Taking the plunge...and welcome to my blog!

Starting semester two, there will be NO MORE GRADES given in my music courses at Georgian Bay District Secondary School. I am SO excited.

You may wonder why I'm doing this, and I have to admit there has been the odd time throughout this planning process that I've questioned myself, but I always find myself coming back to the question of "what purpose to grades even serve?" If I tell a student they have a 70% in my course, is it meaningful to them? Does that number drive them to improve their learning, or does it give them permission to slack off a bit?

 The goal of assessment is to improve student learning, and I've reached a point where I don't think the assignment of a grade to test, assignments etc., is helping to achieve that goal. Through observations, conversations, feedback and student self-assessment, I think we can throw out the grades (and negative energy/environment that is sometimes created with these numbers) and help our students to focus on their own learning process in order to be successful in any course.

With the help of my friend and colleague Jackie Calder, we've created a solid plan that is student focused and will embed life-long learning, student self-assessment skills, and an emphasis on the creative process, that will benefit students long after my course is finished.

The plan:
Throughout my music courses, students will be given a series of 8 rubrics which reflect the 8 big ideas of the music curriculum. "Can do statements" have been linked to each portion of the rubric, so that the expectations are written in student friendly language. Depending on the task, assignment, area of focus being assessed, these rubrics can be combined or altered. Students will gather digital evidence needed, and link this evidence to where they think they are on the rubric. I will mainly be using Seesaw and Google Apps For Education as my evidence gathering tools. If you aren't familiar with Seesaw, it's amazing and I highly recommend it. As I navigate throughout this semester, I'm sure I'll be writing about it a lot!

After the student self-assessment process is done, conferences between myself and the student will occur, and adjustments may occur to where the student has placed themselves on the rubric. The key to no grades is constant conferencing and feedback, so students are crystal clear on what they've done well, what the need to improve on, and what their next steps might be. Now, by law I must assign a numerical grade for each reporting period (midterm and final). Their grades will be mutually agreed upon between myself and the student, and will be based on the series of rubrics that they students have filled out for themselves, and the conferences we have in class. I will also be making daily observations of students through Google Forms, which students have immediate access to, which can also be used as their digital evidence for certain rubrics. This all sounds like a lot of work, and I think it should be.

I'm most interested in my students' (and their parent's) reactions to no grades. Will they be confused, excited, stressed (I hope not), angry? Through this blog, I will not only be sharing the resources that I'm using throughout my courses, but also my reactions and my students' reactions to what goes well and what doesn't. I'm not expecting everything to go smoothly...what's the fun in that?! My goal is to improve student learning, and I'm going to stay focused on that!