Standards based grading is the practice of measuring student proficiency against defined standards and learning targets. Because standards based grading closely ties academic performance to learning standards, it allows for a more accurate and specific report of student academic performance. While traditional grading may include such behaviors as student motivation, extra credit, participation, organization and other non-academic behaviors, standards based reporting is designed to report student progress toward achieving an academic standard while separating out all other non academic behaviors. The goal of standards based reporting is to provide clear feedback to teachers, students and parents as to the academic performance of the student.
The purpose of the standards based report card is to clearly communicate student progress towards achieving established state/district learning standards. The standards based report card supports parents/guardians and the student in understanding academic strengths and areas in need of improvement.
Guiding Principles:
Standards based report cards give meaning to grades:
- Grades reflect the student's mastery of the content or skill.
- Defines what learning and student mastery should look like.
Standards based reporting changes they way we look at schooling:
- We now look at learning based on mastery of specific skills not just an overarching grade in the subject area
- Educational tasks align to the standards.
Standards based reporting creates greater consistency in grading:
- All student grades reflect mastery of standards rather than individual grading practices.
Standards based Reporting impacts instructions:
- Allows teachers to focus on learning tasks more specifically on skills and content.
- Gives teachers feedback as to how to reteach or focus instruction.
Diamond Lake School District 76 has adopted research based guidelines for the development of standards based grading:
- Grades will reflect proficiency in defined standards based learning targets.
- Grades will be based on academic performance using formative and summative assessments.
- Students will be given multiple ways to demonstrate their knowledge.
- Feedback will be timely, specific, and related to the standards based learning target.
- Students will be given multiple opportunities to reach proficiency on specific standards based targets.
- Grading scales will be devised into incremental performance level descriptors.