In 2015, I began imagining a no-grades classroom. I wasn’t sure what this meant at the time. All I knew is that the letters and numbers that I put alongside students’ names didn’t even come close to representing who they were as learners and what …
Revision Days: Making Time to Read and Respond to Feedback
When I wrote last week about cheating with my no-grades classroom, I talked about how I was using narrative feedback (written and verbal) to communicate with students about their learning and how, for the most part, the revision part was not happening. I was reluctant to …
I’m a no-grades cheater.
“You can’t just declare that you have a growth mindset,” said Dweck. “Growth mindset is hard. Many educators are trying to skip the journey.” To do it right, Dweck says that many teachers have to change how they teach, offering more critical feedback and giving …
No Grading: I Think I Did it Wrong
After spending the summer researching assessment and grading, after meeting with colleagues and my principal about facilitating a no-grades classroom this school year, after resisting numbers and letter grades on student work for nearly nine weeks, after countless hours of writing narrative feedback to students …
Creating Conversations for Learning in a Grade-Based World
Kelly Mogk talks about the ethics of writing in schools focused on grades and scores. She says, “When students submit a piece of work to me, my first thought is always the same: First, do no harm. I want to develop writers that can express themselves with ease, and more than that—I want them to see themselves as writers and find joy in the learning.”