Rethinking Letter Grades: A Five-Step Approach for Aligning Letter Grades to Learning Standards

by Caren Cameron, Kathleen Gregory

Authors, Caren Cameron and Kathleen Gregory, offer a practical five-step process for arriving at letter grades that moves away from collecting a string of marks and calculating a grade. They offer an alternative assessment method by examining a wide variety of assessment tools (rating scales, scoring keys, rubrics, test scores, observation records, discussion notes, symbols, portfolio collections, and more) and match the student evidence with a description of achievement.

Genres: Teaching

64 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2014

Reviews

[Jessica Liew]

As professional development books go, this one is worthwhile. It is a quick read (I finished it in an afternoon) because it gets straight to the point and lays out its ideas in a very straightforward way that could be quickly applied to your assessment practices. There are no lengthy case studies that illustrate the same point over and over. They reference the research that backs up their theories, but they don't go spend time extensively summarizing the work of others (a real time-saver if you happen to be familiar with the work of education researchers like Dweck and others).

Even if you are satisfied with the traditional letter grades and percentages that teachers have been asked to give out for over a century, the book is worth a read as it asks some important questions that will help you reflect on your practice. If you feel dissatisfied or come to feel dissatisfied through that reflection, it offers some very clear guidelines for adjusting your assessment practices. If you, your school, your district or your Ministry of Education are already moving in this direction, it provides one of the clearest and most user-friendly approaches to designing Learning Maps that I have come across so far.

[Jessica]

It's a quick and dirty read with a specific method of assessment that aims to help communicate current skill and next steps as clearly as possible, while separating assessment of skill from specific assignments. The authors are clear that this is one of many possibilities, but this is the one they found worked for them - indeed, I found a lot to like about their method and how well it aligns with the curricular competency focus of the current British Columbia curriculum.

Examples are exclusively K-8, and I teach grade 11-12 math and science, so I felt a little left in the cold, as if they didn't think that secondary teachers would go for it (although they may be right and I might be the outlier here).

[Maureen]

I absolutely love how this book is laid out. There is a chapter with a quick overview of learning maps and the 5 steps to create them. Then, the next chapter is a more detailed explanation for creating learning maps. I love the idea of using the maps to grade!!

The book is a quick read and you can start creating learning maps right away!

[Amanda Red]

A practical guide for teachers, administrators, and families alike.

[Ashley]

I had to read this for work. I found it interesting, and I think I got some interesting ideas out of it. I definitely made some good highlights as I read through. It left me with a lot to think about.