OUTCOMES-BASED GRADING AND
REPORTING
&
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
WHAT DO THESE MEAN?
Language Arts - 72%
Mathematics – 52%
WHAT DOES ANY PERCENTAGE TELL YOU?
A percentage grade of 72% tells you that a student
achieved a mark or an average of 72 out of 100
responses correct on one or more assessments, but
how effectively:
 does it tell you about what they have to work on to
improve?
 does it tell you about what they know and can do
well?
 does it support the student’s learning?
WHAT DOES IT REPRESENT?
Is this mark an average representing a number of
assessments? If it is – does it help you to
understand with clarity which learner outcomes
that the student was able to consistently
demonstrate a clear understanding of - or – did it
vary from assessment to assessment – and if it
did, how would you know?
THE IMPORTANT QUESTION HERE IS….
how can we ensure that grades are;
• consistent,
• accurate,
• meaningful, and
• supportive of learning?
How important is it that grades exhibit these
standards?
ASK YOURSELVES THIS QUESTION?

If the learner outcomes are not clearly identified and
understood by teachers as well as students and there
is no consensus about the quality of work that a
student has to know or be able to do to be able to
demonstrate their understanding - and grading is a
matter of score-keeping –does it (grading) meet the
four standards of good practice?
Consistent,
Accurate,
Meaningful,
Supports learning
THE RESEARCH SAYS…
You can enhance or destroy students’ desire to
succeed in school more quickly and permanently
through your use of assessment than with any
other tools you have at your disposal.”
Rick Stiggins, Assessment Trainers Institute
If this is so - what is the rationale for grading?
GRADING RATIONALE I: SORTING
One reason for evaluating students is to be
able to label them on the basis of their
performance and thus to sort them like so
many potatoes.
 Whatever use we make of sorting, the process
itself is very different from -- and often
incompatible with -- the goal of helping
students to learn.

GRADING RATIONALE II: MOTIVATION
A second rationale for grading -- one of the major motives
behind assessment in general -- is to motivate students to
work harder so they will receive a favorable evaluation.
In reality, a difference exists between an interest in what
one is learning for its own sake (learning orientation), and
a mindset in which learning is viewed as a means to an
end, the end being to escape a punishment or snag a
reward (grade orientation). Not only are these two
orientations distinct, but they also often pull in opposite
directions.
Alfie Khon - Educational Leadership , October 1994
PLAYING IT SAFE
People who are promised rewards for doing something
tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to obtain
the reward.
Studies also show that, contrary to the conventional
wisdom in our society, people who have been led to
think about what they will receive for engaging in a task
(or for doing it well) are apt to do lower quality work than
those who are not expecting to get anything at all.
Alfie Khon - Educational Leadership , October 1994
EXTRINSIC VS INTRINSIC REWARDS
Israeli educational psychologist Ruth Butler has
repeatedly found that students perform less well and are
less interested in what they are doing when being
graded than when they are encouraged to focus on the
task itself (Butler and Nissan 1986; Butler 1987, 1988).
Alfie Khon - Educational Leadership , October 1994
GRADING RATIONALE III: FEEDBACK

There is nothing wrong with helping students to
internalize and work toward meeting high standards, but
that is most likely to happen when they "experience
success and failure not as reward and punishment, but
as information" (Bruner 1961, p. 26).

Grades make it very difficult to do this. Besides,
reducing someone's work to a letter or number simply is
not helpful; a B+ on top of a paper tells a student
nothing about what was impressive about that paper or
how it could be improved.

Alfie Khon - Educational Leadership , October 1994
FORMATIVE & SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Formative Assessments are those assessments
occurring during the learning which provide
students with feedback about what they are doing
well with clear specific feedback and what they
can do next to improve.
 Summative Assessments are those that occur
near the end of a unit or term presenting students
with an opportunity to demonstrate how well they
have learned the essential skills and concepts
during the instructional period. These are used to
generate report card grades.

SPORTS ANALOGY


Practise time - competitive sports have a schedule of
games they will play during a season. Between games
the coaches schedule practises to be able to assess the
player’s skills and provide feedback on how to improve
their performance. Each player receives feedback
according to their particular needs. This is formative
assessment – and it is important for growth and
improvement during the learning.
Game time - the players demonstrate those skills - when
they will count towards a team’s league standing. This is
summative assessment –game time - when it counts.
This is like report card time.
AND IF YOU MUST GRADE ...
Never grade students while they are still learning something
and, even more important, do not reward them for their
performance at that point -(formative assessment). Studies
suggest that rewards are most destructive when given for
skills still being honed (Condry and Chambers 1978).
Alfie Khon - Educational Leadership , October 1994


RISKS IN TRADITIONAL GRADING

Rewarding or punishing children's efforts with grades
allows educators to ignore the possibility that the
curriculum or learning environment may have something
to do with students' lack of enthusiasm.

Assessment are - more often than not - designed to match
the instruction rather than the learner outcomes.

So - there is often a misalignment between the intended
curriculum, the taught curriculum and the assessed
curriculum.
FEATURES OF OUTCOMES-BASED GRADING



Major learning goals or standards that students will
be expected to achieve at each grade level or in
each course/unit of study are identified and
shared with them.
Evidence or quality standards for each learning
goal are identified and shared with students.
A reporting form that communicates teachers’
judgement of students’ learning progress and
achievement in relation to learning goals and
quality standards has been established.
ACHIEVEMENT BASED ON OUTCOMES
Identifies essential learner outcomes and the
evidence (quality standards) students need to
demonstrate to achieve them.
 Eliminates the idiosyncratic approach to
teaching and assessing.
- teachers choosing and emphasizing different content and

assessment strategies that creates inconsistencies
PRIMARY PURPOSE GRADING
The primary purpose of grading …should be to communicate
with students and parents about students’ achievement of
the learning goals in the Alberta Curriculum
It is important in this process to distinguish between
assessments which support learning – formative, from
assessments which are snapshots of a student’s
achievement of learning outcomes at a point in time –
summative.
HOWEVER…..
in the absence of learning goals or outcomes,
grading becomes a matter of keeping score of right
or wrong answers and tracking them with numbers
that get distilled into a percentage grade and in the
process sacrifices consistency, accuracy, meaning,
and student motivation.
STANDARDS SUPPORT CONSISTENCY

Common learner outcomes and standards of performance
throughout the school division supports student success and
higher performance standards when:




teachers and students know what the learner outcomes are and
what needs to be done to achieve them.
teachers address the quality standards and the learning environment
that needs to be constructed to support the student’s acquisition of
the knowledge and skills identified in the learning target for students
themselves to be successful
students – know what the learner outcomes are, have an
understanding of the quality standards necessary for them to be able
to demonstrate their proficiency, and they have an opportunity to
practice and acquire the skills they will be assessed on.
students get feedback without grades along the way.
IN THE ABSENCE OF STANDARDS



In the absence of standards there is the potential for:
a student in one grade level in a school learning and
being assessed on something very different from what
another student in another classroom of the same
grade level in the same school will learn and be
assessed on.
the same teacher may change their emphasis from
one year to the next again leading to inconsistencies
TWO MYTHS
Mathematical precision yields fairer and/or
more objective grading.
“Grading is an exercise in professional judgement not just a mechanical
exercise.”
O’Connor,2002
Students are motivated by grades.
Percentage grades shift the students’ focus from learning to gathering
points. For some getting by is good enough.
REPORTING TERMINOLOGY



Outcomes: Outcomes are the broad descriptions of the
knowledge and skills outlined under each subject heading that
students are expected to know and are able to do at the
completion of a course or unit of study.
Academic Performance Indicators: Refers to the student’s level
of proficiency or understanding of the outcomes that are being
reported on.
Learning Skills: refer to the behaviors, traits and characteristics
which impact academic achievement. These indicate what the
student is doing or not doing that helps or hinders his/her
learning.
A CONVERSATION

Any dialogue about outcome-based grading and
reporting must by necessity include a
discussion about the how we communicate the
results to parents and the role that academic
performance indicators play in doing this
effectively.
ALIGNMENT IS ESSENTIAL!

Assessments that do not align with the curriculum
and properly identify the skills (levels of thinking)
embedded in the outcomes cannot be considered to
be a reliable and valid assessment of the student’s
achievement of those outcomes.

In the absence of learner outcomes grades can be
very misleading. Outcome- based grading and
reporting helps to keep assessments and the
instruction focused on the intended curriculum.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S IN A ‘B’ OR A ‘72’?
Workbooks
Late penalties
Major tests
Group projects
Bonus marks
B
Quizzes
Homework
Neatness
Daily practice sheets
In traditional grading practices a focus on learner outcomes is often missing!
THE PURPOSE OF REPORT CARDS

The provision of valid and reliable information
about student achievement and growth to
students, their parents or guardians, division staff,
and community members.

Clearly and accurately communicate what students
know and are able to do in relation to targeted
curricular outcomes.
COMPLETE AND ACCURATE

Reports should be complete in their descriptions of
strengths and weaknesses of students, so that
strengths can be built upon and problem areas
addressed.

Accuracy in reporting strengths and weaknesses helps
to reduce systematic error and is essential for
stimulating and reinforcing improved performance.
Reports should contain the information that will assist
and guide students, their parents/guardians, and
teachers to take relevant follow-up actions.


Alberta Assessment Consortium
WHICH TELLS YOU MORE?
Grade Three
Language Arts
I can explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences by:


Teacher
Expressing and representing my ideas and the ideas of others in a variety of ways (oral, print, other media)
Responding critically and making connections to the ideas of others in a variety of ways (discussing, questioning,
using prior knowledge, and sharing)
Mark
Excellent
E
Student’s work demonstrates outstanding
performance as described by the grade level
essential learnings
Proficient
P
Student’s work demonstrates well-developed
performance as described by the grade level
essential learnings
Adequate
A
Student’s work demonstrates basic
performance as described by the grade level
essential learnings
Not Yet
N
Y
Student’s work does not yet demonstrates
grade level performance as described by the
grade level essential learnings
E
I can understand and respond personally and critically to oral, print, and other media texts by:



Using a variety of reading strategies to increase my understanding (predicting, high frequency words, meaning
from context, rereading, word analysis)
Using strategies to read aloud and silently with confidence and accuracy
Retell and respond to fiction and non-fiction materials by making connections and inferences
P
I can organize ideas and information by:



Gathering relevant information from a variety of sources that are appropriate to the task
Analyzing the significance of gathered information
Identifying and organizing relevant information and sharing key points
P
I can communicate with clarity and artistry by:




Editing and revising my work and the work of others (enhance legibility, ask questions, organize, and expand
knowledge of language)
Attending to conventions in my writing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization)
Presenting and illustrating ideas in an oral and visual manner
Creating original fiction and non-fiction writing
E
I can work with others by:



Analyzing and evaluating ideas and information
Using a variety of strategies to show respect for others’ ideas and opinions
Exploring strategies to work efficiently and productively on a variety of group tasks
A
OR THIS?
Language Arts - 72%
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information about your child’s report
card please contact your child’s teacher. They will
be happy to talk to you about the assessment
methods they use to evaluate your child’s
progress.
Watch for the school newsletters which will have
a series of articles about outcomes based
grading and reporting.