I took a bunch of heat for referring to SBG as “a gateway drug to awesome.” I suppose making a cursory look at a drug reference could be construed as inappropriate, if you’re of the construe-anything-as-inappropriate-don’t-read-the-whole-article ilk.I implemented SBG in my classroom for three years. It was a drug that hooked me from the minute I started, realizing that it was the path towards student-centered pedagogy. But it also opened my eyes to so many more things, such as:
I stand by the tongue-in-cheek reference, because, frankly, I believe in it. I didn’t get into education to stand in front of a classroom so I could “say it better” than the teachers I had.
...So, why is SBG a gateway drug? Because the minute you admit that you’ve been grading ineffectively, you end up admitting all sorts of things are weird about school. Like schedules, like cookie-cutter assignments, like students doing work to be “done with it.”
It’s a gateway to student-centered pedagogy.
- Letter grades and the nonexistent points we use to determine those letters are worthless as assessment measures. I no longer believe teachers "have to" give points for assignments in order for students to do them. If you feel you have to do that, try thinking about why students aren't doing the assignment in the first place. It might be your assignment, not the students.
- When students do assignments in exchange for our make-believe points, the real focus and purpose of school is lost. Students do your assignments merely to get them done. Students should be doing assignments and projects and research because they have a desire to learn, not to rack up the most points or enough points to pass the class.
- Having to assign points and letter grades to learning became something that I felt I had to "get done" during my last year of SBG because someone was making me. I would get so caught up in the formative feedback cycle that I would actually forget to enter in numbers in my gradebook after a while--that is, until the principal or a parent reminded me. Why report numbers and letters when the student and myself could articulate what they knew and didn't know? Wasn't that more useful?
- Entering learning targets in a gradebook rather than vague tasks shifted the entire focus of my classroom, starting with me and spreading to my students. It changes your entire focus for assessment. For more on how powerful that is, check out this post
- The responsibility for learning should be placed squarely on the student. It is not the teacher's job to know the most stuff; it is the teacher's job to set up the right conditions for learning so students are empowered to learn for themselves.
- The responsibility for demonstrating understanding should also be on the student.
- Multiple choice tests just don't cut it as far as final evidence of student understanding of concepts. While they make for great formative discussions, I just couldn't bring myself to really use them anymore as a part of reporting what students knew at the end of the course. There are many more authentic ways for students to show that they know that don't involve guessing.
- Students who don't provide adequate evidence of understanding (i.e., don't do the work) need to do the work to provide that evidence. Why let students out of an assignment that was deemed important enough to assign as evidence of understanding? My policy was to haunt students before school, after school, and during study halls. If that failed, I had study hall and resource teachers haunt them for me.
- Students that have been made to think that school is about giving teachers "right" answers in the form of parroting back what the teacher said or what the internet or a textbook said are not happy when you change the rules of school on them. Not one bit.
By using SBG and changing all the rules, you realize that grades aren't necessary at all. It's learning you're after, and you get addicted to knowing where your students are in their learning--and you get students hooked on their own learning too, after you finally shift the mindset of your classroom from "collecting points" to this thing called "learning." Grades fade away into the background, and you start redesigning your entire classroom around learning, and what emerges (with growing pains at times) is a wonderful thing, a better thing-an awesome thing, as the picture below shows.
SBG is a drug. The reference isn't inappropriate; it's an accurate description. It's a drug that got me totally and completely addicted to student learning.
photo credit: Ben+Sam via photopin cc
