Guest Post from @rightingteacher

On Monday Dec. 5th at 7 PM EST @rightingteacher will host #engchat around the issue of assessment in  English classes.  Here is her guest post highlighting some of her thoughts around it:  

Our school recently made the shift to an online grading system that can be accessed by students/parents/teachers on any computer. In our community, this transition intensified questions about assessment that have always left me unsettled. It seemed to heighten both student and parent fixation on grades, and the assumption that grades=hard data. After an incident in which a student interrupted my grading in the library to point out a typographical error—she had been monitoring my input of her grades from another computer as I worked--my frustrations and concerns with assessment in my ELA classroom overflowed. I posted this note on our class website:

Dearest English Students,
I hope you know I am so fond of you, but I have to rant.
Grades are NOT done yet. TODAY is the last day of the quarter, and evaluation of 10 weeks worth of work is a lengthy and involved process. Grades are not expected to be finished for another FIVE DAYS, and you should not take Gradespeed™ to be a 100% accurate reflection of my records until then. If you would find it obnoxious of me to loom over your shoulder as you wrote, asking "Are you done yet, are you done yet, are you going to fix that part?" then I am sure you can imagine what it feels like to be badgered about grades when they are still in the process of being posted.
Further, as I mentioned in class on more than one occasion, I KNOW your grades are important to you. I am therefore generous and compassionate about grading, and generally have a reputation for being fair to indulgent when it comes to grades This isn't because I'm a pushover, but because I don't want you worrying and obsessing over your grades to the degree that our work together is eclipsed by a NUMBER--one that probably wouldn't mean the same thing to any two people in our class.
Honestly, receiving a barrage of questions barely 24 hours from my beginning to use Gradespeed™ makes me feel that I have failed you. You don't yet understand they are only ONE PART of our work together, and not the most important part, at that.
And finally...YOU DID SELF-EVALUATIONS. You are very unlikely to be surprised or confused by your grade.
I am more than a dispenser of numbers.
And you are not a number.
With all due respect, please. Chill. Out.
Fondly, Ms. W
I realize my impatience was showing (though this is a much kinder alternative than what my partner suggested, which was to wait until a grade-fixated student asks about his/her grade and say, "Since you asked, you get an A+, but now every one of your classmates gets an F," then announce this in class and post a framed picture of said student at the front of the room with the caption "A+! Great work, ___________!" There are probably good reasons he’s not a teacher.) It was a piece of writing dashed off in the heat of the moment, but as my frustration from this incident dissipated, and my compassion for these student concerns was restored, I was left to tease out some questions. Assessment becomes more complex and complicated to me the more I consider it and the more experience I have with students, and I am left to wonder: 

*What are the ways we can position assessment as part of an ongoing conversation about student work? How do we make/keep it meaningful?
*What level of participation can students have in assessing their needs/skills/performance? What can this look like?
*What alternative assessments (to 100-pt grade scales) have we used effectively in our classrooms?
*How can we resist using “assessment” to mean strictly “testing,” particularly as CCS is implemented, with promises of more standardized testing to come? 
*How can we encourage our communities to place value on authentic assessments?
*Being mindful not to “punish by rewards,” are there forms of assessment that can be motivating for students? And even for teachers?
Please stop by #engchat 7-8 pm, Monday, December 5 to address these questions with me!