Like most teachers, my first year of teaching quickly made me realize that there was a lot that college didn’t prepare me for. I ran into challenges that I never could have anticipated and discovered that there was a lot about teaching that no one ever taught me, like how to grade or what a grade should mean.
It’s interesting that grading never came up in my education program, at least not in any way that I remember at all. In any case, I found myself wondering time and time again how I was supposed to handle grading. At first it seemed straightforward enough – give the students an assignment and then dock points when they did things wrong. But then I kept running into issues with that system.
What do you do when the whole class performs dismally on an assignment? Do you count it as participation only? Do you throw it out entirely? Or do you put it into the grade like any other assignment and tell them they should have done better?
What about those kids who just never get it, no matter how hard they try? What do you do after giving them tons of individualized help and extra practice, but they still can’t do it? Do you fudge their grade because they tried? Do you say, too bad, you just aren’t “A” material?
When a student transfers into my class from another class, what does the transfer grade mean? If I see that student had an A in their old class, does that mean they’re going to be able to keep up in my class? Or did their old teacher just give everyone As?
I wrestled with these questions for years. I would come up with a solution that seemed to work for the moment only to be thrown into another situation where my grading philosophy didn’t hold up. Over the years, I heard other teachers talk about different grading systems. One teacher in particular wanted to use a system called “proficiency-based grading,” or “mastery grading.” As I listened to her talk about it, I was intrigued but also doubtful that something like that would actually work in practice.
Now here I am, years later, and I use that system of grading myself. Whether you call it proficiency grading, mastery grading, or standards-based grading, it’s a system that focuses on student achievement. It’s a system that finally resolved almost all of my grading dilemmas. While I still am refining my grading system and working out the kinks here and there, I feel like I finally understand what a grade should represent.
I do not consider myself an expert on mastery grading, so I will not go into the details of how it works here. There are many resources available online that you can look up to learn more. Instead, I’m going to focus on my own philosophy of grading and how it’s improved my teaching.
Grades should represent mastery of skills. If a student has an A in my class, you should be able to assume that that student can perform all of the skills that we’ve learned. The grade should not be inflated or padded with meaningless participation points earned by showing up to class or bringing their music. Those things should happen anyway. They should not be part of the grade.
Each individual grade should represent one small, attainable skill. In the past, one of my playing tests could include playing position, tone, intonation, rhythm, and musicality. What I found was that’s too much to grade all at once. As a teacher, I can’t pay attention to all those things at the same time, so there is no way I can grade them all accurately. Moreover, the students can’t focus on all those things at the same time. Isolating individual skills means I will be more accurate in my grading and the students can focus on just one thing at a time.
But don’t the students need to perform all those skills at the same time when they play? Yes, they do. When we perform a piece of music, that’s exactly what we expect, but trying to grade that way isn’t effective. Students can only perform all those skills together after mastering each one individually to the point that it becomes habit and they no longer need to think about it. Only grading one isolated skill at a time actually helps them do that faster because they can focus on doing one thing really well instead of doing five things poorly.
Students should have the opportunity to get the grade they want, even if it takes multiple tries. If a student fails a test or assignment, they should be able to practice and do it again. If they need help to succeed, they should get that help from me. If they need multiple chances, they should have multiple chances. Learning is more important than the grade.
Everyone should be able to succeed. Our criteria for grading should be challenging and developmentally appropriate. Everyone should be able to succeed, no matter how naturally talented they are (or are not).
In music, we put far too much value on natural talent. Think about how that would look in a math class. “I can’t grade all my students on actually doing math. Some of them just aren’t good at math.” It sounds ridiculous, right? Music classes shouldn’t be any different.
If we are actually teaching our students the skills in a structured way, every student should be able to reach a level of proficiency. That doesn’t mean they will all become professional musicians; it means that they all will be able to perform well at a level that is developmentally appropriate.
Today’s Challenge:
Think about what the grades in your class actually represent. Is it mostly effort, participation, mastery, or something else?