Grading and Reporting: What are we learning from COVID-19?

Webinar Purpose:

We know that assessment—regardless of where the learning takes place—plays an essential role in learning. Yet schools and families have experienced challenging circumstances during their quick transition to distance learning in Spring 2020 when they began operating in accordance with brand new Continuity of Learning and COVID-19 Response Plans. Those Plans compel districts to assure they will “manage and monitor student learning and plan what’s next for learning including the potential need for summer and supplemental learning.”

The MAC’s Important Considerations for Student Assessment and Reporting/Grading Policies and Guidelines in District Continuity of Learning Plans suggest a way for districts to meet Michigan’s required assurances by:

• Providing no grades for elementary and middle school, instead provide narrative reporting only regarding competency/mastery of standards/learning targets.
• Providing narrative feedback to high school students, and limiting summative grades to Complete and Incomplete.

These grading and reporting recommendations bring mixed blessings. They amplify a focus on instruction, targeted and specific feedback, practice, and growth. However educators lack abundant examples of narrative report forms, and professional time to figure this out together is scarce. Plus, schools and the families they serve vary a great deal with respect to existing time, resources, and infrastructure.

The second in a series, this webinar will continue to address the challenges associated with grading and reporting in the era of COVID-19 through the following objectives:

• Identify the practices districts implemented that accentuate assessment, grading, and reporting designed to support learning
• Consider ways in which recent adaptations to grading and reporting have aligned with guidelines for quality grading practices and explore how we might carry these quality practices forward into the 2020-21 school year.
• Identify a network of interested leaders, among webinar participants, who wish to continue sharing examples and best practices into the upcoming school year.

Related Learning Opportunity: It’s not too late to register for MAC Reads 2020!

Join a collaborative learning opportunity for educators who have the passion and zeal for examining their own and/or their district grading practices unearthed through the reading of the MAC Reads! 2020 book, How to Grade for Learning: Linking Grades to Standards, 4^th Ed. Author, Ken O’Connor.