Zach Diamond  00:03
Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the Modern Classrooms Project podcast.  Hello, and welcome to episode 155 of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. My name is Zach Diamond, and I'm a middle school digital music teacher in Washington DC. And today I am joined by Kate McGillicuddy high school social studies teacher at Health Sciences charter school in Buffalo, New York. Welcome, Kate. 

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  00:49
Hello. 

Zach Diamond  00:51
it is so great to have you on the podcast. And I'm very excited for tonight's topic. I'm excited also, because we are kicking off our theme for the month of September, which is equitable grading. And this is a really, really big theme. And I think it's really interesting to coming off of last month, August where our theme was resistance. And I liked the idea of transitioning into grading as a place where we can resist where we can disrupt and maybe feel some of those appeals, that we're doing things in a new and revolutionary and maybe a little bit scary way. Grading is definitely a place to live that out to bear that out. So I'm excited to get into that conversation today on grading beliefs and mindsets. So that's cool. Before we do that, though, Kate, I would love for you to introduce yourself a little bit to me and our listeners. Go ahead and tell us a little bit more about who you are and how you started your modern classrooms journey.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  01:47
Like we said earlier, I'm Kate McGillicuddy. I teach high school social studies in the city of Buffalo, New York. I also hold a certification as literacy specialists and this year I am mentor coordinator at my school. This will be my ninth year in education. I did a year of service with AmeriCorps before getting hired full time at the current school, I teach AP, how I got an amount of classrooms project, like many of my peers was during COVID. During the last half of 2020. I had already started making instructional videos, but I knew I was missing something. And I got a grant to work with the Modern Classrooms Project model through a local professional development coordinator in Buffalo. And I did the Modern Classrooms Project virtual Summer Institute. And I haven't stopped since

Zach Diamond  02:39
of course. So you'd have the second half of 2020, you had sort of started on your own during the pandemic, like once the pandemic was, had started. You started sort of dabbling in instructional videos.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  02:50
Yes, I started with podcasting and recording myself for my students. But they needed that visual. Yes. And so once I was able to add the visual with a slide deck, I noticed a huge increasing engagement. And I just knew I was missing other pieces and Modern Classrooms Project was exactly what I needed.

Zach Diamond  03:09
Yeah, yeah. Obviously a little biased towards podcasts. But that's a great point. I mean, the kids definitely benefit from visual. I think that's really interesting, because a lot of times teachers approach video production, like from the other direction where they're sort of apprehensive about the complexity of, of making videos. And I'm like, this is like, you started off real simple. And actually, you decided you needed to add more complexity to the video to give more to the students. So I think that's a really interesting sort of on ramp into the world and making videos. Very cool. Very cool. So let's start talking about grading. And grading is obviously a very, very big topic. It can be a very emotional topic for teachers and for students. So, you know, I'd like to start off this episode, and even this entire month of talking about equitable grading by maybe trying to nail down sort of a problem statement. You know, we are spending this whole month talking about equitable grading and we spent last month talking about resistance and disruption, right, disrupting oppressive and inequitable systems, and to bridge that gap and talk about how we can disrupt inequitable and oppressive grading systems. I think it would be good to start out by discussing the traditional approach to grading and try and lay out some of the concerns and problems that traditional approach presents. So can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what is it that we're trying to work away from to move away from as we talk about equitable grading and grading in a modern classroom?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  04:41
There are so many things that I think of right away when we talk about those problems statements and like what we're moving toward away from in a modern classroom. One of the things that really stuck out to me is prior to modern classrooms project I was grading on a zero to 100 point scale like Most high schools in the United States. And why are there 64 Opportunities to fail? And only 36 To pass? 

Zach Diamond  05:10
Yeah, yeah, 

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  05:12
that really got me Oh, yes, there shouldn't be more opportunity to fail then to pass my course,

Zach Diamond  05:20
I had never thought about it that way.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  05:22
Once I realized that I was like this has to change, there has to be some other ways. In addition, as teachers, as we're working towards behavior management and working with different students and preparedness, we often like give grades to things that aren't measuring student progress, like participation points, or notebook checks, or other things that are super helpful with building student skills, but not necessarily saralee measuring student ability. So I think those once I realized that, I really started to challenge my notions, one of the things I did right at the same time that I was working in modern fasters project was read a book called On your mark by Thomas Gaskey. And in each chapter, he kind of challenges different grading practices, like percentage grades, plus and minuses and half increments and class rank. And all of that really, like helped me to break my traditional mold or traditional norms of grading, and kind of try to see it from a new way.

Zach Diamond  06:31
Okay, I'm definitely going to look into that. It sounds very interesting. I'm reading right now, for a future episode of the podcast, I'm reading engraving, which I'm, I'm getting a lot of really interesting stuff from that book, too. And I want to read more on this. So this book sounds really interesting to me. And I'm going to track it down.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  06:50
It is very short. And it's perfect to share with other people who are like, Oh, I like percentage grades, and it kind of helps like bust myths about each of those things. So like, for me, it's helpful. When I get pushback from other educators, I'm like, Well, why should we do it this way? Or like, I like my check plus system? And this kind of gives some flaws and those systems.

Zach Diamond  07:13
Interesting. Okay. Yeah, definitely something that I'm putting on my reading list. The, I guess the follow up question is, then if we're talking about this is what we're moving away from, then what are we moving toward? You know, I don't know if there's anything in the book that he sort of presents as alternatives, or just anything that you have tried, but you know, alternative? mindsets and approaches? What What would you propose? I think, a really big one that I'll go ahead and just say up front that modern classrooms really puts its weight behind is to put more of an emphasis on progression than I guess, evaluation or grades grading those static one off grades, we we actually have a whole episode of that coming up later this month, too. But progression, as opposed to grades specifically, I think is a really good sort of mindset shift or alternative mindset. But what else? I mean, can you speak to some other alternatives, maybe more progressive approaches to grading that don't reflect that kind of factory model that ranking classroom ranking model of education,

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  08:17
my school during COVID Move to standards based grading. So that's where I have a lot of experience measuring one standard or several standards for me is content and skills and high school social studies classroom, but I'm measuring those throughout the year. So although I am assigning a one through four grade on their, on their assignments, I am able to measure their progression throughout the year based on where they're scoring on their one through four scale. So much like the modern classroom project, I am working towards the goal of progressing to mastery and meeting the standards for my state as well as for my school. And that has been really helpful in shifting my mindset. In addition, I use a no zero policy. So the lowest a student can get as a 55. And that allows students to have more opportunity to pass throughout the school year.

Zach Diamond  09:16
That would I imagine also the that would have an effect on students who maybe miss an assignment and don't want to have their GPA completely tanked by getting a zero on something.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  09:26
Yes, for sure. That is actually one of the most controversial things I think when I discuss with their educators is that if a student's not doing their assignments, they should not get a grade. But a 55 is still failing the course. So if a student chooses not to do assignments or which is most of the case, they are unable to do it because of a family situation or a school situation or they miss it for some other reason. They aren't hurt by that 55 in the way that they'd be hurt by 0

Toni Rose Deanon  10:02
0 pulling their average way, way down. Yeah,

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  10:05
yes. And a lot of kids can't come back from that. If you had a rough start to your school year, I get more buy in in my fourth quarter. Because even if they got up poor grade, or maybe not what they wanted at the beginning of the year, they're still able to make it up.

Zach Diamond  10:21
Yeah, yeah, something that my school is an IB school. And something that I really liked about the way that IB sort of frames grading is that we should be looking at the student's most recent work, and also coming up with a best fit judgment. So we actually, at my school, we actually just sort of decide on the student's final grade for the course each quarter, looking at, you know, their assessment grades throughout the throughout the term, of course, but if I see that one, one particular assignment is zero, and the rest are all you know, sixes and sevens are scalars out of eight, right? Eight is the highest grades. So if I see one, zero, and a bunch of sixes and sevens, it's like, okay, maybe something happened. And the best fit judgment would be probably a six. Right? I just, I had to think about the student too. You know, you mentioned standards based grading? Could you I'm gonna maybe put you on the spot a little bit here, Kate. But could you describe what that is? It's, I've heard it a lot. And I would be interested to hear, it's not something that I've been trained in at my school. And I'd be interested to hear sort of a rundown of what it is specifically, and how that's different from traditional grading, can you? Can you describe that for me,

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  11:29
of course, I teach in New York state. So I have New York state social studies standards, as well as literacy standards, and then different standards that my school may put towards my students or may have a goal. So I turn my state standards into student friendly language, so that students can really understand so one example that I use is I can use evidence to support my claim when writing a paragraph. I am measuring on that standard, every time that we're working on it. So when I am giving an extra ticket or mastery check in modern classrooms project, I am rating them on that specific standard. So I'm saying okay, that can they on a scale of one to four, identify and use evidence in their paragraph. And so that standard follows them throughout the year. So kind of like you were saying, with your progression, we are taking the most recent data of our students in terms of their content standards, as well as their literacy standards. And throughout the year, they're building on that same group of standards to then hopefully pass their New York state test at the end of the year.

Zach Diamond  12:49
Got it. So what you're looking for is improvement within each of these standards, essentially,

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  12:54
yes, yes.

Zach Diamond  12:56
Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like I need to read more about that, too.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  13:02
Oh, for sure. It's definitely can be overwhelming when you first start. But if you have a team of people that you're working with creating those student friendly standards, and then really just being strategic and how you're spiraling, your standards healthier, it's super helpful. And it helps students identify what parts they did wrong. So for example, on a test, if they're tested on three standards, they might do amazing. I'm standard one and two. And then standard three is where they messed up. So it's easier for me to look at my data and say, Oh, this is where we need to reteach. It's not just the whole French Revolution, it's like, just the causes.

Zach Diamond  13:42
Sure. Yeah. And you mentioned the the student friendly language for the standards, too. That's, that's really important, I think, right? Like, I sometimes I see on, you know, lessons that my mentees submit to me, they'll put like, the objective for this lesson is like standard MA.1.234. And it's like, I don't know if the student understands what that is. And it doesn't feel very actionable to me. But like, if you can explain to the student like, using in the language of the objective. Am I on the right track here? Like, yes, you are describing what they're going to actually do? You know, it helps them to do it, in addition to understanding where they got it wrong. If they did, 

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  14:22
 t does, and then in addition, on their mastery checks, I try to use that same language in their rubric. So when we're looking at our rubrics, there, I'm saying, Okay, you did identify, but did you explain, and then having those academic conversations surrounding what do these vocab terms mean? What are these testing vocabulary? That is super helpful for our students?

Zach Diamond  14:47
Sure. Cool. Okay, let's move on. I want to go back a little bit in in your history as a teacher here, Kate and ask you, if you remember, like a moment or maybe a school year, when you sort of started to question more explicitly, and maybe more actively that traditional approach to grading, when you started to kind of realize it and understand that it was problematic. You know, I feel like I really feel like most teachers kind of have a sense of that pretty early on. But, you know, as we discussed last month, there can be lots of things that sort of prevent us from questioning the norms, right? Fear, or impostor syndrome, or feeling like we're not doing it right. And so what was it that got you to sort of pursue or pull on that thread a little bit, you know, and be like, something is wrong here. And I want to look for an alternative approach. For me, I think it was actually modern classrooms. When I started to realize like, my students learning, learning at such different paces, like it needs to be I need to accommodate that. And I wasn't before it was a major failure of my teaching. And so modern classrooms really opened my eyes to that, but it could be something else. I'm just curious to hear from you. Like, what was the impetus for you to sort of begin this journey of reframing grading in your, in your mind and in your class?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  16:08
I, was familiar, I would say with what mastery grading was, but I wasn't actually doing it. So I think I was going through the motions or trying to do it without fully being educated or reading or knowing enough when I first started teaching, which is every when you first start teaching, everything is overwhelming. And as I continued on, I was losing my students who struggled academically, and struggled to keep pace in a traditional classroom. And at that fourth quarter end of year, many of my students did the math and realize like, I can't pass this class anyways, what is the point of being inherently more I'm gonna have to take it in summer school, or I'm gonna have to do it next year, like, what's the point in me actually participating anymore. And that is so disheartening as a teacher, and as a student, I wouldn't want to be somewhere where I know no matter what I do this quarter, it's not going to help me. And during COVID, that really got exemplified. And we were able to really like break our thinking on how teaching had to be done since we were doing it from our kitchen tables. So I really think that that helped me to look more into mastery based learning. And my school created a committee, which I served on first standards based grading to read our materials, research it and start to implement it when we were back in person, that fall.

Zach Diamond  17:49
Yeah, that's, you know, that story is obviously very sad. Yeah, I think that having currently reading on grading, it's a very good book on grading. And I think that what what that's making me think of right now is like, if that's happening, if the students are looking at the math, like you said, and saying, there's no reason for even for me to be here, like just how much their focus had shifted from learning to grades, you know, like just how much the focus was on, the only reason for me to go, is to pass the class, not because I have any interest in, you know, the work, which I don't mean, as a critique of you, I think that is like a very, I had a very similar experience as a younger teacher, like, these grades aren't motivating the kids like I personally, as a student, was very motivated by grades. And so it, you know, it didn't have, it didn't occur to me, that that wasn't really like a carrot or stick that I could use to motivate my students. And reading this book is very enlightening to me. To think about it that way. Like, the focus is, is so much more on something that's completely external to them, then their their desire to learn, and they do desire to learn, I think. But the traditional grading approach doesn't allow that to kind of flourish. Right?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  19:12
I agree wholeheartedly. That it is difficult for students, especially in this when they've been in a traditional system to see those numbers, especially on a zero through 100 scale as anything more than numbers. And we're able to shift at towards like this is showing your growth, this is showing your progression towards mastery. They have a lot more buy in and you don't have to be motivated by grades. I was super motivated by grades as well. So that is a difficult shift when your students are like, well, what's the difference between the 67 and the 71? There's not a huge difference in that aspect.

Zach Diamond  19:57
Yeah, and I think like it's, it's moving away from the numbers entirely. That helps students to see the value of the learning. But if those numbers are there, it it's just natural for them to become the focus.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  20:11
Yes, it is the natural progression to focus on those numbers. And that so often, as a teacher, when we see give our feedback before we give the grade, that is something that I'm always striving towards is to be able to give them feedback before they see their point grade.

Zach Diamond  20:31
Yeah, yeah, definitely feedback needs to be first 100%. Agreed.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  20:37
I prior to Modern Classrooms Project, something that motivated my students that does marry a little bit with Modern Classrooms Project is like a mastery check poster where when they completed their assignments, they would get a checkmark or a stamp. And how it's similar to Modern Classrooms Project is using a public facing tracker, students are highly motivated by a public facing tracker. And when I first started, I was so nervous that they would pick on each other or just be negative surrounding the public facing tracker. But it's been nothing but positive for my students. They I use a check mark system still, although I am giving feedback and rubrics and a mastery check. I just use a Google sheet and have them check off their assignment when it's complete. And they love seeing their check marks across the screen. And they take so much pride in being on pace or being close to pace to working with their friends, helping their peers be successful, and like ketchup to be on pace or ahead of pace. And I would have never thought that 16 year olds would be so excited by a checkmark.

Zach Diamond  21:57
Right? Yeah. There is a I feel like it's a demonstrable and objective difference between, like putting up their grades, which we would never do, and putting up their progress, because there's no like, there's none of that emotion around saying like, Yes, I completed an assignment. You know, 

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  22:16
Yes 

Zach Diamond  22:16
it's not like you got you got a one or you got a four. It's that there's more. There's just more emotion in that, you know, it's great. But to say like, I did it, and I completed it successfully. There's nothing to not celebrate there. You know?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  22:31
Yes. And I really like it too. I personally track. They're allowed to give checkmarks to themselves, or sometimes me, my students in each class, have preferences, whether they want to check it off, whether they're someone that that's their job to check it off when I give approval, but I track notes practice and mastery checks. So a lot of times students are like, Oh, I didn't get to my mastery checker. Oh, I didn't finish this lesson. And I'm like, Yeah, but you got two out of the three things done, or you did yesterday stuff. And you got two more checkmarks today. So it's that progress, and that might not be necessarily reflected in a grade, but it is reflected in the public pacing tracker, and my students are feeling themselves when they get those checkmarks.

Zach Diamond  23:19
Yes, exactly. That's what I was getting at before like the progress over grades, right? It's like, even if each individual thing isn't actually even graded, right? Just the fact I don't grade my mastery checks. Or even any, my entire lessons are not graded, right. And so within a project, there's maybe 10 lessons, right? And each individual lesson is graded out of one, right? So that's not really a grade. It's just if you did it right, or if I give you a zero, it means that you need to revise and so on the Progress Tracker that looks like either a check or an R. And again, there's really there's, there's no like sense of judgment there. If there is if there is an AR, it's me saying I'd like to help you improve this. And obviously, I feel like it's very easy for us to focus on that because like I said, it's kind of the biggest built into the modern classrooms model, kind of the biggest shift in in approaches to grading. You know, we use that tracker to keep track of our students progress. And, and that's that's where the shift happens. But, yeah, cool. I'd like to have you describe how you communicate all of this to your students. You know, I think a big part of dismantling these oppressive and inequitable systems is not only changing the teachers mindsets, but also changing our students mindsets. And, you know, we've sort of talked about this sort of emotional charge to grades. And, you know, how can we help? Well, this is obviously a big question. I'm not sure we're going to answer this but like, how can we start to break that down and, and more specifically, how do you communicate this with your students? have, you know both in terms of the official grading scheme that you use in your class, and maybe just the informal conversations that you have with students when this stuff comes up?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  25:08
Informally, when my students first come to my classroom, and they don't get graded on their notes, or their practice assignments, they can't believe it. They're like, this isn't fair. I'm doing all of this work. And you're not giving me a grade. And we get to have those conversations. A lot of my students are athletes, many are performers, they love that aspect, or many of them are on drill teams. And I tell them, would you show up to Game Day? without practicing? Right? There are no, I'm not going to do them. This I'm going to fail. Or I'm going to lose my game. I love it. And I say, Well, did the score and practice count is that on our record for the school year, and they always been their jaw drops, and they're like, miss, you're right, I should have done. They're like, oh, I need to do my videos, I need to do my practice assignment. And always, like halfway through the year, three quarters of the year, they'll be like, can I just have my mastery check? And I'm like, okay, but do you think you're going to pass it? Do you think without doing the video and the practice, you're really going to be able to do a good job demonstrating your understanding? And then they're always like, no, nevermind, I'm gonna go watch my video now.

Zach Diamond  26:28
Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. What a great analogy. But it's like, there it is, right? There's the problem mindset. Right? There's the grading first mindset. It's like, it's almost like, maybe this is, again, this is coming from the fact that I'm currently reading engraving, which I'll link in the show notes, and people should read because there's an episode of this podcast on it coming up. But it's like, in a sense, those are the easy parts of the class. The practice lower stakes, the practice the guided notes, at least in my class, the guided notes are you just write a couple things down? And it's like, Wait, you're taking away the easy way to get grades? And I have to do the hard stuff now. And you're only grading the hard stuff? That's, I don't know if that's true of your class. But certainly, that's how I'm interpreting it in terms of my own class.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  27:20
That is exactly correct. In my class, as well, is that 

Zach Diamond  27:23
okay, yeah

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  27:24
I'm taking away the easy points for them.

Zach Diamond  27:27
Right? And so it's like, what do you want out of this? You know, I don't, my my goal here is not for you to get higher grades. My goal is for you to learn more, to analyze more. And so like, yeah, right, I am taking away the easy stuff. Because the easy stuff isn't where you're being pushed. It's not where you're learning, it's just you copying by rote the things I write in my video, like, if I were grading you on that you get all A's all the time.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  27:54
Exactly. That is also to really powerful in our practice assignments is when I get to explain to students both practice and mastery tax, even though my mastery checks are graded, that this is the time to make your mistakes like this is where we're learning or practicing, we're analyzing this is where in practice, you get to ask your peers or myself or my co teachers for how, and this is the time where we like practice and fail, I don't expect you to be perfect. And being able to shift that mindset as well is like this is meant to be an opportunity for you to practice without any stakes. Right? That is really powerful.

Zach Diamond  28:36
Yeah, it is, it is really powerful. And as we go through the year, this has been my experience, and you'll have to tell me if it was yours as well, like, students do start to slowly move away from that grading mindset, like you said, like those students who are like, Yeah, I probably should do the practice high, probably should watch the video, I do the same thing. You know, I let my students try the mastery checks without anything else first. And usually they can't do them. And I'm like, I know, just the place for you to find exactly what you need for this lesson, or for this mastery check. And they're like, Okay, of course, I'll help to like I'm not like, I'm not gonna be like, I'm not here you have everything you need. Do it on your own. But, but yeah, it's like if you really want to improve it, this and you need to improve it this because, you know, if you're getting an R on your master check, meaning that you need to revise it, you do need to improve. If you really want to that improvement, you need to do the hard stuff, you need to dive in, do the learning, you know, and learn it for its own sake, not just for the great. It's a hard it's a hard mindset shift. I think I think that I catch myself in the old in the old way of thinking from time to time as well. And it's it's a mindset shift.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  29:49
It is for sure. I also think we're putting into systems in which challenging this is hard. Yes. So I think that all So as teachers, it's hard. I'm lucky that my school is standards based grading. But even within a school that is standards based grading, we do have differentiation and people that are still picking those half points are like getting more into the nitty gritty. And that's not what it's about. So you we have to check ourselves a lot as educators and as students.

Zach Diamond  30:21
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And slowly, we're working our way there. You're we are, you know, I'm really glad that we're talking about this pretty much for all of this month on this podcast, because, you know, it takes time, some of our students, I'm sure most of our students aren't only in modern classrooms, classes. And so, you know, they come to us for one period of the day, mine have seven classes in a day, and I see them for one, right. So, you know, we're working against your right, we're working against a very sort of entrenched system that we have to just chip away at piece by piece, but slowly, but surely, we, hopefully, we're making progress.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  31:01
It's the same way we want our students is that progress, where that's what we're moving towards, and communicating that progress and sharing that progress with other educators.

Zach Diamond  31:12
Exactly. All right, well, listeners, we are going to take a quick break for an announcement from Toni Rose. And when we come back, we will talk a little bit more about grading in a modern classroom and shifting some of those grading mindsets.

Toni Rose Deanon  31:28
Hey, MCP community, the only learning experiences happening this upcoming week is our monthly Twitter chat on equitable grading on Wednesday, September 6 at 7pm. Eastern Time. We have our fall cohort for our virtual mentorship program starting on October 16. This is the opportunity to work with a mentor who is an educator implementing blended self paced mastery based approaches in their own classrooms, check out www.modernclassrooms.org/mentorship. For more details, we also have scholarship opportunities so make sure to check those out. All links can be found on the show notes.

Zach Diamond  32:03
All right, we are back with Kate. And Kate, I want to ask you now, we've been talking sort of high level, broad strokes about grading, we've gotten a little bit into the sort of nitty gritty of what happens in your class. But I would like to have you describe for the listeners, sort of the elements of your modern classroom. And just more specifically, what gets graded in there. So if you can kind of describe your overall grading scheme as it pertains to the the elements of a modern classroom that should be familiar to listeners, you know, mastery checks, practice progress, videos, summative things like that, how do all of those elements of your modern classroom fit into your your grading scheme.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  32:46
So for each standard, we rate on a one through four scale very similar to colleges. One is usually for my classroom is you didn't attempt the assignment, you or you're completely off base, most of the times that happens if they're doing it digitally, and they're just looking at the wrong assignment, or just get completely confused and start just they need reteaching those students are retaught. To is you've gotten about half of it, you you're on the right path, but we do need some clarification. Three is you've met the standard and four is you've exceeded the standard. I always tell my students, you should live in three and visit four. Because they many of my students who have been in a traditional classroom, they're like, Well, I want 100 Miss and I'm like, You're that's not what it's about. Like you're not there yet. You need to practice more. We need more attempts at mastery before you can demonstrate that you're exceeding this standard. And that goes over well sometimes with my students other times they really just want me to give them a perfect for and that's not gonna happen.

Zach Diamond  34:00
Yeah, but that is such a great point, though. It's like, at what activity would you just expect to start out for the first time and do it perfectly? You know, I'm a musician, like, Can I pick up and oboe and just be perfect at it? No, of course not. I'm gonna be terrible. If I first pick up an oboe. I've never played an oboe before. Sorry, oboe players, but I chose to pick on you. Like, you know, students want this like, I want to get 100 And it's like, but you've just started this. Sorry. Yes, I'll get off my soapbox.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  34:29
Oh, I love that though. But that's exactly it is like you just started in this class. You're not going to get a four right away. In addition, my school policy is that we do 80% summative grades and 20% formative grades. I have also done 100% summative so what does that look like? 100% Somebody is just their unit assessment so I do fall modern classrooms project model in which my students are getting instructional videos with guided no notes, sometimes embedded questions, that's always depending on my technology access practice assignment, and then they always get a mastery check. Those three things are what students are doing in my classroom, pretty much every day, we do have some differentiation in terms of like, what activities, what types of videos and things like that. But those are pillars in my classroom. So when I was summative, nothing that they were doing got graded, and they just got graded at the end of the unit on a New York State Regents style test. So multiple choice and writing.

Zach Diamond  35:37
I see I was going to ask you, so they're still doing the formatives. They're just not being graded?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  35:43
Yes. So in 100% classroom, that's what that looked like.

Zach Diamond  35:48
Got it. And so what I was envisioning wasn't that you were just throwing them directly into the summative with no practice or anything. But when I guess what I was trying to clarify is like 100%, somewhat of just means that all of those activities are there for their own sake, for the sake of the learning, they're not part of the Great. Yes, I think that's really interesting and really powerful. Because even if they are sort of extrinsically motivated by their grade on the summative, they have to do those formative so they become motivated to do them, not by the grade, they're gonna get on them, specifically, but indirectly, maybe, but it's like the connection to or the connection between this activity. And my learning, I think is a little bit more explicit in that sort of a in that sort of a system. So very cool. 100% summative, I like that a lot.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  36:42
That worked well, for teachers, that were able to communicate student progress through things like mastery checks as well. So we were allowed to have like a zero weight column where I could track and parents can see when they log in to our learning management system, which is Schoology. To see kind of like where their student is trending, I think what's what's hard about is if you are waiting a long period between summative assessments, that can lead to not a lot of grades within one quarter. Sure. So that's where it got a little bit tricky. And that's where we decided collectively as a school to add that 20% formative. So that's not make or break for my students might add, I count my mastery, Texas formative grades, that's the only thing that I'm grading and putting in to the gradebook. Notes and practice are just practice.

Zach Diamond  37:37
Gotcha. And then everything in your class is graded on that one to four scale.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  37:42
Yes, all of my mastery checks are graded on a one to four scale. And then this also gets tricky. When I'm giving a unit test, I'm assessing on three different standards. I look at the test breakdown and say, okay, these three questions are on standard one point a or one A, and then these three questions or one B, and students get a one through four grade on each of those standards.

Zach Diamond  38:11
So the test has three grades on it.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  38:13
Yes. So if there's a three standard tests, they get three different grades that go into their summative column based on the standard.

Zach Diamond  38:22
Yeah, yeah. And that makes sense. Because it would I feel like it would do a disservice to their knowledge to like, average out if they got a one on one standard and a four on the other standard to like average them out.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  38:35
Right? It Yeah, it doesn't make sense that way, right? 

Zach Diamond  38:38
Because in one, there are four and one there at one. So you know, interesting. Okay, well, that was definitely nitty gritty. That was a little bit more granular than I even expected. But as you're doing the modern classrooms thing, and you're looking at that progression, and I was thinking about this, especially in the 100% summative model there, but I guess what the 20% format is to they're doing the same activities, just some are graded the match the mastery checks are graded. It is really the checking the progress, though, that you use to ensure that they're on track, right? Yes, you need especially with the 100% summative because if they're going to do well on that summative they have to get through the material. And so you really need that Progress Tracker. And I can see, I don't know, I guess the timeline of when you were doing this, but I can see why before modern classrooms you were using kind of like a proto tracker to keep track of where they were, and make sure that they were all getting to the end right getting through all the content they needed to know before attempting the summative.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  39:41
That's exactly why I was using some type of tracker to see where my students were at. Because otherwise I don't know how they're going to do on that summative assessment or I can't even predict or know what areas I need to work on something that's really interesting that I wanted to add is when we have opportunities to reflect. And we can look at those standards. And then I tell them, what lessons go with each standard. So I'm like, Oh, you see here, like you didn't get to that last part of the unit. And then that's the part on the tests that you didn't perform at your ability on. So let's just redo those assignments, and then retake that part of the assessment.

Zach Diamond  40:25
Yeah. Okay. I'm liking this about standards based grading. Now, I'm sorry, I'm starting to understand. And it it does sort of like segment the learning into different aspects. In the IB, we use four criteria, every subject has its own four criteria. And I would always kind of imagine, you know, a musician who was really, really good at sight reading and playing exactly what's written and interpreting it beautifully, right. And then a musician who doesn't know how to read music, but can pick up a guitar and like, write a song, you know, those two criteria? Well, I guess those two musicians are both 100%. Valid. I like this idea of what I'm trying to get out here is that I like this idea of sort of breaking down the actual learning into different elements that don't like, average each other out that don't cause one grade to go down by by being less strong in one area, if that makes sense. Or in another area. I'm liking this, I'm liking this description. And I think that it's definitely a healthy mindset to have around grading. We're looking at improvement here in specific domains.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  41:32
Yes. And it's so overwhelming as a student to get a test back and be like, okay, so I got a 75. Like, what do I do to improve? And when you're doing those standards, and you're linking your standards to your lessons each day, you can say, Okay, you need to go back and do lessons. 1.1 1.2 1.3 check those out. Let's re look at those mastery checks, see how we did? And then let's retake the assessment, instead of looking at a whole unit? That's overwhelming.

Zach Diamond  42:03
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Now, to those, each of those mastery checks, they're only on one individual standard.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  42:10
I try very hard to make them on one individual standard. One part that is difficult is sometimes I'm pairing a content with a skill. It's always one content standard. But sometimes it's also like cause and effect, or similarity and difference using their content knowledge, which is what they're going to have to do on their final state assessment. So sometimes that can get a little bit tricky. But ultimately, students can't write about something if they don't know the content.

Zach Diamond  42:39
Sure. Oh, man. Okay. Well, this has been fantastic. This is great stuff. For me. I love learning more about standards based grading, because it's something that I hear a lot, and I need to go and learn more about it now. I certainly feel like I agree with it. And yeah, I mean, this has been really super fascinating for me, just to like, dive into that specific realm. And think about how it does present an alternative to what I would consider to be the traditional approach to grading and it's also helping me realize these things, right. Like, it's good to make it so concrete to say like, yeah, the fact that you that you aren't good at composing, doesn't take away that from the fact that you are very good at playing. And again, I'm using my music analogy, because that's what I'm familiar with. But like, I think that that's definitely a very good mindset to be moving toward. So so thank you for that. Kate, before we wrap up here, I'd like to hear from you what you hope to see in the future. I think you might not have mentioned this, but something you wrote in, in your notes in our document is that you became a distinguished educator and an expert mentor for modern classrooms. That was in 2021.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  43:56
Yes, that was in 2021. I was able to do VSI. And then immediately after Virtual Summer Institute, I applied to become a distinguished educator. And then that same fall, I became an expert mentor with the Modern Classrooms Project. So right now, I work with Mentees in the virtual Summer Institute, as well as the school year Institute, and work with them through the course and their submissions. And I love doing that part is being a thought partner for people that want to switch to the MPC model and MCP model.

Zach Diamond  44:35
Yes, absolutely. Me too. That's my favorite part of the of this work is getting on calls with people and just like talking through issues. Yeah. So what else? Like what do you hope to see in the future in your classroom? What goals do you have for yourself in the classroom?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  44:50
I was actually speaking to a co worker about this today when I was preparing for the podcast and like, I don't know what my goal should be. Like I'm working towards I'm a mentor. or coordinator this school year. So I'll be working with other professionals in my school. So I do want to share the model with them. And see some benefits of P even pieces of it. Like I am a huge proponent of like mastery checks and rubrics, or pacing tracker or different elements of it. So I love to share it with some new professionals. But also in my own classroom, I really want to conference more with my students. That's something that I'm always reaching towards. And it happens organically, but I would really like to plan for it. And my coworker really brought that out to me. She was like, that's something you talk about all the time. So that's what you should be working towards. And that was thank you for pointing that out to me.

Zach Diamond  45:41
Yeah, I love that. You know, I'm always all about those relationships.

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  45:46
Well, that's exactly it is like, I love building relationships. And it does happen in my classroom. I purposely plan for those beginning of the year ones. But as I continue up throughout the year, I want to be meaningful in my conferencing with students and really keep track of it and help them grow in that sense.

Zach Diamond  46:06
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So Kate, how can our listeners connect with you if they'd like to, you know, have that thought partner for I guess anything MCP but also more specifically to talk with you about grading. ask you questions about these shifts that you have made in your grading practices. How can people connect with you?

Kaitlyn McGillicuddy  46:24
I've rebooted my teacher Instagram and it's @globalwithgilly. My students call me Gilly. So that is a great place to connect with me. I'll be posting more modern classrooms project, more mentor coordination, social studies, all of that stuff, as well as literacy that I'm really passionate about that. So you can connect with me there. My emails super long. So that's a harder one. I can give it to you in the show notes. If you want me to do that as well.

Zach Diamond  46:52
Sure, I will link Kate's email in the show notes. So listeners if you want to email her. It'll be there. Check that podcast player. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Kate, I am really glad that we've been able to sort of open up this month's set of discussions on grading with this. We had some specifics and some and some generalities. And I'm really excited to get into this topic more. And I think this was a great start. So thank you, Kate, so much for joining me. Of course, listeners. Remember, you can always email us at podcast at modern classrooms.org. And you can find the show notes for this episode on the web at podcast dot modern classrooms.org/ 155. Or in your podcast player if you're using a decent one. We'll have this episode's transcript uploaded on Friday, so be sure to check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. And thank you all for listening. Have a great week, and we will be back next Sunday. Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at www dot modern classrooms.org. And you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at learn dot modern classrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @modernclassproj. That's PR O J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai