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What is Standards-Based Grading?
Standards-based grading (SBG) is a planned way for teachers to road their students’ progress and accomplishments while concentrating on their most significant needs at the same time. It is an intentional approach to show a student’s sign of mastery of a particular skill or lesson.
What are the benefits?
Teachers are often frustrated by school factors that are often out of a teacher’s control, such as class size, helicopter parents, technology issues, and many other issues. One thing you can control is how you assess students’ progress and learning. Studies have shown that standards-based grading leads to high student achievement and more comprehension of new material. It is influential because it provides a basis for frequent assessment. Once teachers have an understanding of students’ abilities, they can address students’ needs.
Improved Feedback
In SBG atmospheres, improved feedback can help track learning and student growth. As an alternative to merely marking scores like 8/10 or 80%, teachers comment about the activities performed and skills successfully mastered. SBG helps teachers better identify a student’s area for improvement and what skills are needed to become proficient and advanced.
Intrinsic Motivation
While in a standard classroom, students are focused on accomplishments and understanding while focusing on getting the highest grade. In a Standards-based classroom, students are more intrinsically motivated to grasp the material, so ultimately, you’ll hear fewer imperatives in the school like, “Will this be on the test?” and more questions about comprehension and successful mastery.
Learning Ownership
In Standards-Based Grading, learning checkpoints are student-friendly verbs to understand the lesson’s goals efficiently. These checkpoints can help gauge a student’s understanding and shape future learning outcomes. This form of grading empowers a student to be involved in the new learning.
More Relevant Teaching
Students learn information at different rates; some get bored because the pace is too slow. Others are frustrated when the teaching is too fast. In Standards-Based Classrooms, teachers understand student abilities and create benchmarks for teaching and learning. At any given time, they can quickly identify which students are above, at, or below the learning target.
Teachers can then adjust their methods of instruction. For example, students at level 1 get activities that help them get to level 2. Level 2 students get activities to ascent to status 3. Classrooms often divide into smaller groups with students working autonomously on differentiated instructional activities.
Accurate Measurement of Learning
Standards-Based Grading can improve the learning environment by providing transparent criteria for measuring student performance. Teachers can shape their instruction and analysis of how students are mastering the content for each learning standard. Tracking students’ growth can help teachers prepare students for a state exam and successful mastery of a learning target.
How I Use Standards-Based Grading?
Are you looking for a quick way to assess students’ mastery of specific standards? These 3rd Grade Math Checks are the perfect solution. Each sheet contains the standard at the top and a student-friendly “I Can” statement to anchor their focus and purpose for the assessment sheet.
Standards that have multiple topics in one standard have been broken out to cover one skill per sheet. The questions include various formats and are easy for students to navigate with boxes for answers and room for their work.
Students will feel at ease with these short assessments, and you will feel ready to go with these super quick and teacher-friendly no-prep worksheets that are perfect for small groups, reteaching, report card assessments of skills for standards-based reporting, remediation, exit tickets, pre and post-assessments, and any other purpose.
Do you use standards-based grading? Please leave your ideas and comments below about how standards-based grading has been implemented at your school.