This week, we are talking all about grading in a mastery-based learning classroom. We'll share our learning as well as guiding principles to keep in mind as you consider grading practices in your mastery-based structured classroom.
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**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/66**
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This week, we are talking all about grading in a mastery-based learning classroom. We'll share our learning as well as guiding principles to keep in mind as you consider grading practices in your mastery-based structured classroom.
If you like what you hear, we would love it if you could share this episode with a colleague or friend. And make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new content! And consider supporting the show by buying us a coffee or two!
We would love to hear from you – leave a comment on our website OR check out our FLIPGRID!
Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/66**
Connect with EduGals:
Welcome to the Edge U Gals podcast. We are your co-host Rachel Johnson
Katie:and Katie Atwell. We are here to bring you tips and tricks to help you integrate technology into your classroom.
Rachel:In this episode, we are continuing our discussion about mastery based learning, and specifically looking at how do you grade in a mastery based structure in your classroom.
Katie:We are going to share some of the learning that we have done on this topic and some guiding principles to keep in mind as you are. Exploring the idea of grading in a mastery based classroom. Let's get
Rachel:started. This week, Katie and I are continuing our discussion around mastery based structures and learning in the classroom, and, you know, we, we touched a little bit about this. Last episode on grading in a mastery based classroom. So this is where we kind of wanna focus today, is how do you grade with mastery based learning?
Katie:Yes. And the funny part, or maybe not so funny, I don't know, is. When I went back and I've been doing some reading and some research and looking into this and trying to learn more, I've realized there is no answer. So the logical person in me is now screaming, what am I doing? But it, it really comes down to flexibility in finding what works for you and your students. That's what I've learned this
Rachel:week. Yeah. It's funny because. Katie told me that when we first jumped onto this Google meet this morning before we started recording, and you know, I, I, I had that sense last week. I, I've had that sense for a while in terms of grading and mastery based structures. Like there really is no clear cut answer. And so it was, it was pretty funny. I know.
Katie:So I've been working through the Modern Classrooms project and, and I do give some, I guess examples or some teachers approaches to grading. And it's funny cuz I read some of them and I'm like, quizzes and tests, no, this is not me. And, and then you have to like go through and kind of figure out, you know, what is your style, what is your curriculum like, and what are your goals and, and how can you make it fit with the traditional grading system while still. Encouraging student learning and agency. I think
Rachel:it really is gonna depend on what curriculum area you're in, who you work with, and what sort of structures you already have in place. Because I think that's, that's gonna be where everybody's starting places.
Katie:And so to give you an idea, here in Ontario, we have. You know, different reporting periods that we have to be accountable for. So we do a quick check-in in the fifth week of classes just to make students aware of, you know, if they're struggling or perhaps not being as successful. It's kind of a way to let parents and students know, Hey, we need to get on track here. We also have midterms and then we have 15th weeks for students who are in danger of perhaps not getting the credit. And then we have finals. So we have four reporting periods where we are expected to have, you know, some idea as to progress, particularly at the beginning where it's kind of tough. Uh, cuz you haven't done as much, but I. So the idea is showing that progress throughout and reporting on that. So it can become tricky with mastery based is what I've discovered.
Rachel:I almost think that though, that that's a good structure for us to talk about. So why don't we talk about that first sort of chunk of. Learning in the classroom the first sort of five weeks of, of a semester, because in those first five weeks you are learning about your students, you're getting to know them, and those fifth week reports that we do don't require us to report a mark. It's reporting on the progress of the students. So I think. That's a good place to talk about and then we can talk about coming up with grades afterwards for that midterm, the 15th week and the final reports.
Katie:Yes, and me as a teacher, I always struggle with fifth weeks because we spend, so, I spend so much time almost doing diagnostics. Like in order for me to effectively teach my students, especially in English as an additional language, I have to know where they're at. And so in order to do that, you know, I have to spend time diagnosing their skills, figuring out where they're at, seeing their individual strengths, and then areas where they still kind of need that extra support before I can really move forward. So to be honest, for me, fifth weeks are tough because I might have. One, like one assignment that is put in there. Um, but it's not usually like a major assignment
Rachel:necessarily. I've actually had very similar experiences in science. You know, e ESL is definitely not an outlier when those fifth week progress reports come around. Pretty much in any course I've ever taught, there's only ever maybe one evaluation, maybe two at the most. And in science, you know, it's a lot more traditional. So there might be a quiz and maybe a unit test, but usually you haven't even finished a full unit of study by the fifth week. Or if you have, you've had the test, but you haven't marked it yet.
Katie:That's, that's good to know because like I don't often know what other people are doing and how many things they have, so I tend to be self-conscious of the fact that I really despise fifth weeks cuz I feel like I haven't done enough
Rachel:Now. I do feel like, okay, if, if you have a mastery based grading sort of practice set up in your classroom and you're doing it lesson by lesson, so very similar to. What the Modern Classrooms Project sets out in terms of their framework. Then I feel like by fifth week you would have a good chunk of lessons that the students should have mastered by that point when that progress is coming out. So I almost feel like it would be, Easier to be able to do those progress reports with something like this framework in place than the traditional way that we do it right now. Now
Katie:follow up question to that. So when you do mastery based and, and this is what I'm still kind of wrestling with in my mind, do you have like almost like a schedule as to when they should achieve certain checks? Like, is that like checks and balances? Like, by this time you should have accomplished this?
Rachel:Yeah, I think you need to have some sort of pacing still in there. You can't be completely fully self-paced, you know, maybe you can in some courses, but the way I'm, I'm sort of picturing what it would look like in my classroom. It wouldn't be fully like, Just finish it whenever you want to. You, you have to have a pace in there. Otherwise it's a
Katie:disaster and trying to get these kids to move forward, right? So there still has to be structure. So you're right, like maybe the first two weeks they're kind of getting used to this new structure of mastery based and guiding them through it more. But then, you know, they have another three weeks where they should be able to progress through, do some mastery checks, but then the follow up, what are we including for Marks?
Rachel:Yeah. So that's where it gets tricky. Mm-hmm.
Katie:And that's what I've discovered.
Rachel:Yes. And so one of the, um, Facebook groups that are really, really great is the Modern Classrooms Project Facebook group. Like they have so many. Good discussions in there on this topic, and I've, I've read them all. It's, it's insane how much this topic really comes up and, and people talk about, but you know, you there, there's the question around what do you define mastery as, first off, like what grade does that get and then how do you put that into your grade book? Now a very sort of traditional way that you could do it is every lesson, you know, you put in your grade book as the mastery check, and then the mark that you put in is either, I don't, well, okay, we need to go back to what you define mastery as. But say you say it's, it has to be a hundred percent just to make the the example easier. Then the grade you would put in for mastering that lesson would be like a 10 outta 10. And if they haven't mastered it yet, then it's a zero and it's a soft zero until they master that skill. But then when you get to that progress report time, if they've mastered, say, seven out of. 10 of the lessons that they should have mastered and their grade is 70%. Okay. I could see
Katie:that. Now I've read where some teachers don't actually mark, like for grades, the mastery checks, and so then I guess there's in assignment or some other work that they then take those skills they've mastered and demonstrated. Yeah, I know
Rachel:a lot of teachers out there will. Like the mastery checks are not the only thing that goes into your grade, and I agree it shouldn't be the only thing that goes into your grade book. There should be other pieces to it. So you've got a whole choice in terms of what are the other pieces that go in there. Like for science, maybe it's. A lab report of some sort or a project, or a lot of teachers will still do a summative unit test at the end, and maybe that's the grade that goes in. So from there, you could add in the mastery check marks if you wanted to, or if you didn't want to and only wanted to count those summative pieces, then you could do that as well.
Katie:And now here's a follow up question to that. So I know so many questions. Can you tell I'm still on this learning journey? So for science, for example, if you're gonna have like a summative test, is that kind of your goal date for your students? Like are they all writing on the same day as a goal, or can they take that staggered based on how prepared they are?
Rachel:I've seen it a few ways. So it could be a set goal date and that's when the unit's done. We need to move on kind of deal so that they're all writing on the same day. I've also seen it set up where it's a window of a few days, so maybe a three day window and they can write their summative evaluation in one of those three days, you know, depending on their comfort level and their, their level of readiness. So you could do that as well.
Katie:Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Let me think of my other million questions.
Rachel:I certainly don't have all the answers. I'm still No. Like this is still a learning journey for me too, and I've only really, I. Sort of gotten a really good grasp of what mastery based learning can be and could look like in a classroom. I haven't done it with a class myself, and so, you know, the, these are all ways that I think I would put it into place, but I don't know how well they would work. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think we also have the other added layer in Ontario of. Grading categories, and I know every school board does it slightly differently, but in our school board, we actually have to show how each of the marks is related to each of the different categories. So we have knowledge and understanding. We have thinking, inquiry, application, and communication. And so then that adds a layer of complexity, like where do you put the mastery checks? Yeah. What category do they go under? Right.
Katie:But one thing I kind of liked, and I can't remember where I read this or who said it was, you know, wherever you end up, whatever you end up marking. Make sure it was something that was explicitly taught within those mastery checks. So for example, if you haven't explicitly taught specific grammar concepts, you shouldn't then be marking for those on your rubric. You can't mark down for something that you have not explicitly taught.
Rachel:And I think that actually comes back to how do you design these lessons in the first place, and you know, You hear this over and over again, right? But backwards design is so important here. You start with your mastery check. You start with going, okay, what is my learning goal? What do I expect my students to get out of this lesson? And how do I figure out that they've mastered that particular learning goal? And you design your mastery check based on that. And then from there you go backwards. Create your instructional video, create your practice, create whatever else is going with that in order to help students get to that point where they can demonstrate the mastery. No,
Katie:definitely. That makes so much sense. My wheels are turning.
Rachel:Yeah. Well it's, it, it's common sense, right. You know, and it's what they teach us in teachers college over and over again that you should be backwards designing. This is like really truly backwards designing, though. I don't know how many of us really. On the day to day as we're planning our lessons and doing our, our chalk and talk or whatever, you know, are we really backwards designing? I think
Katie:some do. Yeah. I don't know. And, and the other hard thing for me is mastery. For mastery based. I am. The kind of teacher who will take a lesson, realize what they still need work on and completely revamp my future lessons, if that makes sense. So Mastery base scares me cuz I almost have to anticipate ahead of time what all of the individual needs will be so that I can be prepared to help them flex and change and get. More support based on perhaps what I didn't expect. But I think that comes down to feedback. And that can be, you know, a quick little like Screencast when saying, Hey, I noticed this. Let's talk about this quickly. Here's a YouTube video. Cuz I may not have time to explain all of the lessons in that first year. But then from there I can continue to build resources and my own voice and, and whatnot where I'm included in it, to then help them kind of go back and build those different
Rachel:areas. I would definitely be asking students for feedback too, throughout the, the unit, throughout the entire course. So I would say midway through unit's, a good time to. Get them to fill out a feedback form. If you wanna leave it anonymous, you can. Super easy to set up with Google Forms, right? Yeah. And then I would also be asking for that feedback at the end of a unit as well. Yeah,
Katie:no, definitely it's, I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for them. So it's important that I know how they are doing and what they feel I can improve upon. I also
Rachel:really love getting students to think about their thinking and their learning. So that's kind of a, a big sort of thing that I. I like incorporating into various different aspects in my classroom. The metacognition piece. Yes. And so I, when I'm designing my mastery checks, I would also include something in there to kind of get a gauge on where they think their level of understanding is to. So what I like to do is even just a question, like, how confident do you feel about your answer? You know, and something like that. So building some of those. I guess it's more like the soft skills, right? That go along with the traditional kind of grading piece. Yeah. I
Katie:also think it's important to, to have that metacognition piece because they're not all starting off at the same point. And so a student who starts strong and is kind of like going through the content really quickly because they may, you know, be pretty close to acquiring that mastery, uh, but just needed that extra push, whereas somebody who's starting at a much lower level, And having to work harder to get there. Their learning and their individual learning is so different. So getting them to think about what have I gone through? What have I done, what have I learned, how have I improved? It's going to look different for each of them. And having them acknowledge that I think is important. And so I guess, so in working through modern classroom, I liked kind of what they had for their principles of grading. I. I really recommend the Modern Classrooms Project. I know you've been doing this for so long. It took me forever to actually go through it, but now that I am, I'm like, Ooh, I like this. They kind of had like three guiding principles on grading policies and, and what you should be including. The first one is being intentional about what we grade, which is important. Like don't just do everything, be very intentional and specific. Uh, the second one was emphasizing growth and this idea of revising. So going back, do the revision, you know, getting more feedback and assessment, kind of that go back to it and revise, revise, revise, and then focusing on feedback. Those were their three principles, and I thought that was, it's, it's important for teachers to hear and understand as they're kind of approaching this new system. I haven't read
Rachel:those principles in quite a while, so thank you for bringing those up because Wow, I was just listening to that and making connections. So I've done actually several workshops now with Jesse Stonewell, who is very, very big in UN grading and. You know, his message is so strong and so powerful, but that idea of building that culture of revision and feedback, oh yeah. It overlaps so much. So, yeah, I, I don't know what I would do with that. Right. I'm, I'm still trying to kind of muddle my way through what un grading means and what it would look like in a classroom. But I think there's a lot there in terms of like, yeah, being really intentional with what you're marking and marking only the really, really most important things, like putting a grade on those things and everything else is feedback driven. So you know, that feedback is, did you master it or not and why? And having those discussions with your students. Whew. Yeah,
Katie:no, it's big. It's huge. And I did read some stuff, uh, by Jesse, uh, Stonewell, and I almost had to stop because I was like, I need to grasp the mastery based before I can even consider this concept of un grading because it's too much. And they're, and they're not exactly. They don't gel necessarily well because modern still tries to work in the traditional grading system and kind of maintain that system, whereas un grading is disrupting everything
Rachel:it is. And I think my favorite expression from Jessie is raising a critical eyebrow. So I really like that. That one's really, really stuck with me. I've, I'm finding it funny because you're on the same journey. I'm on. I've just, I've been on it a little bit longer, so Yeah. Yeah. It, it's stuff I'm still grappling with too, for sure. But there is a really, really great book. We'll put the link in our show notes, and it's called, uh, UN Grading. I forget what the subtitle is. The editor is Susan. Bloom, I believe, and I read that over the summer. It's really good. It's a collection of writings from different people who are at different places with un grading in their classrooms. And so they kind of look at the why behind it. The big picture they look about at the how to, like how to put it into practice. And then reflections are kind of like the third part of the book.
Katie:So good. And for those interested, the full title is UN Grading. Why rating students undermines learning and what to do instead. Like we
Rachel:can't really have a conversation about grading and mastery if we don't talk a little bit about on grading. But totally on grading in itself is a beast. So I think we leave it there for now. Yes. So I think one of the. One of the kind of pieces that is super helpful with figuring out, you know, where students are at as they're moving through mastery based structures and coming up with that grade is having some way to track it and so, You know, you could track it with like a Google spreadsheet and have all your different lessons and just sort of have, whether students mastered it or not. And I think just having that and, and having that kind of clear idea of the progress of the student can give you such a powerful tool to have that communication with families and. Really help you with those fifth week progress reports? For sure. Yeah, so there's a couple of, uh, they call them pacing trackers and modern classrooms does suggest that you do display this publicly in your classroom. Like one of their suggestions is having a public tracker or having a private tracker where students are tracking it individually. There is a lot of like debate out there around that, and I, I don't even know what I would do. Personally, but I think just having that tracker, especially as a teacher Yes. Is so helpful. And so they've got some examples on their website and we can, we can put them out there. They have one that's an auto updating one. That I've seen, which is quite nice. And then I also have another one from Stephanie Howell who shared it, and it's based on the grid method, which is kind of similar-ish. It's like differentiating. It is kind of mastery based and it's having students work through different chunks, but it's a little bit of an easier tracker. So I'll make sure, I'll find both of those. We'll link'em in the show notes.
Katie:Yeah, I, I think that tracking is key because depending on the size of your class, like as a teacher, you need to know where each of them is at. Now I don't know how comfortable I am sharing it with the whole class, and I think that's, that's part of, I think the classroom culture and, and relationships and how comfortable they are with it. But you bring up a good point, like, I don't, I don't know. What would you do? I
Rachel:think if you frame a public tracker in a very careful way, so you use it as here is a tool for you to use to figure out who you're going to collaborate with for the day, then I think it can be a very, very useful tool to put up. Say and project in your classroom or have it on a board. I saw one Facebook post in the, uh, modern classrooms group, and they talked, instead of calling it their tracker, they called it their grouper, and they actually used little fish with, uh, the kids' names on it. I think it was like a primary, like elementary example. But then it's a grouper, so it's here are your groups that you are working in for today and it's all based on what lesson everybody is kind of working
Katie:on. See, that makes sense to me. That makes it more logical. And then it can be like, there you go, like work together, problem solve through it. Cuz you're at the same point. So I do get
Rachel:that. Now, I think if it's just a way for you to communicate the information to your students as to what they're working on for the day, and you kind of wanna protect, I guess, that privacy a little bit more, then you could go to having your students pick code names that they wanna use. And so we've, we've talked about code names a few times. Yeah. For a few different ed tech tools. But, you know, I might get all of my kids to pick their favorite elements, right? And that's their name on, on the tracker. And then it's then empowering them to. If they wanna tell their friends what their code name is, they can, and if they don't wanna tell anyone, they don't have to. No, that
Katie:makes sense. And then it's a little more anonymous and nobody really knows for sure
Rachel:who is who. I think the big thing though, with those trackers is like no grades ever, ever go on them. It's literally just a, you're done that lesson or you're working on it still. Yes.
Katie:That's all it is. No, I would never place grades on those. So next up, maybe we can kind of share some ideas, cuz I know there's no right or wrong answer. Um, it's really just brainstorming what's gonna work best, but, um, sharing some ideas about how to build rubrics or success criteria for mastery based
Rachel:classrooms. One sort of way that I've. I've seen that I think is really, really useful here is looking at standards based reading. So I don't know how much you've read about that, Katie, or, or looked into it, but it's about taking the goals for that particular lesson and then you're designing rubrics like a 4, 3, 2, 1, and sort of what the look force are for each of those particular sort of steps. So you could say, Or maybe it's a mastered approaching or not yet approaching or something, or not yet met or something like that. You don't have to use numbers. But then you can convey to the students what sort of level they're, they're working at, at that time. So you, you could say for this skill, you were approaching mastery and that feedback on the rubric then is, Well, what are the look for for approaching? What are the look for for Mastered and where's the difference between the two? And those are the places that the students are working
Katie:on. So I saw one rubric and let me think out loud and share what I liked and what I didn't like. So I saw one where it was like meeting kind of the standard. One that looks like exceeding and then lumping in. So we have levels one through four, but, so I guess it would be lumping in one and two where they're not yet meeting. And for the, for the not yet meeting, it said quite literally, you are not yet meeting expectations. Look at the meeting expectations category to see what you need to be able to do. And I think that's where the feedback comes in. I, I liked it in a sense that, you know, if you're a level three, so meeting expectations, I very clearly have this, this is what it looks like within there with like you can statements and then obviously as a teacher you would have that dialogue and that conversation about what is lacking in order for the kid to go back and, and. Improve that to meet expectations.
Rachel:Now you talking about that has made me think about single point rubrics and so a single point rubric just has a center column with what the expectations are and then off to the left is a place for you to put, put comments about where the students are. Exceeding expectations. And then on the right is a space for you to add comments and feedback about where the students are not yet meeting expectations.
Katie:Okay. I like that. I, I think that having the can statements, and this is what mastery looks like, that's the most important part. So if you're a meeting mastery, That's what kids need to know and then the comments to be able to say for either direction. I think that's good too. But you have to be meeting expectations in all of the can statements. Is that the
Rachel:idea? Yeah. I think that's the idea for mastery then is you want them meeting the expectations, right? You want, you want to have very clear goals and you want the students to be able to meet those goals. Yep. And then the single point rubric again is on that kind of pathway of un grading because it's very focused on the feedback and not on the grade itself. So I, I'm, I'm actually quite liking single point rubrics. I think they're really, really interesting. I know Jennifer Gonzalez has a really great blog post on Single Point Rubrics. We'll find that one and we'll put that in the show notes too, cuz she's got some really, really great examples. In the blog post itself of some single point rubrics. Good to know. So this is where I see those overlaps between un grading and mastery based grading.
Katie:Yes. I could see that. And, and I, I don't intend to mark everything that is for certain, like, like maybe I will have. An assignment, some sort of culminating assignment once they've reached a certain number of skills where they then demonstrate that in some sort of project. But it's just building those skills along the way, step by step in order to get them there.
Rachel:I've also seen on mastery checks where you can include the, a little rubric at the bottom if you wanted to, so you could have the mastered. Approaching not yet mastered and have that criteria there for the student as they're working on their mastery check. I think
Katie:that's that. I think that's needed. Like when I was reading, and I don't know who it was, it might have been Jesse Domo, which is funny. By doing like the can statements and what it looks like, you're almost structuring it in such a way where it's like this compliance document, and so they have to check this, this, this, this, this. So it's more like playing a game. But I like it in the sense that it's. Very kind of open like you. It's transparent. You know what I'm looking for. You know what the skills are that I want you to be able to demonstrate, and so I'm not hiding what I'm gonna be looking for in terms of an assignment. I see both sides of it.
Rachel:I think that's where my. Dislike of rubrics really comes from, is that a lot of rubrics that are built, and I don't mean to pick on the IB program, but their rubrics are awful in terms of the statements that they make are. You know, they're, they're okay, but they're not super clear as to what exactly they're looking for. And so that really bugs me. I know for the internal assessment that they do in chemistry and in any of the sciences, what we did as a department is we took that IB rubric and we broke it down into a much larger one where we're like, this is what we wanna see. So I, I've never been a fan of rubrics and I think it's because it's the language and it's the way that they are set up and a lot of rubrics out there are pretty darn awful.
Katie:And, and I think that's why I like breaking it into like, this is what it looks like. Like, don't just give me the edges speak and the curriculum documents broken down into a rubric. Like tell students what it actually looks like so that they can understand what we're looking for. Otherwise, I see rubrics as a weapon in a sense.
Rachel:Yeah. You, you essentially get the language like you are exceeding in this. Whatever criteria you are meeting, this criteria, you are not like, I've, I don't even remember what the language is because this is how often I use rubrics.
Katie:I know it's just too subjective and like, depending on, and it sounds terrible, but depending on how a teacher feels that day, how they're, you know, what they've marked prior to that, like it's really easy. To do rubrics
Rachel:wrong, and that's where I feel like I could really get behind a single point rubric because I'm more of a fan of like, almost like a checklist mark scheme kind of deal. Yes. Where I list out exactly what I want to see, like what the expectations are. But I like the idea of me. Mushing that in with a rubric and creating a single point rubric so the grades disappear completely from it, and you just have those sections to be able to provide feedback. Yeah, no, I think that's key. And then if you've also got a single point rubric and it's a Google doc, you can really leverage some of the tech tools to provide some of that feedback. Yeah,
Katie:you can do video feedback, you can do audio feedback, like there's so many different things that you can do.
Rachel:I'm already picturing putting comments in there with moat notes, so you could have just audio or maybe I'm doing a screencast for each of the different categories. Like it really doesn't take a lot of time when you use a tool like Screencastify to provide that feedback for your students.
Katie:Yeah, I like it. And to be honest, I'm, I'm even thinking why a doc? Why not a slide? I find that things integrate. Yeah,
Rachel:you could, you could totally do a slide too. Now, the reason I like, I. Docs for rubrics and leaving comments like that. Like when you comment on a slide, it doesn't really pinpoint exactly where it is unless you're kind of clicking on that spot in the slide, right? Whereas in a Google Doc, it's like really apparent where you're leaving the comments, but I guess if you are typing in the spaces on the slides, then that would make sense. Or you could be embedding the videos. And that would be really cool.
Katie:Yeah, I would like
Rachel:to embed the videos, actually, now that I think about it. Yeah, because even the Moat extension, the integration with Google Slides, you just leave your moat message and it puts the little play button there for your students and embeds the audio right in there. So yeah, maybe slides is better. Yeah,
Katie:I don't know. I
Rachel:like it. We're coming up with new ideas as we speak.
Katie:Well, it's all about kind of going through the material and brainstorming it out loud and feeling a little crazy at times. But, uh, getting there slowly but surely. I think, you know, overall my feeling of grading is we need to find something that motivates students to engage in the course. Like it, it shouldn't be soul crushing. And like constantly making students feel like they aren't good enough. It needs to be step-by-step progress as individualized for the student. So I actually wonder for some students, you know, if maybe I include more of their success. In their grade to help motivate them to keep going, if
Rachel:that makes sense. That totally makes sense. And in sort of a coaching role and what I've seen over the past year-ish that we've been kind of preaching the modern classrooms framework in our board. Is that the most success we're seeing with students being motivated is in those pathways where traditionally those students do not have success with school. So students who are in our essential programming or our applied programming, or the college pathways, like traditionally, those students, you know, don't. Do well in terms of a traditional grade, but when you implement something like mastery based grading, what it does for their confidence, and I don't know, I, I just love it for that because the students are just, they're actually engaged in school and they feel like school has now become a safe place to be because. You know, they're getting the support they need. They're getting to be able to move through at the pace they need to, and they're experiencing that success. Well, I think a huge
Katie:part is, you know, when you do the chalk and talk and then you move on the next day to the next chalk and talk. Kids who don't get it don't have that chance to clarify, so we're just leaving them behind and forging ahead and so, Like, how does that make you feel at school? Of course, you're gonna disengage and hate school. Whereas at this model, it really like personalizes education and gives them a chance to feel like they matter, and their ability to pick up a con on a concept is important to their
Rachel:teacher. Yeah, it does. It definitely does convey that message, like your ability to learn our curriculum is important to me.
Katie:Yeah. And then me as a teacher going around and sitting with you one day because perhaps maybe you're struggling with a concept and giving you that individualized support based on your needs. It shows we value our students, and I think that's maybe what's missing in the traditional classroom is you don't have the time. You really don't, as a teacher, if you're doing chalk and talk activities, move on. There isn't time for that individualized feedback and, and support to make everybody
Rachel:successful. Yeah, totally. And you know, I, I don't like to admit it, but I have taught that way cuz I didn't know better. Right. So we're back to the Maya Angelo, uh, quotes, but yeah, like IB especially. Because I've taught a lot of IB courses, they cram a lot of curriculum together. And so, you know, you almost feel like you're forced to go through that chalk and talk route, and you know that you're leaving kids behind. But there's like, I don't know, it's very, uh, disempowering even from a teacher perspective, knowing that you're not meeting all the kids' needs. And so, yes, this is why I love, love, love the idea of. Self-paced mastery based structures in a classroom because then you are meeting their needs,
Katie:like having taught IB Spanish. It's true. They shove so much curriculum in and it almost feels like, so I felt like I was teaching grammar concepts, like so many grammar concepts of class because like these kids. Didn't know how else to engage and learn it. And so it felt, so I hated teaching it, but, um, but mastery based in that sense. That's great. Like you can embed many lessons on grammar, but you can do more exposure to like, films and books and poetry and, and teach the language through authentic uses of the language and embed the lessons as they need them. Like even, oh, see, look at me. I hated teaching it, but mastery based would certainly make it a much better way to teach it.
Rachel:I agree too, and I've, I've had many conversations with some of my colleagues who are teaching it this year, and I've been working with a few, even in, in coaching capacities and yeah, I can, I can just picture what this. Might look like in a classroom, and you could even build mastery for the lab skills. So as they're moving through their lab skills, you know, they're not doing the titration before they learn how to make a solution. Right. And they, they've mastered that concept. Yeah. Or they've mastered the ability to know that when you're measuring volumes, using a beaker is not very accurate. You would not believe, like that is the bane of a chemistry teacher's existence when they get to senior level chemistry and you're like, how are you going to measure the volume? And they're like, with a beaker. And I'm like, no. Oh man. Can at least use a volumetric flask like, please, please graduated cylinder. Even like, come on something. Let's go something. Something more than a beaker. Anyway, sorry, I digress. But that's
Katie:true. Like honestly, I think that has more value even. Like even from teaching, like I'm thinking now, what we're implementing in our school is sheltered classes for English language learners for science. Like that whole idea of the lab, do mastery based labs, get them used to it because it's a new concept for many. Um, and building those skills. No, that's
Rachel:awesome. Really, that's the way the world is structure too. Like if you think about any. Any sort of job, profession, anything that you do outside of school, like it really is mastery based. Yeah. It's trying
Katie:something, realizing it sucks and going back and improving. It really is revision constant. Like educators, what do we do? We don't just use the same lesson every single year or every single day. We are restructuring based on things we notice are not working. Let's give students the chance to do the same thing. That
Rachel:was my entire PhD program. Oh. Let's try an experiment. It didn't work. Guess what? It didn't work again. And yeah, you keep going back at it though. Yeah. And then, you know, like your, your mastery check is publishing that article and getting your research out there and your ideas out there. So, you know, the world is structured based on mastery based structures, and so why not have it in schools?
Katie:It's just teaching kids that mistakes are okay versus that shame of, oh, look how many I got wrong on this
Rachel:test. Yeah, it makes me think of as well, you know when you ask a question in class and you only get the couple that put their hand up because no one else wants even to remotely be wrong. So you get all the Hermione Grangers, right? I'm reading Harry Potter again right now. So that's why the name's popping, popping into my head. But you get all of hers like putting their hand up cuz they know the answer, but no one else wants to take the risk. Yeah, no, it's so true. So
Katie:yeah, so mastery based and grading. It's a to. Yeah, it's a topic with very few answers, but lots of ideas, and you just have to find a way to make it your own.
Rachel:Hopefully, we've given you some ideas here today then as to ways you might think about structuring your grading in a mastery based classroom. And so what we'll do is we'll include any of the links and resources we talked about here today in our show notes so you can find our show notes for this episode@edugs.com slash 66. That's EDU G A L s.com/ 66.
Katie:And if you like what you heard today, feel free to share it with a colleague or friend and don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content. And as
Rachel:always, we encourage you to go onto our flipgrid at edu gals.com/flipgrid and leave us a video message there. So maybe tell us if you are doing mastery based. Learning in your classroom. How are you grading? Because we would love to hear that and so leave them us a message there or you can leave us a message on our website@eds.com.
Katie:Thanks for listening and see you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of our edu Gals podcast. Show notes for this episode are available@edugals.com. That's E D U. G A l s.com. We'd also love to hear your feedback, so leave us a message on our website,
Rachel:and if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and consider leaving a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep being awesome and try something new.