This week, I worked with a student who will be piloting a gradeless transcript through mastery.org next year to organize her evidence-based assessments. It became very clear to me that this process is cumbersome and being thoughtful about how we organize the process might help to focus our efforts on the learning rather than the collection of evidence. There are so many options and new software comes out every day. It is a little bit overwhelming. So, while it is necessary to figure out how to organize evidence with many layers to consider, it is also important to keep it simple while we make this shift.

The Layers

As I worked with this eleventh-grade student, we clicked back and forth from various places for a solid seventy-five minutes. There are main areas of proficiency. There are indicators for each main credit area. There are “I can” statements for each indicator to be considered. These statements must be compared against evidence which may be housed in google documents…somewhere or perhaps on a photo or video located on a phone. Each time the student considered what evidence she was most proud of, she returned back to the various levels of proficiency considerations and had to reflect on how or if this piece of evidence demonstrated the skill. It is important to remember that this student is back tracking. At one point she said, “I suppose this wouldn’t be so complicated if I was a freshman”. I agree but also was reminded at that moment that we better figure out a system for the freshman.

The Tools

As we worked, we used the MTC platform, google documents, Google sheets, our phones, our previous software system (LiFT), PowerSchool, to name a few. We both had our computers out and I was projecting mine so she could see all that I was doing. Our original plan for learners accessing this Flexible Pathways Academy was to have them organize their work in a google site. We created a template and every student has one of their own that they can modify. But, is that also double doing? As we go through this process, it seems as if it would make the most sense for students to collect evidence at the moment. For example, in English class students complete a mini-lesson on inferences followed by some independent work using that skill. At the end of that task, it would be ideal to attach it quickly to that indicator so that it can be revisited later to evaluate whether it is a piece of evidence worth showcasing. Whatever the method, it should be simple at this stage of the process.

Reflection

Reflection is a key aspect of learning, of competency and proficiency-based learning, and a skill our traditional systems (like classes) doesn’t really support. A reflection that comes at the end of a class period doesn’t get the time it deserves. The student I was working with on her transcript was reflecting on her work quite a time after completing some of the work but she was only focused on reflecting. She was also able to look at a variety of pieces of evidence to see a whole. Using a body of evidence rather than one piece of evidence is also a key component of competency-based education. Many of the competency-based software programs that I have seen have reflections built into each activity or piece of evidence. I’m not sure this is the best way to promote the kind of reflection on learning and growth that we really want to see.

In addition to the philosophical issues that are at play with various programs trying to address these problems, there are logistical considerations, like the ever-present PowerSchool in our case. In many other cases, some other SIS or LMS that is being used. My very organizationally clever partner in Flexible Pathways Academy created a set of fancy sheets in Airtable that can be sorted in a number of ways. After seventy-five minutes working on this project, the student looked at the spreadsheet set up and took a deep breath. We need something simple in a time of so much change. What other simple methods are people using to manage #nogrades?