Assessment, Part 2: Tyler Rablin

In which Dan discusses what makes meaningful assessment with Tyler Rablin (@Mr_Rablin), an English teacher and instructional coach in Washington state. They talk student voice in the assessment process, why quality feedback matters and why sometimes students just won't take the feedback, and how ideas like growth mindset and grit can be used to get teachers off the hook for our bad practices. As always hit us up with questions and comments on Twitter @BigIdeaEd

Mentioned in the show:

Tyler Rablin's professional website

Tyler's grade book template -- organized by skill, not assignment

Tyler's student conferences template

Seven reasons for standard-based grading from Edutopia

The debate over growth mindset from the Scientific American

Music: "Que Es Extraño" by Molo

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I used to just think numbers were the only thing that were reliable. But what I found a lot of times is when we solely depend on numbers and not the story behind the numbers or the context around the numbers, we miss a lot of the really valuable information and we just pretend under this guise of objectivity that the number is impartial and unbiased, and we just go with the number. And, you know, I found that like we're working with kids, we're not working with numbers. And so I want the kid to be involved in that process too.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

This is part two of a short series on assessment. Part one, which I released on Monday, was my interview with Jay McTye, and we had a great chat about his vision of both formative and summative assessment, namely performance tasks and how teachers can give students sufficient practice to make those tasks meaningful. Today on the show, I'm joined by Tyler Rablin.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

My name is Tyler Rablin. I am uh a high school English teacher. I still hold on to one class period of freshman English that I get to teach every morning. And then the rest of the day I've been pulled out of the classroom to be an instructional coach in Sunnyside, Washington, like central Washington state in the Sunnyside School District. So that's what I spend up my days doing that. I love it. Like for me, both as a teacher and a coach, my job is to open doors and help people like find possibilities and see possibilities. So it's it's been a shift for me going from the classroom to working with adults more, but um I'm learning to find value in both. And then outside of that, I get to work with uh a couple consulting groups to work with districts mostly around the Pacific Northwest, focused my a lot of my focus and what we'll talk about today is on assessment. So um yeah, that's where where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I reached out to Tyler because he's been thinking about and working through quality assessment practices for some time. He's found on Twitter at Mr. Underscore Ravlin, where he tweets his thoughts about standards-based assessment, student self-assessment, teacher feedback, and why we really need to get the hell away from traditional grading. I really enjoyed this conversation. Tyler clearly articulates his vision of quality and authentic assessment in a very succinct way while also providing practical tips and tools for teachers. Be sure to check out the show notes where I've linked resources mentioned in the episode, many of which were created by Tyler himself. So now here's Tyler Radlin. Yeah, you have so much uh fresh thinking about assessment that I want to get to. While you were doing your introduction, I just did a quick uh Google search to confirm that we're setting an unofficial podcast record for most facial hair uh in a person podcast. The viewer can't the listener can't see this, but uh it's a good one-third of the screen. Yeah, absolutely. Um the start really big picture here, and and uh could you encapsulate your philosophy of assessment, both both how you see assessment and how your students see assessment? And how do you help your students understand what you believe about assessment?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah, uh you know, for me, a lot of this started. I can still remember like my second year of teaching, actually. I had to, we still had like paper copies of our grades that we had to walk down to the office. And I had I had this moment that still sticks in my head of I was walking my grade book down, and I remember just looking at it, thinking like, I this doesn't tell me anything. You know, like I had the, I know what my kids did. I know like who completed their tasks and who didn't. And so for me, that's kind of the big picture. My philosophy on assessment is I have to have meaningful information, right? I have to have it, my students have to have it. And and that's been kind of the big thing that I'm constantly looking for is you know, how do I provide the most meaningful information for everybody involved in this process, but you know, primarily for the student. And and does the that's always my gauge of is this working? If I can, if I can give my my students their data, their information, and they can tell me, oh, here's here's what I need to learn next, here's you know where I'm doing well, here's where I'm struggling. Um, so you know, big picture is that I think a lot of times assessment, I still do it often too. I get wrapped up in, does this matter to me? Does this make sense to me? And you know, I want to approach it from the teacher lens. But for me, when it's going well, is when a student has their information and they get it, like they understand it, they know where they're going. Um, they don't, they don't, they're not afraid of it. Like they're they they just understand this is information that tells me where I'm at and where I'm going next.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

And there's the um the conferences that you do, kind of starting at the end here and working backwards. You have these conferences with students and and you've got some great documentation. Actually, I should pause here to say how uh grateful I am to see a fellow educator making use of Google Sheets and Google Docs and not overcomplicating things. I think probably a lot of listeners have are using some kind of a system and scratching their heads constantly. You know, we're an IB school, so we use this program called Manage Back, and it is just so overly complicated. And I see you've got the simplistic elegance of Google Sheets, and man, it works. But in this vein, you know, you have your uh these conferences and you and you have sample forms that you've that you've uh that you've posted online. And you said about conferences, you hold them every few weeks, and those conversations really do end up determining the students' grades. They have to support everything with evidence, but they are involved in determining their grade. Talk to me about these conferences and how student input in these conferences helps determine their grade.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Yeah, so this was a shift that I for some reason avoided for a long time. I was so afraid of actually giving them real control over this part of the grading and assessment process. But what I try to do is, you know, I'm gathering as much assessment data as I can and information from students. And then I have a process where I get all of each student gets their own sheet with here's your data for these specific learning objectives. And uh it's been a little bit different this year, obviously, because everything's been a little different. But like I've just been using Zoom breakout rooms and I'll have one-on-one meetings with students where usually three-ish minutes, um, I can usually get a good amount of data from them, and um, we'll just sit down and I'll say, you know, talk me through. We've got these three objectives we've been working on. Tell me about your data. Like, what do I need to know? What's the context for this? Um, and that results in at the end, the student tells me, here's I use a five-point scale, but here's where I'm at on that five-point scale, and and here's the grade that I think I deserve as of now. Um, and that's really helped me solve the biggest issue that I had. We talked about like grading programs and things like that. You know, they they're doing some cool stuff with standards-based assessment and how they calculate that, but I haven't found one that worked perfectly because you know, even it drove me nuts that a student would be like at a two out of five, and then I'd put it in a grade book and it would say they have an F. And I'm like, no, they're growing, they're learning, they're getting better. Like that needs to be celebrated. And so um that really, that really helped me just be able to take what they were doing and and put a grade in the grade book that was accurate and you know, valuable and and reflected their growth. So yeah, we sit down, talk through their scores, and at the end, they really say, Here's the grade I deserve now. Um, and and that's been, I love it. Like, students really truly have ownership. And and I was really nervous about the accuracy element. But what I've found is my students are usually harsher than they should be on themselves. And so the conversation is normally like I love them because the students, like, I deserve an F. And I'm like, no, no, no, let's look at where you're doing so well and where you're growing. And so they, you know, grading went from being this I often it was like a conflict, you know, and I felt like it was kind of a strain on the relationship between the teacher and student, versus now when we sit down and it's a conversation to determine determine the grade, the relationship is strengthened by the end of that process normally, and and you know, it makes that whole experience more enjoyable for both parties.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

And you reference standard-based grading, which you practice. And your gradebook, in fact, is not organized by assignment like most of ours are, it's organized by skill. When did you make the move to standards-based? Why did you make it, and how do you think it's improved teaching and learning in your classroom?

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Mine was, and I guess has been sort of a slow shift. Um, I think I I started with you know, I was traditional assignment-based, like that's what I grew up with. That's the school I experienced. So that's what my gradebook looked like. And and I, you know, going back to that story about the second, my second year walking my gradebook down, that moment of just like when I was organizing it by tasks, it wasn't meaningful. And so I realized, like, okay, well, how how do I know what they're learning? And that even just that simple question started me with, and I I started with what I call like a standards referenced grading, where it was still tasks that were going in, but they were linked to standards. So at least when I saw the score for the task, I knew generally what the student was working on and learning. So that was like my first step into it. Is and I think it's an important step that you know, if that's where you're at right now, it is valuable of just getting that practice of making sure we're linking this is what I'm assessing, you know, this is what this number really means in terms of learning. But from there, I started to move even further away from recording progress based on assignments. Students would ask the question of like, how do I bring bring my grade up? And I would always go to like, well, you have to do more assignments or you know, turn these things in. Like, this isn't the conversation I want to be having, right? I want to be saying, like, well, let's look at your learning and we'll figure that out. And so um now, and actually, this is why I do those grade conferences as opposed to just having students look at their online grade book, is because I can separate those scores from tasks and things like that, and we can have conversations just about learning and the objectives that we're we're working on without even saying, you know, here's this assignment, here's this assignment, it's this is our data, this is the learning you're doing. Let's talk about that. So it's kind of a slow shift, but I think that whole process is there's value in every step along the way. And I'm still I've got more steps ahead of me still.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

So yeah, that recognition of um the growth that still needs to be done is so important when you're a teacher, uh, never being uh settled. So you said you use a five-point scale. Does your district still require you to turn in a sort of traditional grade?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, and the calculation ends up being a combination of those student conferences, but also what I've started doing is basically the only assignments that end up counting at the end of the term, the under for the assignment, I put the learning objective, right? So ninth grade ELA, if we're talking about how theme impacts uh an author's message, like the assignment is actually called how does theme or I can analyze how theme impacts author's message, and that's an assignment out of five points. And so, you know, wherever they're at by the end of the term, out of five points, that's where it goes. And then we'll have those student conferences to really talk about is this accurate? You know, does this reflect what you know? And at times I was really uncomfortable with it, but the the this idea of professional judgment, um, I, you know, I've started to really trust that process of I used to just think numbers were the only thing that were reliable. But what I found a lot of times is when we solely depend on numbers and not the story behind the numbers or the context around the numbers, we miss a lot of the really valuable information and we just pretend under this guise of objectivity that the number is impartial and unbiased, and we just go with the number. And um, you know, I found that like we're working with kids, we're not working with numbers. And so I want the kid to be involved in that process too.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, it's my wife and I were just talking about um the absurdity of valedictorian and salutatorian um when it's based solely on GPA. You know, we're saying how you're talking about students who are all operating in the same stratosphere of, you know, 99 to 100%, say we're gonna skill, right? So it literally could come down to one teacher one time gave that student uh 95 assignment, right? And that could that could sway like you said, like, oh, the numbers are so objective. Like, come on, we we know that that is just not true, especially when you talk about over the long term. Um looking at your grade book, you have I noticed there was you'd have uh a task, and then there was a lot of iteration. There was attempt number one, attempt number two. Um I wonder if you could sort of talk me through one of your assessments, one of your tasks, something that you think was particularly meaningful. And what does that look like from start to finish, from when the student first understands what the task is, all the way to that conference about the task after some attempts?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, so I'll use the current one that my freshmen are working on and we'll work on when we're back from break. We we're working on uh it's kind of a combo. We start with research and then we move into some persuasive communication. And and so we're working on those skills. And for the persuasive communication part, you know, we'll maybe we'll talk about ethos, pathos, and logos or or rhetoric in a more broad sense. And my view is I I used to be really dependent on like one big task to give me the evidence of learning. And what I've started doing is, you know, I'm I'm not using one big piece of evidence to tell me how the student's doing, but I'm trying to essentially triangulate their learning. So we'll do, you know, I feel like I was taught that multiple choice questions were terrible. Um, and if that's all I'm doing, then yes, they're not gonna give me a full picture, but you know, even a couple multiple choice things that are focused on some of the lower levels of blooms or um, and then we'll move into a maybe a performance task. And they they use a there's a presentation they give at the end where they try to convince me to donate money to charity or a cause. Um, and so that's sort of their end task, but all along the way, you know, we formative assessment, nobody would argue that that's not valuable. So all along the way, there's really small checks um that that I use that students use to gauge where they're at in their learning. And, you know, to make it manageable, I think sometimes when when people see my grade book at the end, there's tons of information in there. Like there's a lot of scores. And so I feel like a lot of times I have to clarify some of those scores that go in there are a five question self-graded multiple choice quiz. You know, like something where students say, Am I really understanding these concepts? But I've just found like more shorter, faster, more frequent, getting a larger data set really helps me and the student be able to nail down exactly where they're at and where they need to go next. Um yeah, I'm trying to make sure I answered the question. We'll start with some smaller checks. Um, we move into really, you know, I hate using blooms as like a series or a timeline because a lot of that they should be doing while they're, you know, it's it's more of a cyclical process. But a lot of times it does end up we'll do some some checks of do you have the background knowledge you need to be able to engage in these processes and then start assessing the processes we're trying to engage in. Um and then eventually the the final piece is can you use this information to make something meaningful that's going to matter to others? And and that's really um sort of that that last expression of, and most of the time my students, the the reason I'm I'm loving more of a formative assessment approach is I can have students say, Hey, I'm not quite ready to do this yet. And that's when I know my students are finally starting to get it, is when they can, you know, look at their their quizzes or look at some of their data and say, Hey, I need a little bit more time before I really jump into this. And so, you know, before I felt like that the task or the project at the end was like, you have to do this. This is how I'm holding you accountable for learning. And the shift is now, okay, you've learned, you are learning, you're reflecting on that. Are you ready to do something great with it? And and that's where that end up uh end piece really comes out.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, that do something great with it, do something meaningful. And you know, in this example, convince you or persuade you of something. It's that authentic performance task. I was uh on Monday, I had the chance to talk with Jay McTye, um, co-creator of Understanding by Design, and he has this way of thinking about this process. Uh, it's not even an analogy, it's really just a direct comparison. He's he says he wants teaching to be more like coaching. And he says, you know, if you want students to do something great at the end, you've got to let them scrimmage. That's the word he uses, right? They got to have a chance to go through it. You can't just be like, here's a task, your one run is the final summative thing. And I kind of hear that in what you're saying. You kind of build them up with these opportunities to get the skills, the knowledge, and the confidence.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, the the confidence, that's kind of really where my emphasis is this year is how am I helping students build that confidence up? Because, you know, before I hated the assessment environment where a student would go into it like terrified. And so my goal now, and this is why my students know if there's a big assessment coming up, they can tell me, hey, I'm not ready. You know, here's when I'm gonna attempt it, or something like that. Because I, you know, that confidence piece is make or break for kids. Like if they don't feel confident about themselves as a learner, I'm not gonna assess that yet, right? Like I want them confident, knowing what they're doing, and then they can they can jump into something big. But I love that idea of a scrimmage, right? Like somewhere for them to just get in there, mess around. There's not really consequences, you're just learning, trying things out, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can do these things. Let's put that into into a real game for to carry the analogy through, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Oh, exactly. That's that's that's that's how he how he talks. And I it precisely the low stakes, you know, he uh formative not being graded. You know, so often I think we are in a hurry to give those practice um sessions a grade, but why do they have to be graded and make them more low stakes? Um feedback throughout this process. What does feedback look like? Uh I know you've you've talked about audio and video feedback, which I love. Uh big applause on that one. Uh what how do you how do you think through feedback and what is what are some examples of how you give constructive and meaningful feedback?

SPEAKER_02 19:56

The first thing I always establish um for students is somewhere for them to record and process their feedback. And this came out of like as an ELA teacher, I can't tell you how many times I left feedback on an essay only to see like the exact same things happen again on the next one, or you know, and and what I realized is it's because they were students were viewing feedback as isolated incidences tied to tasks. And what I really wanted to make sure that they saw is how does this feedback work together and show growth over time and and connect to specific learning outcomes? So my students for I do it by unit right now, only because it makes it a little bit more bite-sized and manageable, but they'll have their their, you know, if there's three learning outcomes for the unit, they'll get a, I call it a feedback portfolio where it says, here's your three learning outcomes with space below it, for them to simply say, okay, on this assignment or this task, I got feedback around this learning objective. Here's what I learned. And the the reason I love being able to put it together into these portfolios is before students had a hard time seeing, you know, this is something I got feedback on at the beginning where I needed to improve. And at the end, I got feedback on it that showed that I did grow and it was being celebrated. And having a space for them to put all that together helps them see that and celebrate that. And that's where I think students start finding the meaning in that feedback. So for me, step one is always give them a place where they can compile and process and make meaning out of those incidences of feedback. Um, this the second thing that you know I think as a foundation for feedback, I am really pushing myself now to every time I'm going to give feedback, giving the students the opportunity to say, A, if they want feedback, and B, what they want feedback on. Um, and you know, a lot of this comes out of some research more in like the business world about you know valuable feedback and improving performance and things like that. And you know, the first thing is making sure the participant is willing and wants feedback. And I I used to always skip that step. It was just like, you did the assignment, I'm going to give you feedback whether you want it or not. Um, but sometimes, like, if a student does something and they don't feel great about it, I like giving them the option to say, like, listen, I just I want to move on and I'm gonna try again. Like, let's just move past this. And um so occasionally I do have a student who says, like, nope, not this round, not my best performance. I know it. I just want to try again later. Um, but also at the bottom of every assignment or anything that they do, I make sure there's space for them to say, hey, this is what I need feedback on. Because that's, you know, that's where I feel like students really start using that feedback when they they're able to say, This is where I'm growing, this is where I'm close. I want you to help me get to that next level. Um, because, you know, so often feedback sometimes doesn't feel super meaningful for the teacher or the student because it's just it's almost like checking a box, right? Like I'm supposed to give you feedback on this. And so I really, you know, as with everything in assessment, my goal is is this a two-way streak? You know, is the student does the student have a voice in this feedback process? Um, and that's that's been a huge shift for me that has really helped, you know, even if I still have to spend hours leaving feedback, at least now it feels a little bit more meaningful than than it maybe did before.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So you you ask the students if they want feedback.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Yeah, and you know, I it doesn't always happen. Like there are times where they're gonna get feedback whether they ask for it or not, especially if it's like a you know, a multiple choice quiz, they're getting feedback based on how many they got right and wrong. So that you know, sometimes feedback is completely inevitable, but there are still times where if it's truly something formative or you know, students just especially with writing, a lot of times I'll ask students, do you want feedback on this, or did you just need to write? Um, and and sometimes kids will tell me, like, I just needed to write. I don't want, you know, this is just writing for my own writing. I don't necessarily want this to be something I get feedback on, and and I do my best to honor it as often as I can.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, I started using um audio feedback maybe a year ago. The little there's a little uh plug into Google Docs called Moat. I don't know if you've seen that, right? Really great. I love moat, yeah. But what's you know, what's so fascinating about is that you can see who's listened to your feedback, right? So, you know, written feedback, I was pretty confident that the percentage was pretty low of students who are actually looking for everything. Okay, so now we go to Moat. I'm like, okay, and clearly a lot of students were like, wow, this is really interesting. I I I will listen to this, I love hearing your comments, but still a good number not even opening the file and listening. And that was a pretty like eye-opening experience for me. That kind of to your point, that you know, just because you're giving feedback, that doesn't mean the students have any buy-in in it. I mean, to you it seems meaningful, but not necessarily to them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

And you know, and and that's the you you mentioned audio feedback, and I I do both audio and video feedback, but um, and that I used to be really bad about providing intentional class time to do something with the feedback. And I realized like if I truly want to prioritize feedback, I have to give it time in the classroom. There's no way around it. Like we we identify our priorities based on time. And if I'm not giving time in the classroom for students to process and make meaning out of their feedback, well, then I'm telling them this isn't important and they're receiving that message. So, you know, every time if I if I give something back with feedback, there's always a space where, you know, now's the time to, and this is why I like those, the feedback portfolio. Now is the time where you're gonna go through this feedback, whether listen to it, watch it, read it, whatever it is, find the trends, find the meaning, and then let's transfer that over to this portfolio. And that that transfer piece, at first, students just it feels like busy work for them. And so it's really you got to get over that barrier first. But eventually they start seeing, you know, the trends and and how it ends up being a valuable process. And I like that extra step of transfer this feedback in your own words and and categorize it and evaluate it and things like that. Um, that extra processing step has turned out to be incredibly valuable for me with students.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, and that was that was definitely for me the missing part, like you said, not taking class time to say, listen to my feedback and reflect on it. Right. Yeah, in your own time, surely with everything else you're doing. Let's see my feedback. Exactly. So let's kind of take all this to I was gonna say it's logical end, but I think actually illogical end is probably more more more uh apt uh grades. I there's so much there's so many things in education that are hotly debated. I mean hotly debated, right? There are there are things you go online and there are teachers and and educators and trainers going back and forth on a lot of issues. But grades isn't really seem to be one of them. And this is kind of more of an observational note. I I'm not I can't profess to have dug too deeply into uh into this, but I generally do not see people making full-throated defenses of standard grades. Why are grades still so entrenched in everything we do?

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah, I I always hear the the defense that always comes up for grades is well, how you know what about colleges, right? Don't colleges need to see grades and GPAs? And you know, there is there is a reality to that statement. Um but I also think I mean if you look at the some stuff school or colleges are starting to sort of move away from GPAs because they recognize the arbitrary nature of GPA, like we talked about with the valedictorian and salutedorian, you know, like it's it depends on the teacher you have, the school you went to, how they viewed grading. So it's just so it's arbitrary.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

But isn't that so interesting though that and I I agree with you that that is typically the defense? I I you know didn't bring that up, but um, but it's so interesting that that defense of grades is an external factor, right? It's nothing to do with what we are doing in our classrooms or our schools.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Yeah, it's it's almost uh, you know, I'm sure it's said with the best of intentions, but it's almost passing the buck. Like, oh, we can't change, we can't do all the work to change because this other group won't let us change, you know, like it's almost like, but is that the case? Is that true, or do are we just telling ourselves that because it's easier? Um I also think, you know, sadly, and there are some new online gradebooks coming out that do a better job with this, but a lot of it is because our system is tied to online gradebooks. That I mean, they're selling it to the adults in education, they're selling it to administrators who are going to be forking out the money for it. And um, and so I think from a really sort of logical standpoint, I guess, the sit the platforms that we have access to rely on how we calculate that final grade, right? Like that's basically their function is here's how we calculate the final grade and share that with stakeholders in education. Um and so you know, I I don't know the way out of it necessarily, except that, you know, for me, it always comes back to students. And I will say, in the with the schools that I've worked with, I usually try to survey students. Um, and and there's three questions I ask uh, does do grades help you learn? How do grades make you feel? And why do your teachers use grades? And you know, I think if we started asking kids about grading and the effect of grading on a learning, because I get freshmen in, and the my first question is, do grades help you learn? Like it's it's just a cacophony of no's, like just everybody saying no, it stresses me out, it doesn't help me learn. Um, and the the scarier thing is a lot of times when I ask how do grades make you feel, you know, we we talk a lot about trying to help student mental health and and address it and do things that are meaningful to help support it. And when you read these responses, like one of the one of the top things on the list in terms of how school affects student mental health is grades. Um, they'll say a lot of students, I hate seeing their response to that question, how do grades make you feel? It's just one word and they just say dumb, you know, or or like I can't do it. And like if a st if a kid says this one thing makes me feel dumb, I think as a system and we're not changing that, huge red flags. Um so I I really think if we're gonna change the big picture and and you know, recognize that grades are not at this beneficial, super helpful thing we think they are. It starts with getting student voices in there and and um allowing them to share their experience with it.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

There's something really inequitable about grades too. You know, so often grades give those students that have the um, I don't know, they're more settled in life. They have the ability to find the time to complete all the work. It still drives me crazy that people give you know completion points and participation points like as a factor in the grade. And wow, what students are getting that and which students are not? And what does that say about who we're really supporting in our schools? I don't know if you if you agree with that notion.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Absolutely. And I, you know, this year more than ever, I think it's been so highlighted for everybody. Like, what are we grading right now? You know, for a lot of schools that have been remote and the kids are at home and that's where they're engaging in their schoolwork, we're grading how much time they have at home, whether or not they have to take care of siblings, whether or not they're working. And, you know, yet the grade hides all that. You know, we we we hide behind, like I said earlier, we hide behind numbers and pretend that they're completely objective and fair. And, you know, when you think about the story around the numbers and the context around the numbers, is when you start to realize it's not fair at all. You know, the way that we grade often in schools is, you know, which students had the time to do this, which students had the resources to do this, which students had the background knowledge they needed to be successful in this. And, you know, that yeah, that's where you see there's some great work about uh the sort of the bias that grades carry. Even even in the best of circumstances, when you reduce everything to one number, you're gonna end up in an inequitable position.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Actually, so kind of looping back here to your grading practices um using standards. Could you talk about either maybe a specific example or generally how your method helps you more authentically see students and maybe a student who, from a GPA grade point of view, might look like a quote unquote weak student, but re- in the but once you dig below the surface, you actually see there's a lot more going on.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Yeah, uh so my the way my gradebook is set up is it's very simple. It's a Google Sheet. Uh I have like I view it as two different areas. I have my Google Sheet where I record data, and this is what my my students and I use, and then I transfer things to the online gradebook. So I'm gonna talk about that spreadsheet. And for each each standard, each learning outcome, I'll have five or six spaces there for students to attempt it. And usually I only have planned four or five different assessment uh opportunities, and then there's an open column or a couple open open columns. And what that allows me to do then is I can track student performance over time, which you know, that's where I start seeing the stories. And this is kind of my favorite thing to do with this gradebook now is like I can see the student who came in with a couple of ones at the beginning and they're ending at a four now. And I think step one of in terms of making sure our grading practices are equitable, is we we have to let go of the notion of averaging scores over time. Because I think that's where we run into these, you know, there are real factors inside the achievement gap that are well outside the school system. But there is, you know, I think about if I have a student that starts at a one and moves up to a five versus a student who stayed at fours consistently through the term, if you look at how we grade those students, the student who showed no growth usually ends up with a higher score versus the student who showed the most growth. You know, then going back to that confidence thing, this kid who just grew a ton and should be celebrating that is feeling bad about themselves because maybe they have a 60, you know, while the other students got an 80. And um so for me, that's that's the reason why my organization is grouped by standard so that I can see that growth over time. And that that helps me calculate that final score. Um, because you know, like every year, but especially this year, I had some students who for a couple weeks just dropped off the map. They had other things come up they had to do. And because I have their scores, you know, grouped by standard, I can see, hey, they were at a three, three. They got ones a couple weeks in a row, then they move back to a four and five. And now I'm seeing that whole picture. I can, with that grade conference with the student, they can explain to me here's what was going on those weeks. And I can recognize that you know, those ones, there, it's not valid data. You know, it was influenced by too many outside factors. And so I can I can use the valid scores and the conversation with that student to help me really determine as closely as possible this is where the student's actually at. This is this is their current level of learning. Um, so I guess those two pieces for me, in terms of trying to establish a more equitable grading practice, you know, are am I calculating grades in a way that honors growth? And am I allowing the student to share their story and reflect on their data to give me the full picture that I need?

SPEAKER_01 36:31

And there's a lot of transparency in everything that you're doing, which is I think um really important for student trust. They understand the process, they trust that what you're doing is fair and that they are going, their voice is going to be heard as opposed to sort of an opaque system where they turn in an assignment and then a percentage appears in the gradebook, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Yeah, like it's all of a it's a surprise. That's my goal is that you know, grades should never be a surprise, right? Like it should be, they know how they've been doing all along. It drove me nuts. And I was really my first couple years in reflecting on why my grading practices changed so much. There were definitely like a couple students who just failed randomly at the end, right? Like they did really poorly on the final or whatever, and all of a sudden they have an F and they didn't know that was coming, and it caught them off guard. And I was like, who is this serving, right? Like, what benefit is is happening here when the student is suddenly surprised that they don't know what they're supposed to know and they end up failing? Like, um, yeah, so that the transparency piece is is huge in in terms of, and I love that you brought the trust piece into it. Like, there is so much of trust and relationships that's just interwoven into grading that we often overlook, again, saying, Oh, it's just numbers. Like, well, it's a lot more than just numbers.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

And um one of my pet peeves when it comes to trying to band-aid over our um our grading practices is uh our practices like um growth mindset. Right? That if you just tell students to to use phrases like yet and to you know essentially essentially try harder, this somehow gets us off the hook. You know, I I actually I worked at a school once where the beginning of the school year, the principal delivered to every student a copy of is it Carol Dweck, I think, who's the one that did the growth mindset. Yeah, and and and here, take this book. There was never any follow-up, there was never any discussion. But whenever he did a pop-in uh observation, he would write it down his comments and he and the last line would be, and don't forget growth mindset. And it was the most ridiculous. It was a Title I school. It was clearly the this probably could maybe raise our achievement scores if our students, if our teachers like I don't know. I don't even know if I really want you to comment other than I just wanted to make that observation that we that we uh we we just look for ways around taking on the question of grading, uh, and we can sometimes twist ourselves into pretzels doing it.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah, yeah. I I think the term like growth mindset, grit, resilience, every time I hear those terms, it always makes me nervous that we're offloading the burden of change onto students as opposed to taking on that responsibility for ourselves. Like I see it with with grading practices so much. They're like, you know, like you meant yet, right? Like growth mindset, like you're not there yet. But really, if if our grading practices aren't changing, so often it's like you got an F, but you haven't failed yet. You know, like it's gonna count against you, but it won't count yet, you know? Like, so I really think that if we're gonna talk about growth mindset and or grit or resilience, if we're gonna use those terms, the first place we look is not at the student. The first place you look is as a teacher, what do I control? Right? Like, where are the barriers that are requiring growth mindset and grit and resilience? And am I taking on that responsibility if it's if it's a unnecessary barrier that I have control over, which a lot of times that's grading. Um, am I putting in the work to make that change happen so that when I talk about growth mindset, there's really that space for that to develop. There's a Con McQuinn, I've gotten to see him present at a couple conferences. He's a Pacific Northwest guy who does a lot around uh like neuroscience and brain research. And what he said one time about uh, I think he was talking specifically about growth mindset, really kind of hit home for me. He was talking about it from a brain perspective, and it's the amygdala that controls the fight, flight, or uh, freeze response. And he was saying that in order for growth mindset to develop, most students see failure as a threat, which kicks their amygdala into that fight, flight, or freeze. And he says, if we truly want that to develop, we have to create scenarios and environments where students can fail without consequence so many times that we're actually rewiring their brain to not be afraid of that failure. And so, and and once that's in place, then they'll have sort of that confidence that that lack of fear of failure to really be able to take something where you know you didn't do well on it this time, but you know, you don't be afraid of this failure. You've you know you've experienced this enough that it's okay. And now it's like, okay, I'm not afraid of it. I can't actually engage in a growth mindset. But we often kind of slap the growth mindset bumper sticker on our curriculum and move ahead thinking we've done everything kids need when uh you nailed it early on, saying, you know, it's it's a whole lot more than just saying growth mindset or giving a kid a book.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah. And back to you know, McTye's idea of the scrimmage, right? The the scrimmage lets students fail or not fail, but gives them that opportunity to in a in a low stress, um, low stakes environment. Yeah, we're uh definitely we're not using growth mindset correctly yet. We'll say that. Yeah. Yes. So you're you're uh you're an instructional coach. Um what do you what are the the most pressing issues for the teachers that you work with?

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Um so I the one that I hear the most is that teachers are really, and you know, to give credit to all the teachers I work with, really trying to figure out how do we give students more ownership over the curriculum. Um and and that's you know, that's a huge, huge thing to bite off. So it has to be broken down into chunks. But you know, I love that in an age where now we have access to information everywhere all the time, and we could literally never consume it all if we tried, that teachers are recognizing this and asking, how does this change education? Right? Like, how do we how do we teach students to engage in these resources responsibly, to evaluate that information, um, so that we don't just become content delivery vehicles because YouTube is way more entertaining than us for that. Um, and so really just thinking through if they have access to information, now what skills do they need? You know, how are we helping them become those autonomous, independent learners that have that confidence to be able to learn anything they want? Um and so that's sort of the the big picture that I hear a lot is how do we help students become independent, autonomous learners that that can access those resources? And you know, there's so many things that go into is the student engaging in a task that is meaningful enough that they want to be an autonomous learner? Does the assessment system make sense so that they feel like they can, you know, master something on their own? Um so there's a lot in there, but I just love that that is the move that a lot of teachers are talking about is how do we give students more control and ownership? Because this is their learning. As much as we want to pretend it's our classroom or our school, it's their brain, it's their learning process, and we'll never be able to design something that fits every kid perfectly. So, how are we creating pathways and experiences where students Students can they can approach the learning in a way that works best for them.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

And when students have that ownership, then they're more likely to see our assessments as worthwhile if we've designed them authentically. Yeah. And and I meant to mention earlier, you know, one thing I really like about in your tools, your assessment tools, your rubrics, you make really nice use of embedding resources. Uh embedding hyperlinks to resources. I think that's a really nice use of, like you said, there's so much information out there. And rather than just say, here's the one thing you're going to look at, it's here's a sort of a menu of options or a way of kind of measuring your your your uh progress using these external sources. I think that's a really smart way of doing that.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah, that's that's been uh I'm still pushing myself to shift that language. I, you know, I I use the term learning progressions now when I'm designing those rubrics to help me think through whereas before the rubric was, you know, if you have a one, you're insufficient, right? Like you're you're bad at this. If you have a two, you're kind of bad at this. If you, you know, and and that language is just that's not what I want to be communicating to students. And so I've started trying to shift where at a one, it's what's the first thing you're learning? You know, what's what's a foundational concept you need to be attaining? At a two, what's the next concept? You know, and not that learning is always linear, but it's it's really been helpful talking about that student ownership piece. If students know here's the end goal and here are the concepts that are important along the way. Um, and by breaking it down that way, that's where I can really say, you know, we talked about feedback earlier. If a student gets a two out of five, by breaking it down into specific concepts at each level, they know, you know, okay, I'm at a two here, just to the right, a level three or stage three, or whatever we want to call it, is this concept? Here's a resource, I know where I'm going next. Which again, that's the whole point of this whole feedback and assessment process is do students know where they're going next?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Yeah, and the example I saw was I think it was you had students evaluating uh information or evaluating new sources. And exactly. So it was rather than a particular skill that you either are sort of getting, not getting, getting, it was, it was, it was, it was like it was like a continuum, right? The one or two was the more lower level identifying sources, and then you're up at the upper end where you're actually evaluating critically uh the creation um and the uh the author of the of those sources. That was a really um a really empowering way for a student to see, okay, I'm not just moving from one number to a next, I'm moving from one concrete skill to the next.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah, yeah. And it's it's been a silly change too, on top of that, but it it's actually changed. I love I'm weird with color coding. And I've stopped color coding things, red, yellow, green, uh blue was always my next step because I didn't know what came after green there. But now it's just lighter green, medium green. So I'm communicating to students like, hey, you may be at this step, but you just learned something. Let's celebrate that. Here's the next thing to learn. Um, but yeah, again, just going back to that language and that confidence and how important that is, are students seeing their things they're learning, the ways they're going, or are they seeing their deficits? And as a teacher, which one am I, which message am I sending to students? So that's been a you know, that's a lot of my lens around assessment is what message am I sending to students? And is that really the message I want them to be getting?

SPEAKER_01 47:38

You recently presented at a conference, um, I think up in the Pacific Northwest. What was what was that conference and what were you uh presenting on?

SPEAKER_02 47:47

So it's uh NCCE, the Northwest Council for Computer Education. I think I got that right. Uh and I had uh I this was really fun for me. It's the first time I'd ever gotten to be a featured speaker, but that meant I had uh six different sessions covering everything. Um but the the lens that I so I actually have a framework that I mean it's nothing fancy, it's but it's for me the framework is if I want my students to be engaging in meaningful work, which is sort of the the pinnacle of this pyramid in my framework, what foundational concepts need to be established, what work needs to go in behind the scenes to make that happen. So kind of to illustrate it, I remember early on in my career and still often, stuff I have this way of engaging in the learning that I'm like, this is gonna be super meaningful for students. They're gonna, you know, it's it's connected to the real world. And then I present this thing and we start working on it. And the first question is like, is this graded? Or, you know, like, and and so I realized like if I want all of that to happen and be as meaningful as possible, the steps below that, how am I how am I holding helping students see feedback as meaningful and develop ownership of their learning? And so a lot of my presentations were around uh it was funny, it's like a it's a cool tech conference, and a lot of the sessions are like, here's new tech stuff. And I realized at the end of it that like the fanciest thing I showed was Google Slides or something. But it's just because all of it was like, I we want to do the fancy, fun, cool stuff where students do great things, but what's the work that goes in ahead of it? Um so that's a lot of what a lot of the emphasis of my presentations were on there.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Well, Tyler Rablan, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Uh really enjoy this conversation. Um I want to get you out of here on this one. Uh for a teacher listening who wants to move towards, move away from um assignment-based grading, move away from having students ask, is this graded? You know, giving grades that even they aren't sure how it was calculated in the end, if they kind of go back and scratch their heads. What's one concrete tip you could give a teacher who's who wants to start moving in that direction?

SPEAKER_02 50:01

I I would say I'm gonna cheat and give two. Uh, but one shift the the primary organization of your gradebook. So instead of having everything just organized by tasks, you know, create and maybe just do it for one unit or for a couple weeks and see how it goes. But create a method of record keeping that has the learning objective as the primary organization and space for multiple attempts underneath. That could be a uh it can be handwritten on a piece of paper. I like it doesn't have to be super fancy, but just try it and notice how much more meaningful information you get out of that as opposed to isolated assignments that aren't organized in any fashion. Um, so that's one. The other thing that I would say is find a way to sit down and have conversations with students about their grades to get their, you know, their input and their feedback. And, you know, right now you might not even don't, if you're uncomfortable changing their total grade or messing with that, maybe don't even do that. But just start getting comfortable having conversations with kids and and look for when they're talking about learning versus when they're talking about tasks. Because those will be when you hear students start talking about tasks, that's your cue. This is the next step for me, right? This is something that I need to adjust or change to see if we can get students talking about learning more.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Yeah, that learning versus tasks is so important. The external versus the internal, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, great. And I should put a plug in here for teachers looking for assistance. Uh, you are on Twitter at Mr. Underscore Rablin. Your pinned tweet, I think it is, has a really nice thread of resources that you've used. You've been nice enough to provide some templates. It's a great place to look for some ideas and some inspiration. Uh Tyler, thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Yeah, Dan. Thanks for having me on. This is I always love talking about education with people who love education. So it's fun to get to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Thanks to Tyler Ravlin for taking the time to talk about his vision and approach to assessment. I think that you know what really jumps out to me is how student-centered his approach is. And you know, we say student-centered a lot in education, and and sometimes it's frankly just fluff like growth mindset, frankly. But what you hear in in Tyler's um points is that he really does put the students first. You know, he he started by asking himself, are are assignments and and assignment-based grading, is that really serving the students, or is that just serving a system, or is it serving me? And he brings students into the conversation through conferences and he makes his grading approach transparent. That's student-centered, right? Forget all the stuff that you've heard or read and platitudes, that's student-centered. And that's why Tyler is someone you definitely want to check out. Again, that is Mr. Underscore Rablin on Twitter. Um, one of the many uh bright uh stars out there thinking differently, thinking better about assessment and education. All right, thanks for checking out this episode again. Part one of the J McTie. If you didn't check that out, I I encourage you to. Um, he's been at it for decades, he's got some great ideas. Be on the lookout for my next part. Uh be looking at equity and assessment. Um again, thanks for checking out what's the big idea. And uh appreciate you taking the time to listen and engage with these ideas. We're at big idea ed on Twitter, so hit us up with uh questions, thoughts, comments, and check us out next time.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Cuando te encuentro usted, yo me conformo mira tu pie, mañana te pido lo de café, usted aún tu nombre y la divina.