• How does proficiency-based grading differ from traditional grading?

    A proficiency-based grading system measures a student's mastery of grade-level standards by prioritizing the most recent, consistent level of performance. A student who may have struggled at the beginning of a course when first learning new material may be able to demonstrate mastery of key content/concepts by the end of a grading period.

    In traditional grading systems, a student's performance for an entire marking or semester is averaged together. Early quiz scores that were low would be averaged together with more proficient performance later in the course, resulting in a lower overall grade than the current performance indicates.

    When students practice, it is considered a formative assessment. Formative assessments are designed to help students improve by receiving feedback that allows for adjustment. Formative assessments never belong in grade calculation because they are supportive of learning. Summative assessments, in contrast, are designed to measure student achievement at a defined point in time after appropriate learning and feedback has occurred, and thus should be the exclusive factor in determining grades.

    Proficiency-based grading separates academic performance from work habits and behavior in order to provide parents with a more accurate view of a student's progress in both areas. Effort, participation, cooperation, and attendance are reported separately, but not included in the overall calculation of academic performance. This allows the gradebook to tell a story.

    What is proficiency-Based Grading?

    Proficiency-based grading communicates how students perform based on a set of clearly defined learning targets called standards. The purpose of proficiency-based grading is to identify what a student knows or is able to do in relation to those learning targets, as opposed to simply averaging grades and scores over the course of a grading period, which can distort what a student has learned or not learned.  It allows new evidence of learning to replace old evidence of learning when it is clear a student knows and can do something in the moment that he or she could not do previously. The more recent evidence is counted toward a grade, and the less recent evidence is potentially abandoned.

     

    WHY DOES THIS WORK?

    There is an abundance of brain-based research that supports proficiency-based grading and mastery learning. Proficiency-based grading reports what students should know and be able to do within each content area at each grade level. The real-time monitoring of student performance reflects a more accurate picture of student achievement. Other reasons for proficiency-based grading include:

    • Current methods of grading do not accurately indicate what a student knows and is able to do
    • Students will be able to better explain what they have learned or did not learn instead of merely reciting their percentage
    • Mastery learning and proficiency-based grading benefits all learners, including students who struggle and students who are accelerated
    • Parents are provided information on specific levels of learning while receiving meaningful feedback

    HOW DOES proficiency-BASED GRADING PREPARE STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE AND CAREERS?

    By giving students ownership of their learning, proficiency-based grading gives students a more meaningful, realistic learning experience. Profiency-based grading teaches students the self-advocacy skills necessary to achieve in college and/or career settings by focusing on techniques and metacognitive practices such as retrieval practice, discrepancy reduction and mastery learning that help students to effectively store and retrieve knowledge in order to apply it in new scenarios.