Stacie Oliver teaches at AB Lucas Secondary School in London, Ont. and recently started a new method of determining its students’ midterm and final grades. Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, Oliver said she and her students work on grades together twice a year, at midterms and at the end of the semester.
“Students propose their own grade on these two points and then they have to justify and prove to me that they earned that grade,” Oliver explained. “We have digital portfolios that they create throughout the semester that showcase not only their best work, but all the effort they put in along the way to get to that ‘showcase piece’, which is what they feel is the best representation of their learning”. Oliver says students must demonstrate that their work meets the expectations of the provincial curriculum. “They understand the curriculum document very well and can talk about how their work meets and/or more often than not exceeds those expectations,” she said. Known as “degradation”, Oliver said the method is about changing the understanding of how success in learning is measured. “There is a lot of evidence to suggest that grades are very subjective,” he said. “It’s hard to be able to objectively say, ‘This number is the number that really captures learning.’ What might this be in my classroom — is it the same in another department, another subject, another school?’ But the biggest aspect, Oliver says, is how students associate self-esteem and identity with their grade number. “What ends up happening is they don’t feel like it’s all for nothing because they can keep doing it—whether it’s a task or practicing a skill—they can keep practicing it until they’re sure they’ve got it right. I think that’s really important and it feeds the students because then they want to learn and they want to get better,” he said. Oliver said students in each class have different attitudes about grades. She says the upgrade experiment allows students across the spectrum to take ownership of their learning. “What ends up happening is they don’t feel like it’s all for nothing because they can keep doing it—whether it’s a task or practicing a skill—they can keep practicing it until they’re sure they’ve got it right. I think that’s really important and it feeds the students because then they want to learn and they want to get better,” he said. Oliver said she reserves the authority, as a teacher, to tell a student they haven’t justified a grade they might disagree on, but she says most students’ evaluations of their work are very close to her own. “If I had to change a grade, which wasn’t often, I would raise grades. I’ve had students tell me that they don’t want to appear arrogant or think too highly of themselves, so they give themselves a lower grade than they might otherwise,” he said. Oliver says the principal and school board approve of the grading program, and she plans to continue it in the fall. “My manager has a keen interest in this thing we call ‘degradation’ and so he’s been very supportive from the start, as has the board, so that’s been great.”
