Overview
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Standards-based grading is a system of assessing and reporting that promotes accuracy and content mastery through the assurance of research-based grading practices.
SBG in the Classroom
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What does SBG look like in the classroom?
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Teachers and students will engage in a process of reteach and reassess to ensure ALL students master the essential content standards.
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Teachers will emphasize the most recent evidence as a means to assess and report a student’s level of proficiency.
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Students will be assigned practice as a means of formative feedback.
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Student mastery will be assessed through the use of a consistent and well-defined proficiency scale.
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Students will be assigned a zero only as a result of insufficient evidence of learning.
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Impact on Students
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Grading practices will vary by content area as not all teachers will be using Standards-Based Grading at Cibola High School during the 2021-22 school year.
Standards-Based Grading will assess students’ skills and knowledge in relation to the specific Arizona State Standards for that particular grade level and content area. All teachers teach these standards regardless of the grading system they use, but SBG seeks to make learning more apparent by showing a students’ level of understanding for each individual standard. Research shows SBG to be more effective than traditional grading practices, which is why we are excited to explore this system with our students.
Gradebook
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Some teachers in our school will be using the Standards-Based Gradebook in Synergy, which is different from the traditional gradebook setup that other teachers use. Instead of seeing individual assignments in the gradebook, you will see each standard in the summative category broken down into specific student learning objectives/targets. Each learning target will be graded on a scale of 0-4, with scores of 1-4 considered “passing”.
As students continue to work on the learning targets and standards throughout the year, their scores will be updated to reflect their most recent level of understanding. These scores will not be averaged, so students’ scores will fully reflect their improvement rather than punishing them from beginning with a low score.
