What You Grade Is What You Value: T/F

It's often said of schools and businesses that if you "show me your budget, I'll show you what you value."  If the school's budget reflects no financial commitment to a program, a space, or a teacher whose skill set equates to a certain value, it is natural to doubt the school's commitment to that value.  If a school says it's committed to having healthier students, show me what you're spending on healthy vs. less healthy lunch options.  If a school says it's committed to diversity, show me how it's measuring "diversity" and show me that it's investing in programs that promote and teachers that represent diversity.

But imagine a school that chooses to demonstrate a commitment to health and wellness by hiring an H/W advisor…but locking that individual away in an office without consulting her about anything the school could do to advance student health and wellness.  The financial commitment is there, but it has no practical use.  Inversely, a school might make meaningful changes by consulting its teachers, students, and parents for practical changes that promote health and wellness.  The value is clearly advanced and at no cost!

Similarly, I've heard it said of classroom teachers that if you "show me your gradebook, I'll show you what you value" in terms of education.  If you value homework, it needs to show up in the gradebook.  If you value learning from mistakes, it needs to show up in the gradebook (perhaps in the form of re-assessment or a standards-based-grading scheme).  If you value collaboration, show where students were graded on their ability to collaborate.  Superficially, this makes perfect sense.

However, I wonder if too often teachers “grade” behaviors specifically for the purpose of having it appear in the gradebook and if that practice doesn’t, in fact, subvert the ultimate importance of the behavior.  Participation grades, for example, are often used by teachers who claim to value participation by rewarding students with 5 points or so on their final grade for, what some students have learned is sufficient, raising a hand and asking the most banal question imaginable.  The student is happy to ask the question not because he’s interested in the subject or cares about the answer, but because the student wants the grade. 

So what can a teacher do to promote behaviors without resorting to superficial means disconnected from the ultimate goal of learning?  Here it is:

Ensure that the shortest path to learning goes through the desired behaviors.

A teacher who values collaboration in a math class might, for example, allow students in the first n minutes of class to go over their homework together.  By circulating through the room and observing which students did well on which problems, the teacher can then direct students who need help on a particular problem towards a student who made a bit more progress.  The teacher in this classroom has provided opportunity to demonstrate a desired behavior on the path towards what the student values:  a grade on an upcoming assessment. 

Ultimately students will demonstrate if the teacher has properly engineered the path to learning through collaboration.  Do they find it necessary to collaborate in order to achieve success on the assessments?  It’s their only incentive.  No student will engage in collaborating gratuitously or superficially, rather their learning of the value of positive collaboration will feel genuine.  Naturally, a teacher may wish to include observations about any student’s collaboration habits in comments that accompany the grade, hopefully connecting those observations to the student’s ultimate demonstration of learning.

I’d love to hear what behaviors you have carefully placed on the path to learning!  Dialogue is always welcome!

Be well,

Adam