Standards-Based Grading in Schoology

@Joe_EdTech/
@LisaBerghoff

This week's guest post is by Dan Kim. Beginning in August of 2018, Dan Kim will begin serving as Deerfield High School's Director of Instructional Technology.

Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, has written extensively about student mindsets in the way they value motivation, intelligence, and academic success. Dweck’s 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success differentiates between two types of learners: those of a “fixed” and “growth” mindset. Carol Dweck’s work is often credited with partially inspiring the movement towards Standards Based Grading as an alternative to Traditional grading systems. Adherents attempt to promote the growth mindset through changing the way that they assess student work. According to Tomlinson & McTighe 2006, Standards-based grading “involves measuring students’ proficiency on well-defined course objectives.”

Here is an example of one of the standards-based grading rubrics used in the DHS English Department

So Schoology:

To set up your gradebook for Standards-based grading first click on the “Grade Setup” on the left-hand side of your course page. The first thing to do is to create a Scale. Now traditional graders will be using either the THSD 113 scale, or the THSD 113 P/F (Pass/Fail) scales. Clicking on the yellow star next to the scales will make it the default scale 

To create your own scale click:

·         Click Add and select Scale

·         Once you Add Scale it will give you the option to base it off of percentage or points.

Here is a (very simple) example scale:

Before you create and grade assignments you should change the default Gradebook Scale to the one that you've created. 

Now when you create an assignment, you can attach your newly created scale to it.

For teachers who do not grade based on numerical values, Schoology's gradebook unfortunately does not allow for Alpha characters to be entered. There is, however, a way to display only text in scores for students. 

The paradox of Standards-based grading is that there are no universal standards and procedures that teachers use. Within any department, there can be teachers who use SBG in a variety of ways. While Schoology may not have the perfect answer to accommodating all grading systems, we can be successful by making adjustments and being creative.

What are your thoughts and experiences with Standards-Based Grading? Post your ideas below.