because if I'm trying to accurately portray what a student knows and can do, what they did four months ago is kind of irrelevant. If they're now doing that thing and then making sure that we're transparent, the student knows where they are, how they're doing on each of the things at any given moment or maybe not any given thing. You don't have to do it every minute. It doesn't have to be up to the second information. But throughout the course, they do need to have an understanding of where they are other people, define them slightly differently. So there's another group that has different pillars of alternative grading, which is a group called Grading for Growth, and their pillars are clearly defined standards. Helpful feedback marks indicate progress and re attempts without penalty. So kind of the same flavors, making sure that we have room for growth, encouraging students to grow and not give up giving feedback. So those are sort of the main pillars, is making sure that we are giving. At the end of the day, it's all about making sure that every student is supported in their education journey and in their growing throughout our course. Thank you for that. Yes and yes. Okay, so now I'm sure that our listeners are like, okay, this is all great, Megan. Great, awesome. You make it sound so pretty easy. Like, yes, these are things. So what are some of your bite size actionable steps that educators can start implementing right away when it comes to alternative grading, grading for equity, grading for growth, or just making sure that our grades accurately represent our students knowledge and capabilities? Sure, I have some easy ones and I have some controversial ones. Let's start with the controversial ones. Oh, boy. And this comes with an Asterisk. So I'll do this and then we'll do the Asterisk. One is remove the quote unquote fluff from your grades. So remove the extra credit, remove the homework grades, remove the participation grades, unless you can truly quantify what that means. So again, if it's a literature class and you're having conversations or something, maybe there is a rubric that you have to assess that and those skills, but in just a blanket participation grade, those are prime for bias and don't accurately represent what a student knows and can do. So those go at the same time. The Asterisk for that is, if you're going to do that, we have to make sure that there's a way for students to redeem themselves from missteps. So if a student fails a test or does poorly on something, in traditional grading, those fluff bits, those extra things were, what was the insurance policy? If we remove the insurance policy at the same time, we have to make sure that there's revision and reassessment available. So if you're going to do one, you have to do both. Because if you just take the insurance policy out and the student has a bad day on a test, they're in big trouble now. So that's sort of part A and B of the same idea that's one thing might be hard to do in the middle of a semester. So that's something to think about. Maybe for next semester, you can think about try one project or one assignment, and if you have the ability at your site, go for a four point scale or even a two point scale. I love the two point rubric. Yes and no, essentially, which is essentially what my four point scale is. Credit and not credit. So I do a lot of incomplete complete and then a lot of feedback. So try doing that on some, maybe some homeworks or maybe a project. Try one thing and see how it goes. You can use whatever grading scale you're working on and then do this one alongside it as you get to know it and see how it works in terms of your class and what's happening. So that's one thing you can do or another thing, one thing everybody can do right now, no matter where you are in your term and in your course, is self reflection. That would be the first thing I would do. And alongside that, find a friend, find a thought partner and reflect together and then have a conversation. So find somebody you trust at your site, at a different site, online, whatever in the MCP group. Reach out to me. Whatever. But find a thought partner where you can really do some reflection about why you grade. What are you trying to demonstrate, by the way you're grading? And really think through that for yourself and think about what's working well, what's not working well. And then share that with somebody else. And the reason I say find someone you trust is this can be a really vulnerable thing as you're thinking about grading and unpacking why you grade the way you do. And there's lots of questions and so you want to find somebody that you're comfortable saying, I don't know if we're going to dig into this, we want to make sure that we're comfortable sharing that vulnerability with a colleague. And if you don't have a colleague at your site that you're comfortable having that conversation with, find somebody at a different site. And I'm happy to be a thought partner to people too. So you really want to make sure that it's somebody that you're willing to toss ideas around it and say, you know what, this isn't working and I don't know what to do about it. And then the last thing I would say is start to shift vocabulary, start to be really intentional about what vocabulary we're using as we're trying to shift away from the grading mindset and into more of a growth mindset. And I know that's a phrase everyone throws around all the time, but it's really where we want our students to be in this mindset of continual growth. And so evidence of learning versus terms like work or grades or whatever, it isn't shown yet. Rather than you didn't do it, you haven't done it yet, or you haven't shown me this thing yet. And so having small modifications of how we talk to students about their progress and that it really is a journey and a progress and not, you didn't do it or you failed. Really being careful about how we're talking to students and how we're showing them that we have the confidence that they're on a journey and they will get better at whatever the skill is over time. Yeah, those are all really great. And I think I also just want to add in something that you said without saying is really engaging with your students and knowing what their skills are, right? So spending that time with them, giving them that feedback, and also inviting them to have those conversations with you, those are all really important pieces. So I love this. This is great, right? If you can't do all of them, do at least one, right? And I think with modern classroom model we're set up, if we're implementing this model, we're having conversations with our students. And so it's not a huge shift for somebody who's running in this in this model, if you're already implementing some of these things, you're probably having conversations with your students a fair amount, and your students are having group conversations, and there's all sorts of opportunities for having those dialogues. And so I think people who are already implementing this model have a step towards that already. And if you're not implementing, check it out. I love that plug. That's amazing. And you're absolutely right. We don't have the traditional lectures anymore, so we actually have time to be more intentional. Again, I really love using that word to have these conversations with students. And these conversations are really important. We don't want to steer away from grades. We don't want to steer away from assessments. But having, like you said, a clear transparency and motivational aspect of grading is really important. And so, Megan, what do you hope to see in the future and what goals do you have? If I had a magic wand, as I said earlier, I would get rid of grades entirely. I don't have a magic wand, so we'll put that one to the side. I would love more teachers to shift focus on learning over grading. We have to acknowledge grades exist, at least for now. But I would love to shift that focus to learning rather than grades. That involves a huge culture shift. So it's going to be an ongoing journey. But if more of us do it and really help the students see that they're on a journey and it's a lifetime journey of learning, it's important that the students understand that learning is for life, it's not just for school, and so they can learn. And that failure with a small F, failure is part of learning. Right? We try. I have a poster in my classroom that says, try, fail, learn, repeat. You're going to try something, it's not going to work. That's okay. We learn from that kind of failure. And as long as we don't want them to fail a class. But we want them to make mistakes, and we want them to try and take those risks. I used to tell my students in chemistry, if they weren't making mistakes, they weren't trying hard enough because they weren't pushing themselves. And mistakes are okay, we need to make mistakes. We need to normalize mistakes, and then the learning that comes from those mistakes and we'll have happier and more successful students in school and in life. Another thing I would like is and this goes with it, is that as students learn more and they understand that mistakes are part of the learning process, we're going to have students with higher confidence and more skills in all sorts of areas. So those are two of my hopes as more people go down this journey, we make education better for our students and for ourselves. Yes, we do. And again, like you said, lots of reflecting, right? And just a reminder to give yourself grace. Give your students grace, because this is something that we're trying to shift, and it's something that they've had probably all their lives. So it's going to take a lot of patience and it's going to take a lot of grace to shift your mindset, to shift that vocabulary to really normalize mistakes when it's never been normalized before. And so you're absolutely right, especially with the revisions and the reassessments that you're talking about, too, is like, sometimes we're going to need more than one try to learn something, and that is okay. That is a part of the process, and we really want to elevate that and make it something of a joyful part of the process rather than a shameful one. Yes. And then I think the other thing, just a bit of advice for anybody that's going to go down this road is take the long view. You're not going to transform your entire grading process in a month. Start with bite size pieces. Do it in a way that involves that you make sure that the students understand what's happening and have support. Make sure you have support or that you're doing it in a way that people understand what you're doing. And then start small start with small pieces. Make sure those work for you, and then build. When I first started teaching, if I had a new idea, I wanted to implement it through the entire course all at once. And I wasn't willing to accept that it would take a longer time to really perfect things. Fast forward many years later, and I've gotten better at saying, this is where I want to be. I'm going to do this part now, I'm going to do this part now. I'm definitely going to start now because I want things to be better for my students. But I also know that if I throw the entire thing out and start over, that won't necessarily be better for my students because I'll be trying to build the plane while I'm flying it. So look for ways to implement bit by bit. Yeah. And that's such a great reminder and such great advice. And so how can our listeners connect with you, Megan? Sure. So I think there's show notes that go out after. This. We can put my Modern Classroom email in there. I'm also on the Modern Classroom Facebook group, so if people have questions about grading and want to throw them in there, I'm in there fairly often. But, yeah, either email or through the Facebook group would be great. Beautiful. 


Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Megan. You've definitely schooled me in a lot of things today, always whenever I'm in the space with you. And so I'm just so grateful for your presence, so grateful for your knowledge, and so grateful for your passion in being a grading disruptor. And so I just appreciate your being. Thank you so much. I can talk about grades, grading, and assessment for hours. I've told my school several times. This is one of my favorite topics, so thank you for the opportunity to share that with people. And I have all sorts of other information that I can share with people if they're interested, so feel free to reach out if you want to go down this road. All right, well, listeners, remember, you can always email us at podcast@modernclassrooms.org and you can find the show notes for this episode podcast.modernclassrooms.org/124. We'll have the episodes recap and transcript uploaded to the Modern Classroom blog on Friday, so be sure to check there or check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday.


Participant #1:
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.modernclassrooms.org, and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @modernclassproj. That's PR. OJ. We are so appreciative of all you do for students and schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast.