This edition of Friday Feedback is devoted to summarizing the key take-aways from Tom Schimmer's SBG session last winter -
1) Assessment is the Engine - Assessment is central to all that we do around student learning and growth = it provides the evidence that what we are doing instructionally is working.
2) Students should not be able to directly behave their way up or down the achievement scale (separate behavior marks from academic marks).
3) Students' grades should not be dependent upon who their teacher is (the standards and rigor of the standard sets the bar).
4) Students' grades should never be about their relative standing in comparison to other students (their grade should be based on evidence of their achievement of the standards being assessed at the appropriate level of rigor).
5) Offer multiple grades that reflect specific product, progress, and process criteria, rather than combining these into a single hodgepodge grade that confounds interpretation.
6) Allow reassessment for students but make it so that they must go back and practice the targets again - we don't want students to be able to "guess" their way to an achievement that does not indicate their true level of proficiency.
- Tom Schimmer, "Standards-Based Learning in Action!" (2020)
