134 - (Replay) Exploring Alt Grading in Physical Education (in more detail) with Josh Ogilvie

Episode 134 • 3rd February 2026 • The Grading Podcast • Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley

74 - Alt Grading in PE in More Detail (Josh Ogilvie)

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Boz: Hello and welcome back to the Grading podcast. Due to unfortunate technical issues, we were unable to record this week. We will be back next week and have a couple of great episodes planned, so we hope to see you back then. Until then, I'm gonna leave you with a replay from one of our episodes where we interviewed a Canadian PE teacher. Hope you enjoy and we'll see you next week.

Josh Ogilvie: Shift that, what are we doing today, to what are the kids learning today, and once you do that shift, you might start to recognize what are the specifics, like you can take that down a few levels, and if you can't answer what kids are learning, then take a moment, step back, and really like, okay, well, what, what am I teaching? It should be the same thing as that they're learning, and how will we know if they're on the right path? How will we know if they're going to be successful? And that's where the criteria comes in to, to gauge how well the learning is happening.

Boz: Welcome to the Grading Podcast where we will take a critical lens to the methods of assessing students learning, from traditional grading to alternative methods of grading. We'll look at how grades impact our classrooms and our students success. I'm Robert Bosley, a high school math teacher, instructional coach, intervention specialist, and instructional designer. In the Los Angeles Unified School District and with Cal State LA.

Sharona: And I'm Sharona Krinsky, a math instructor at Cal State Los Angeles, faculty coach, and instructional designer. Whether you work in higher ed or K 12, whatever your discipline is, whether you are a teacher, a coach, or an administrator, this podcast is for you. Each week, you will get the practical, detailed information you need to be able to actually implement effective grading practices in your class And at your institution.

Boz: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Robert Bosley, one of your two co hosts and with me as always, Sharana Krinsky. How are you doing today, Sharona?

Sharona: I am doing fantastic. I had the experience of a lifetime last night, as we said on one of the previous pods. This is Thanksgiving week. We are actually recording multiple episodes, but last night I got to see Audra McDonald in Gypsy at the Majestic Theater, which was just recently, you know, the Majestic Theater is where Phantom of the Opera was for 31 years and it shut down and they had to completely renovate the theater to get it ready. And it was just an unbelievable experience. So, this is my unpaid pitch that if you're in New York City and can go see Audra McDonald in Gypsy, it is worth it. How about you? How are you doing?

Boz: You know, I always enjoy when we get to come on and record and the fact that this is like our third recording in. three or four days, it's really kind of bizarre, but it's also fun. But yeah, we are, we're definitely taking advantage of the Thanksgiving break here to get some episodes recorded.

Sharona: Because everyone's schedules work! We're available. Our guests are available. So yeah. So speaking of guests, we have another guest today, and I'm so excited because we're starting to get more guests who write into us and say, Hey, I'd like to come in and talk about what I'm doing. So today we have our second Canadian on the podcast, also from British Columbia, right? This is Josh Ogilvie. Josh has been teaching in the K 12 system for 22 years. He is a high school physical education department head. He leads a physical education specialist association. And he also leads some work for quality physical education at the national level. So, not only our second Canadian, but our second Canadian from British Columbia, with attachments to physical education, so I want to know what all is going on there. You've also worked for SolutionTree as an assessment associate, and working with teachers in schools across America. To help them with approaches to assessment and grading. So welcome Josh.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Boz: So I definitely want to ask you later about the SolutionTree stuff. But the first thing we always ask a new guest when they come on is just how did you get involved in this world of alternative grading?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah. If I think back to kind of my origin story, how did I, What was the transformational moment for me? It's a story I call the story of Chris. Chris is an alias. I never share the student's real name. And I'm sure a lot of PE teachers can, and teachers in general, but a lot of PE teachers can relate to this story where you have a lot of kids in the class. And some kids, they have some more experience with athletics. And so how they show up in classes, their athleticism is pretty high. But their behavior is pretty low in terms of acceptable behavior. And Chris was somebody who refused to help out refused to show up on time, come play, leave, back talk. And I would contact home a lot of the time trying to work with home to like, course correct some of those behavioral challenges with them. But I never heard anything from home.

And this was probably my, I think it was my third year teaching. And I, at that point, I had no guidance from people I was working with in terms of, anything to do with assessment and grading. I would ask questions and every person I'd ask, I'd get a very different response. And it was quite concerning to me because I'm young. I don't want to rock the boat, but I also don't want to seem inept. I want to make sure I'm doing things right. And I knew this was a weakness. And up until that point, no one had ever called me out for anything. So I was like, okay, I can guess I can do whatever I want. No one's going to notice. No one's really going to care. So, first reporting period is coming to an end, and shortly after the first report cards came out, we had what we call our parent teacher interviews. And, I realized pretty quick that like, athletically, Chris was pretty gifted, but my goodness, I'm going to dock him some scores, some marks, because he needs to understand that you can't behave this way and get a high grade. These are the thinkings that I was going through.

And our grading system in British Columbia is a little different than most jurisdictions. So I gave him a 75. And I say I gave him because I literally skewed the scores. I edited them based on what I thought would be a score that would drive him nuts. And I saw on the parent teacher interview list that his mom had signed up. And I was so happy because I was like, great, I'm going to get a chance to rat him out. Because she's not responding to my phone calls. We had emails, not as efficient as we do now, but anyway, it wasn't working, so I was like, great. And then, I'm talking to a parent and I see across the gym that Chris's mom comes in and Chris is with her and I'm just ecstatic, like, great, I get to rat him out. In front of his mother. I'm like, I just won the lottery. So then Chris's mom comes by and Chris comes by they sit down. We engage in some superficial chat, some nice pleasantries and I can see Chris kind of squirming in the chair, which I get as a student. You're sitting in a big gym and teachers there and your parent is there and a little bit awkward. And I'm just like, I just, I can't wait to get into it. And she's like, she starts asking these things and then she says, so why did, tell me, why did my son get 75%? So I pull out my spreadsheet. I have these categories that I created, you know, showing up on time, participating, effort. You know, treats people all these behaviors that I had and the way to categories that I assigned to them. There's no science behind it. I just like, I'm going to throw these random numbers on there.

So I had the categories with the weights and then I showed the scores that he got me and I fudge those scores to make sure it arrived at 75 percent and I knew it would drive them nuts because He was a great athlete and I'm looking, I show her the sheet, and she's looking it over, and I look at Chris, and his head's down, and I'm like, yes, this is fantastic. Like, I was really weaponizing the grades to try to get a reaction, and to get him in trouble, and the mom looks at me, and she's like, this is nice, but what does this have to do with what he's learning? And in that moment, I froze because A, I didn't know what kind of question I was like, I pointed at the sheet and I think I mumbled something. I don't think a word came out, but a mumble like, right? And she's looking at me and I'm just like, I'm starting. I went from a moment of shock to moment of anger. Because I started thinking how dare she asked me that question, like what do you mean? Like here is the truth. It's in the spreadsheet right exactly, right? Like yeah, this this story doesn't tell this story.

And then she starts going on asking me more questions and expressing her concerns about what does this have to do with his learning? What is he learning in class? And the more I couldn't answer that, the more I started to see red. I was fuming. And then I could literally feel my eyes shifting towards Chris was and I was talking to myself like, Don't look at Chris. Don't look at Chris. Don't look at Chris. I looked at Chris. And Chris was smirking. Which just made it worse for me. I was just like, I don't even remember how that conversation ended. I was just in a state of anger. And I don't know if listeners have ever been in Vancouver, in November, it gets dark here early, it rains a lot, it gets cold, and my commute at that time was about an hour and a half commute on public transit, subway system, and buses, and I left that parent teacher interview And by the time I managed to calm myself down, literally, I cooled down because of the temperature and the rain. I just remember thinking, what am I going to do? I felt like such a fraud in that moment. The next morning, that night and the next morning I woke up, like, I felt like such a fraud. I think I took the next day off, quote unquote, sick day. Hope I don't get reprimanded for that.

Sharona: I think the statute of limitations has run after 19 years.

Josh Ogilvie: I'm in a different district anyway, so we're good, but I remember thinking, I can't continue on like this. Either something changes, or I'm going to leave teaching. Because my greatest fear at that point was seeming like I don't know what I'm doing. And the mother exposed that, in terms of assessment and grading. Because I couldn't communicate what Chris was learning, or how he was doing. For me, that just exposed a lot of these negative self thoughts I had inside of me. And that began my journey into I need to change something at the time. I didn't know it was assessment I didn't know it was grading but that journey of what am I going to do to change? led me to, to when I started to read about assessment because I had nothing in my college career, nothing really about assessment and grading. And the more that I started to read into it, the more white bulbs started popping in my head, like, Oh my goodness, these are the, were the major gaps in my teaching or that I didn't want to talk to anybody, cause I thought, everybody had these answers. I thought everybody knew what they were doing. I was incredibly wrong. But that, that was my story that led me into the world of assessment and grading, because up to that point, I never would have taken on any sort of content in that, in that that topic at all. But that experience with Chris just really shone a light on me about where my gaps were. And what I needed to do to become a more effective teacher that I wanted to become.

Boz: That's really interesting. That is the second, you're the second time or second person that their journey began with a parent conference. Yeah, I don't know if you listened to our episode with Becky Peppler.

Sharona: The first, I think it was the first episode, right? When we had Becky and Garth.

Boz: But yeah, hers was a very different parent conversation, but the same results. A parent asking a question that she absolutely could not answer because she's looking at a bunch of points and averages and like I don't know, do study more. Yeah, that's, that's Really interesting. And I would imagine an uncomfortable way to start this journey.

Josh Ogilvie: Gotcha. All I could envision was like, where's my principal? Please don't hear any of this. Cause I was just like, I'm going to get fired. And my department head, is he hearing any of this? And I just, I literally felt like in that moment, every eye in the gym was on me. Of course that wasn't true, but it's just how I felt because it almost felt like I'm standing up naked. Like literally you think everybody's looking at me. Whatever your fears are. And all it was, is me. Is it just, she, she put a mirror in for me to look at myself and I realized the things I had been omitting for years. But yeah, it was definitely uncomfortable.

Sharona: So how long did it take after that parent teacher conference? I mean, I know you woke up the next morning, you knew something had to, had to change. At what point did you realize it was your assessment and grading? Like, what was your introduction to that piece of it?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, it's, you know, it's funny actually. Not necessarily related to that, but I took a year leave of absence from that district, and I went and taught somewhere else. Different story. I was in a long distance relationship, but it was when I went and I worked in a different district in a behavioral program in schools, it was stepping away from that entire context, teaching physical education and looking and learning about kids in a different realm that I started to see there's so much more I could be doing. I, I picked up a few books here and there. There was one PD experience we had at our school and it was, it was really amplifying that earlier experience. When I was at this new school, the teacher, or sorry, the principal was talking about assessment. And his words were like you should all be doing this. You should all be doing formative assessment I'm like, what the heck is that? And so I it's like I have to go to the bathroom I didn't come back to that pd experience because again, it really touched upon my earlier moment with chris and his mom.

But then I that pd experience helped me put some labels to where I was feeling really raw and really unequipped and I started to dive into it. So I would say from that moment of chris chris and his mom to the point where I would feel pretty competent and confident to talk to anybody about assessment. It was probably about a three and four year period, but that being said, it was, I was doing it at a leisurely pace. It was not something I fully dove in, but once I did dive in, it was like, my God, completely different.

Sharona: So where are you now? So that, so that's, you know, 17, 15 years ago. What do you do today? Are you still in the classroom? And what does your assessment and grading practices look like?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, so this year I put myself on the substitute teacher list for personal reasons. I just needed flexibility in my life with where myself and my family are at right now. So I'm still in the class. I'm just not in a contracted position by choice. But I'm also, I continue to work, like for the last 10 plus years I have been really helping teachers, teachers and classroom teachers, but really helping them understand kind of where I was earlier in my career. Like, what is assessment? How can it look? What is it? Not really dispelling some of the myths and perceptions out there around what it is. And that just came by fluke. Somebody asked me a question once, and I talked to them, talked to the department, and they had some questions about it.

So I started speaking more, and then I started getting invited to come work with the school, talk to the school, and then I started working at like conferences, and it just kind of grew unintentionally. It just grew into something bigger where I just, where I by how I've refined my practice around using assessment intentionally using it as a verb, not necessarily a noun, like it's an embedded practice in our daily basis. A lot of teachers have asked, how does that look? What does that look like? And so where I've gone from like just doing things in my class to then working with another teacher, another department, another school to schools and now districts throughout North America. What I do now is, is really, Show how it can be used, but not from too much of a theoretical lens. Like, obviously, theory needs a back some of practices, but we know teachers, they're limited in time. And how does this look in my class? So just share a lot of practical experiences. What are we teaching? Making sure we're crystal clear on what we're teaching slash what students are learning, making sure our assessment methods align with what we're intending for the kids to do, and then looking at some approaches and tools that can be used to really help you listen or get that feed or that information about how they're doing and then respond to that in real time.

A lot of times teachers will say like, well, I've got a rubric and I'm like, well, a rubric is not a Swiss Army tool. Like it can be useful for some things, but depending on what you're using it for, it may not be the best. I used to use these massive analytical rubrics. Font size four in seven different categories and expecting kids. It was just oh my god, like hours and weeks creating this. What do you mean? You're not using this intentionally like what was I thinking? Right, you don't know what you don't know. So long winded way of just really saying, I still do these things in the classes I work with and teachers I work with is just making it tangible for them to see what's my first step or two forward so that I can get to the place where I can answer. What are kids learning? How are they doing? And what can I do to support them? It's just really trying to get them to reframe the mindset around what assessment and grading can be. So that it looks like it's, it's a more naturally embedded part of their teaching.

Boz: Okay. Wait, I've got to ask, did you just say you had a seven level rubric with four font size?

Josh Ogilvie: Oh yeah. Yeah. And the, the weird, like. You would think that might be the origin and then you edit it from there. We actually took less and made more. So we took was like a three criterion thing and had four different categories of success and we made seven. So because it was so big, we're like, we don't want this to be two pages or front and back. So what did we do? We decreased the font size. The intention was there, but the execution.

Boz: How long did it take you to realize this might not be the most useful rubric.

Josh Ogilvie: I want to backtrack for a sec. We were using this at a time when no one even knew what rubrics were. I need to boost my ego for that. It probably took, I'm not, I mean, I hate to say it, it probably took two to three reporting periods. This is back when we had four reporting periods in a year. We had a linear class, so we see the kids every other day all year. And I think by the late spring reporting period, we're like, Has anybody noticed that the kids are literally just circling and handing it back to us? Like, the stuff they're circling, it's like, is this really useful? And it was like that sunken ship theory. We put so much time into this. We can't let it go. We need to let this go. Because not only are they not using it, what are we doing with this information?

Boz: Oh yeah, we've all been there. We've all done that. We spent a bunch of time creating what we think is the Mona Lisa of either rubrics or a lesson plan or an activity. And it absolutely bombs and we're like, okay, I got to try it one more time. Maybe it was just this one time that we ended up using it for way too long.

Josh Ogilvie: Oh my goodness. And I remember asking the class, cause this is back when we had one big jam, we had two to three classes in there, we had no divider. So we were team teaching was not an option. You had to do it. And I remember like, On the fly, I looked at the other teachers like, do you trust me? They're like, yeah, I'm like, okay. So I asked the kids, how many of you actually find this to be useful? And you, you know, the pleasers in the room, they put their hand up hesitantly and you're like and that's like, we had about 80 to 90 kids. And it's like, we're looking at five hands and like, how many of you find this to be not helpful or a waste of time? And those hands came up. I thought shoulders were going to be thrown out of their sockets. That's how fast the hands went up. I was like, wow, okay. And it was just and I think at that point too, the conversation was show the students how you're trying things. Don't be afraid to fail in front of kids.

And I was just like, okay, we just embodied that. Like, yeah, this is not working. Okay, let's, let's go back to the drawing board. And. I can't remember how we finished off that last reporting period, but we revised it for the next year, just really simplified in terms of, we realized the language is not only is it not accessible, it's just, it's a barrier what's on that rubric. And it was only done at reporting period. So like, that's a major problem. Like, asking kids to reflect on two to three months of learning on the spot, that's not gonna work. So, there's a lot of things that were unpacked with that.

Boz: That's, that's something that we have, we've talked about with other guests and about our own practices, the the amount of mistakes that we have made along the way, you know, we celebrate that we joke about it. But yeah, they could be really painful at the time. But, you know, that's, that's one of our theories or one of our you know, foundations of our pedagogy is that we learn from mistakes. So, you know, we, we don't hide from them and we've all made them. It's fun to laugh about them years later.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah. Not, not in that moment, but there's hours invested. So you're

Sharona: a listener to the podcast. I don't know how many episodes, but you know, that we try to get into the weeds because many of the people listening to the podcast are trying to do this, so I'm going to, I'm going to push a little bit on some of those weeds. Do it. You put yourself on the sub list this year, but you were in the classroom the last couple of years, I would assume. Can you give me details of what your, you know, your grading architecture looks like? Cause we, you know, we base everything on the four pillars, clearly defined learning outcomes assessment of progress, marks indicate progress, multiple attempts, and feedback. So how does that look? What PE class? Cause I don't remember ever taking a test in a PE class. I also had phone in PE classes because I was in marching band. So that's a different story, but what does that look like? What did those four pillars look like in a PE class for you?

Josh Ogilvie: For me? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. And I appreciate the pushing because we want to make this as real as possible. First step is I always, even before the year starts, I always look at my learning standards that I'm focusing on and make sure that I prioritize what are the key ones, what are the essential ones that we're going to be doing and unpack those for clarity. So when I'm looking at my quote unquote unit plans, which I'm not a huge fan of the unit structure, but logistics play a role. And when I'm looking at what I'll be teaching in terms of themes is, is which, which of the learning standards are going to relate to them? How do I scaffold these learning targets, the progressions based on those the learning standards that are embedded in there? So for each of them, there's going to be some selected criteria.

Sharona: Can you give me an example of a learning outcome? I mean, like, I'm literally drawing a blank in PE on learning outcomes, so.

Josh Ogilvie: All right, so I will, one of the ones in the districts I work in, where grade eight's the first year of high school, is one of the first things I'll be teaching them is different ways to monitor and adjust their exertion levels so that they know, you know, I'm going to really simplify the language. Am I going too hard or not hard enough based on whatever activity we're doing? So, I'll introduce a variety of different ways that they can do that without relying on tech. Right? There's things like a rate of perceived exertion, a talk test, breathing scales, a lot of different things we can do. So I'll introduce them through some direct instruction. They'll go out, they'll practice, they'll try a few, and then what I'll have is the criteria today. It might be, if I'm introducing it, is can you name, identify what it is, and give a few traits about it.

So you can use simple things at the end of the day, like an exit ticket. Right? You're just looking for a simple recall. Right? You don't need to give a test necessarily. You can if you want. The time consumption on that is probably not appropriate. And then eventually what I'm going to have them do is start using. So because they're applying or using, what I'm going to be looking for, I'll be doing an observation of sort. It's, I don't want them to give me an exit ticket because I'm trying to see how well they can use some of those different ways to monitor their exertion levels in activity. So a lot of the ones I'll do with that is I'll have a conversation with them. Like, here's what I'm seeing. Where do you think you're at? Can you justify with that? With evidence from it. And those are like maybe 20, 30 second conversations, if that, until eventually seeing when it's when it's time to evaluate how well they've been able to do that is we'll have a variety of activities they can choose.

So I'll say like, here's the goal is to get yourself in this range, which method are you going to use, which activity are you going to do, within reason, you can't have 30 different activities, but you can have 2 to 3 options, they can pick and choose their place, or the activity they want to do. And then you're just watching and going around having these conversations, see if they can explain it, but not just explain it, can they justify it. Or use evidence to like, yeah, I was playing this activity, so I'll use volleyball, for example, kids who say they want to get at a high rate, like a five out of seven, where it's like pretty, the effort level or the exertion level is pretty high, and they're playing team volleyball, I love volleyball, I'm a coach, I'm a player of volleyball, but you're not usually going to get your effort level or your exertion level story that high, so if they're like, yeah, I'm a six out of seven or five out of seven, I'm like, well, can you qualify that? And they're like, I can barely breathe. I'm sweating. I'm like, I'm looking at you. We're having a full fledged conversation. There's no breaks in between your words, and you're definitely not sweating. I think we need to readjust here. But that all those conversations usually happen leading up to that point. And the reason I'll, I will teach that usually in the beginning of the year, is because that's a, that's a standard, that's a, a part of their learning that they can use throughout the entire year.

So if I cover that and here in Canada, our school system starts in September, if I'm covering that and diving deep into that in September, and they're pretty proficient at by the end of September, then throughout the rest of the year, I can continue to look for evidence. I have to look at it every day, but you continue to look for to see, like, we're going to try this activity today. Here's a goal zone, stay between like a four and a five or three and a five. They know what it means, what it feels like, what it sounds like. And you can look and observe. So you can gather evidence throughout the year. So if kids aren't doing well with it in September, that's fine. We can give feedback on that in October, November, December, keep going on.

Sharona: Well, and what I love about that example is it's, Differentiated and personalized without the instructor having to do any work to differentiate and personalize. Every kid's individual fitness level is going to play in to that exertion.

Absolutely.

Boz: Yeah, absolutely. And it's an example of an assessment that isn't paper, pencil. So often when we say the word assessment, Most people immediately think test, quiz, you know, something you do, and yeah, this is a, what'd you say, a 10, 20 second conversation that will probably give you better assessment results, more authentic results than any paper, pencil quiz or test that you could have ever imagined given on this topic.

Josh Ogilvie: Absolutely. Yeah. And I appreciated mentioning the fitness part because when I started to use this with when we're looking at fitness and I don't do fitness testing, but I'll throw that out there because I know a lot of people do everybody somewhere and to expect everybody to get to the same place in terms of their exertion levels is silly. So when you can look at, like, if you're doing a series of exercises and you have the students, they know how to stay within predetermined zones. What that looks like will be different for people, but they're gonna be able to self monitor, and, and I always go back to like the January 1st exercisers. You know, the people who have these like, great goals, and I, and I share, like, people I know in my life, like, they'll strap on a pair of running shoes on January 1st, and they'll run two or three blocks, and then get winded and say, like, running sucks, and never want to do it again. And there's so many reasons why that happens, and I share with the students, like, because a lot of people don't understand how to monitor their body. And know where's the appropriate zone for me in this moment in this activity and the more we can do that, the more that our movements or exercises won't be as threatening because if I'm expecting, say, for example, someone like Chris, that high level athlete to go at the same rate as someone who has no exposure, no experience with different types of activities. That's a fool's errand, right? It's not going to happen.

Sharona: That's amazing. What kind of response do you get, first from PE teachers when you do that, and then when you're working with non PE teachers? I'm curious if you have similar experiences to our experiences.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, yeah, it's PE teachers a lot of times, kind of like you've done that, and that's why I really appreciated you pushing, is they'll get it in, in essence, but they want to see it. And when you can show that, they're like, Oh, a lot of them are like, I already do most of that. How can I do it? So, so when you mentioned like not having a paper pen test or thing. Yeah, a lot of teachers when they hear assessment or grading, they go to quiz or test or project, right? Some sort of Bristol board, construction paper, whatever. It's like, no, there's so many other things. And so they're like, Oh, wow, I can actually have a conversation and get him. I'm like, yeah, that you're old. There is no other assessment method that you can go as deep as you can with a conversation like you can really dive deep with somebody. And so they're like, oh.

And so then the conversation start to evolve to like, well, what else can I do when I want to share some of these ideas? And I did this recently. I was working with the school down in California and we're looking at unpacking learning standards and then, you know, making sure the assessment method if it's constructed, selective response or performance assessment, making sure they're aligned and I literally shared this exact one about the monitoring exertion levels because most people have an experience in PE, whether it's good, bad or somewhere in the middle. It's somewhere. If I was to put something up with math, people in the room are like, I'm not a math person. If they have that identity won't connect. But most people have a PE connection. So when I share that it's many of them see how we can gather the information. The assessment methods we can use. They kind of miss the whole part of what's there, but they see the connection in the process like. Oh, and then a lot of them were like, how am I doing that in my class in terms of breaking this this information down? So it's tangible for the kids. How am I gathering that assessment information? Am I gathering the appropriate based on it? What the learning targets asking me to do and I used one like that because I think it's pretty easy that if I want to see how well kids are using these methods to monitor their exertion level, getting a multiple choice test, you're not going to get the same information.

Boz: But I think that's funny when you were talking about when you were doing this with PE teachers and a lot of them are like, Oh, Yeah, I'm already doing this. I just didn't know I could use this as an assessment. Like it, it's amazing how often it's almost like an educator needs to get permission to do anything out of the ordinary it's, but they're already doing it and then as soon as they're finding out. Oh, that counts as an assessment? I can do that?

Sharona: Well, because I mean, I get it because unfortunately the math is usually the barrier, right? Because they're like, well, but how do I quantify this? How do I make this objective and quantifiable? And I'm like, well, you don't. That's the point. Like, could we stop using math to measure student learning, please, says the mathematician.

Josh Ogilvie: Well, that's a great point, because I kind of nerded out when I started down this assessment journey. I started as a classroom teacher in the assessment journey, then I went to my PE teaching. I was like, wow. Then I started to read about the history of assessment and grading in PE, and it's shocking and alarming at the same time. But it's almost like we're on this. three, four decade identity crisis because we've really, people are still doing it, but we've really moved away from stand in line, kick a ball into a net 10 times and however many you get in the appropriate, like we've really moved away from that type of skills testing. And by doing that and then also moving away from the fitness testing, like ways to create quote, unquote, an objective score is a lot of people are like, well, what do I use? And so a lot of times what we have is like, I think a lot of PE teachers want to do different than that, are unsure of how to do different than that, and without any sort of guided support and permission, as you mentioned, a lot of them are like, well, I don't know what else to do, and I don't want to do kids wrong. So they might go back to these traditional practices that are at a conflict with a lot of their places, or a conflict of how do I identify and communicate what kids are learning, and if I don't know, Then I got to have something that protects me. And that's where we get to the math and the math is, as you mentioned, it's quite problematic.

Sharona: Oh yeah. We were just talking to someone on our most recent recording about an article that I haven't read yet, but I am excited to read 17 reasons. Football is better than high school. And I suspect that a lot of those reasons are related to things that might also happen in a PE classroom. To be honest. So it's, it's interesting to to look at, can you use something like this? Because we're trying there, this article is trying to, use what the good parts of football are to bring those into school. But I wonder if it'd be even more relevant to PE class in some ways. So I don't know. It's, it's.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, I love that. I know that a lot of the literature on assessment and grading is they'll use PE as an example, because naturally, a lot of PE teachers are giving feedback. Where I push back on that is the quality of the feedback being given, and what is that feedback attached to, and where you mention the good parts of football where coaches are like, we're working on these skills, they're getting targeted intervention, targeted feedback, targeted practice. Like that is great quality in any class, where the kids know exactly what they're working on, they know what the criteria is, they're getting feedback here's where you're at. Here's how to move forward. That can help any class, especially in PE where kids, a lot of our kids enter the gymnasium or where we might be teaching with this negative self perception. A lot of stuff they're bringing in and the more we can clarify, here's what we're learning about today. Here's what success looks like. And we get feedback on that based on evidence, the more we can time, I'm just going to say attack, but not literally, the more we can attack that negative self talk that a lot of the kids have, because they will, they might think I'm not athletic, I give this one a little time, I'm not good at gym class, and that's a big one I unpack with them, I'll just like, where, where you're not good, what's the evidence to support that, and they'll bring up experiences then when you start to share stories about how they're successing, or how they're succeeding, and it can be one small bit of success. But that one bit of success, like, we're learning this today, here's the criteria, here's what you're doing well. And for kids who have never had a positive piece of feedback in PE, that can be the start of something really big. And I don't want to get too romantic because people might take that like, yeah, but there have been so many experiences I've had with kids. Because in our jurisdiction, majority of our kids don't get a qualified PE teacher until they hit high school. So they come in with a variety of experiences and perceptions of self and sometimes you really have to help them unlearn what they've learned in terms of self and P. E. and really focus on what they can do and small bits of success building upon each other is quite transformational for a lot of the kids out there.

Boz: Well, yeah, that I mean, that was a big part of the origin story of Colin. I was, I couldn't draw a blank on the last name, but that was a big part of his origin story was, you know, dealing with a female student, you know, in the middle school ages. So a weird time for anyone, and her very negative self image of herself and PE. And. So that, yeah, I can see how that can have a huge impact. And I mean, we see it with math too, especially in the high school or college class of that student that we get, that hasn't had a good thing said to them about their performance and math classes since elementary school. And they're just, convinced that they can't do math. I mean,

Sharona: and the only redeeming feature in my world and PE was that it ended after my sophomore year, you

Josh Ogilvie: know,

Sharona: so, you know, except that I still kept taking marching band, which also counted. But yeah, I think the only thing worse than being a PE teacher in a high school is being a PE teacher in a middle school as far as, well,

Josh Ogilvie: yeah,

Sharona: impact.

Josh Ogilvie: Well, that's, that's it. And you know, at the risk of sounding Like an old person, you know, like kids these days sort of thing is, is, and I, I talk with teachers a lot, like there's legitimacy to that sort of kids these days, because the last 10 years, our world has changed dramatically. And if, and if we're looking at what kids are doing, but not just kids, but people, but we work with kids to focus on that. If you look at what they're doing on their daily basis, like we know the dropout rate for those who are playing organized sports. It's astronomically high at the early teen years and you think about that if kids are coming into our classes who've chosen to not play organized sport anymore and our classes are geared to continue to play organized sport. There is a clash there And if we have kids who've never played it and have these negative self perceptions of self and we're still doing organized sport, there's another clash and what's the long term repercussions of that? We've seen through a lot of anecdotes, especially in the last 5 - 10 years in media, is the best part of PE is when it ended. I think there was a, an article a few years ago that, that was almost the exact title. And it's like, that's a problem. You know, and if we're looking at one of the big goals, and, and I know when I worked with our Ministry of Education to design our curriculum here in BC, is I looked at jurisdictions across the world, and the most quoted goal is, Something along the lines of introducing kids to activities that they might want to do in life. They might want to be healthy, active people. And if we're looking at the impacts of what's happening, we can see there's a conflict there, which is very problematic.

Sharona: So, where , does PE go for now? Have, have these, has assessment and grading practices kind of infiltrated into, do you have some like national organizations or international organizations? How does this start to spread and gain ground?

Josh Ogilvie: That, that's a, I love that question because I've been at this, I say at this meeting, the assessment and grading at PE and really working with people for the last, probably 11 years, 11, 12 years. And when I began, it was like nobody, if, if I was able to connect with someone, it was like one person or one person there. I have noticed that the interest is growing astronomically. We don't necessarily have a national organization around assessment grading pe I do work with our organization in Canada, which is similar to Shape America in the States. We have one called PHE Canada, our physical and Health Education Canada. And I, I've done a lot of work with them to kind of create some content out there around assessment practices in B. E. But there are definitely people, the, the interest and the inquiries coming from people around how do I assess? How do I grade? Let's talk about it. That is growing so much more in the last few years than it was when I first began this work. I can't necessarily state why, perhaps it's some social media. I'm always putting things on social media to try to draw conversations and get people thinking and talking about it. I do some outside work, some coaching with teachers around this because I've seen that people are like, Yeah, you know what? This is a weakness. Or this is something I need to know more of and there just seems to be more interest from people out there. But from a national organization, nothing that I'm aware of at this point.

Boz: So I want to kind of ask you about some of that outside work that you're doing and that you mentioned earlier, but you've done some work with. SolutionTree. I'm curious to know what kind of work that is because SolutionTree has a very big spot and my origin and my origin stories, not necessarily with grading reform, but with just pedagogy reform, like the Whatever it Takes by, the DuFours that was done by SolutionTree was the most transformational book I've ever read. It's, it's what started me on my entire journey of wanting to really look at and try to do better in our education system. So I'm curious to hear about. Like, what did you do with SolutionTree? How did you get involved with them?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's funny, I was a fan of the work that SolutionTree puts out for years. And what I mentioned earlier is like, I, I do a lot of work with teachers outside of PE. PE's just been where I've made the biggest impact because there's not a lot of support out there for PE teachers. There's a lot of support for teachers around assessment and grading in general. Not necessarily for a P. E. A number of years ago, I was invited by SolutionTree to attend an orientation session to become an associate for assessment. They have a bunch of different pillars assessment being one of them. So I attended the orientation, got certified with them. And for the last few years, I've been traveling throughout North America to lead P. D. Workshops for schools and districts. On any, and it's not necessarily P. E. Based. But it's usually district based. So we'll talk about like I was in California a couple times this past few months talking about prioritizing standards, unpacking standards, creating aligned learning experiences, things of that nature, common formative assessments. So it's nice because I can dip kind of in both pools because it's something I do. Like, I do it as a classroom teacher. I'm also a social studies teacher and I do it in the world of PE and what I love about the SolutionTree work. Other than getting to connect with people on the topic I'm so passionate about is it never fails is I'll always get a few PE teachers come up. I'm like, we've never had a PE teacher come and talk to us about this. And I'm like, they're like, who are you? Like, what? What? What's going on? Like, and I'm just like, you know what? It's just that's just where I'm at, you know, and I love talking with with teachers about, you know, but also, you know so that's, yeah, I've been with them now for a couple of years and it's just a tremendous experience. Absolutely. Yeah.

Boz: And they, they do not sponsor us in any way. We've had a lot of their, you know, several different people that have written for them on this show, but I do want to put a plug for them. It's, I've gone to their, their PLC conferences several times. Some of the best conferences I've ever gone to. I've gone to one of their assessment conferences conferences or PDs, again, one of the best ones. So if you ever, anyone's listening, if you ever get a chance to go to any of the PDs or conferences that are sponsored by SolutionTree, they're usually pretty damn good. Yeah,

Josh Ogilvie: that's, I appreciate that. And it's something I aligned myself with projects and organizations that I believe in and I remember when I went to the orientation In the first hour or two, I was like, okay, they're not blowing smoke. Like they're legit. They they care about you They have a high level of integrity like the feedback evaluations we get are meaningful because you get real live information from people there and we're expected to take that and Refine our practice which is really helpful because there's a high standard of quality that they have and that's something that I believe in. So that's one of the reasons I love working with them. Plus they're just like really great people.

Boz: They really are. Like everyone that, you know, I had the pleasure of actually meeting and talking a little bit with Rebecca before her untimely passing. And then the first conference I went to after both, you know, both Richard and her had passed, you know, I was kind of worried about what was going to happen. What was going to happen with that conference? And not only was I thrilled to see how great it still was, but got to meet and talk with some of the presenters and just great people that are like, yeah, well, I'll spend extra time with you. You want to talk? Let's like, they're really passionate about it. And it's, it is really. A great time. A lot of fun and a lot of learning. Absolutely.

Sharona: So I have one other question that I wonder, since you have so much more experience with a bigger organization like SolutionTree, one of the things I think that distinguishes the PD that Bosley and I do is we try to be very discipline specific, so when we are, even though we ourselves are math educators, we personally cross over into like English language arts, but if I'm doing training with social studies teachers, I'm going to do my best to bring a social studies experience teacher with me. If I'm going into science, I'm going to bring a science teacher with me because I find that translating across disciplines is very difficult for teachers. It's hard enough for me, and I'm one of the few that can do it, I think, relatively well. I can take Something that's taught from an English teacher's perspective and bring it into math and make it my own. But I find that most people have a lot of trouble. And since they're already doing the cognitive lift to change their grading and assessment practices, I want to try to bring, close the gap by bringing experienced people with you. Do you have a similar experience or? Do you think that it's working quite well to use people from outside a person's discipline to get this moving?

Josh Ogilvie: That's a great point, and it's something a number of colleagues and I would talk about all the time. I see both sides of that coin. I think definitely there is strength to having a subject specific person come in. And, but in my experience, I haven't had any, negative experiences around that. Obviously, there's might be content stuff I'm unsure of. The principles we'll talk about are transferable. I've also found, especially in PE, if, if the person coming to speak doesn't have the background, you're kind of losing a bit of street credit. So sometimes that's something to be mindful of, and sometimes, like I've done it before, I call it straight up, like, I am not a science teacher, but what I'm talking about will be applicable. So for me to come and tell you, this is what you should be doing with the content, that's your area. If I'm talking about practice and approaches that are going to help elicit the best information, that's every area. So let's look at that. You bring the content lens into it. If I have the ability to bring Or connect them with somebody and I have a number of people kind of like my virtual rolodex if you will like if you want more and I get no referral bonus, but here are some people that can really are leading the field in this subject area and the work that I do hasn't been necessarily around. We have the science teachers. Who really want to work at the next generation science standards? Can you come in and work with them on that? If I was to get something like that, I'd be like, I'm probably not the best fit for that. I can BS like the best of them. But I'm not going to waste my time or more importantly their time. But a lot of times it's, there's, I have found there's usually people in that audience who, who are content experts and are waiting for the opportunity to contribute their thoughts. Cause maybe they're in a context where they. Not that there's group think happening, but they're just a little timid to share, but in, in, in a big area, they're like, Hey, here's something I can try and I've seen it people like, I had no idea you're thinking about that. Let's explore that. And like, you're right on track with where we're going here. But so yeah, a long winded way of saying, I see pros and cons to each, but I haven't had that experience at this point.

Sharona: I just, we've gotten every single discipline say to us, I can see how that works in pick some other discipline, but not in mine. And I literally, I've talked to dental hygienists. Like, oh, no, no, no. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no licensing areas, you're the best. Once, because if you have a licensing exam, it is very clear what you need to know and that licensing exam is pass fail. So, and you can take it multiple times, you know, medical boards, law school, like all of it. But I constantly get, well, I can see how you can do this in math, but I'm in whatever. And then we got to talk to math teachers. They're like, well, I can see how that works in English, but that can't possibly work in math. And I'm like, no. Right here. Right here. So that's one of the reasons we've been so excited to have something like PE Teachers and Social Studies Teachers on. We have an upcoming episode where we started to scratch the surface of Social Studies and we're going to be bringing that guest back on to do it there as well. But I really think that there's a huge amount of value in discipline specific stuff while still enabling us to cross over. Because I've learned things from my NGSS partners. That I now see how I'm going to change my math practice because of it.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah. And that, that's like you bring a great point is sometimes like, yes, absolutely. Like dive down into that area, but then bring it together because to be able to learn and share with each other. Like, for example, we went back a few minutes or a little bit earlier in the podcast was how many PE teachers don't know that you can have a conversation and use as evidence of learning. And if, and if, if somebody hears that from a math teacher and then tries it in their PE context, that's a major win. But if they never hear it, then that's a major loss. Okay.

Sharona: Exactly. Exactly. But if you're trying to get people over the hub to even consider it, like, I feel like bringing in discipline specific examples. It's a, it's a key thing.

Boz: Or at least multiple disciplines. I don't know if it always has to be discipline specific, but you know, if if you're doing something, you're hearing it from a PE teacher, you're hearing it from an English teacher, you're hearing it from an art teacher. It's easier to. Say, okay, well, if it works in all these other ones, maybe I can see how some of these practices might work in my class. That's none of those.

Sharona: Yeah,

Josh Ogilvie: absolutely.

Sharona: So where do you hope to go next? What do you see as some of the critical next steps in getting this further moved along. Let's say.

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, it's that's that's kind of one of the things I'm doing this year, now that I have a little bit more time if you can call it that, is is really providing some targeted PD for PE teachers? Because a lot of times the PD experiences the professional development experiences They get might be something completely unrelated to to PE and and if they've gotten You A lot of those experiences, if they've received a lot of PD, I can tell you from experience and my colleagues as well, they'll tune out pretty quick, right? The idea like, Oh, I got to take this idea. Then I got to bring it back to my context and envision. How does that work? That's a barrier. So I'm really trying to provide this year. I'm focusing on providing like tailored PD experiences for teachers doing lots of workshops and presentations that I mentioned earlier. I'm also starting an online coaching program for teachers, PE teachers around some of the major. struggles around assessment and grading. So that it can be like this ongoing sense of support. Cause not a lot of PD has ongoing support. It's usually kind of a one and done or we'll, we'll try it in September, October, and we'll see you again in April or may to too much time. Right. And we know through a lot of research has shown that that ongoing support is what really helps to make some sustainable changes. Just because I've been doing one off PDs for a while and I love connecting, but I'm like, what's next? And sometimes you see the structures in place are preventing the ongoing support. So I don't have to rely on a district saying, come in and work with us for one day, like I can provide more. So that's where I'm, I'm trying to do that right now. I've had one cohort that's been great. I'm looking at doing more. Just. Just really trying to support PE teachers who are feeling anything like I had been in my career where I want to do more, but I don't know how to, to learn more or do more with what I want to get better at.

Boz: Yeah. And that's, that's interesting. You talk about the PE teachers that have experienced so much PD that is not directly related to them, that they do, they almost get this filter that as soon as they go, it's, they just shut down completely. I, I've seen this at. You know, I was out of school for 20 years and we had some great PE teachers. I've, if any of them's listening, I am not talking bad about our PE staff at all, had some great teachers, but yeah, when, when I was doing some of my grading reform PDs they're like, they were, they, they completely, they were there physically and completely checked out. And they'd even tell me like, Hey, I love you Boz but I didn't do any of this. I'm not going to do any of this.

Josh Ogilvie: Well, yeah, I mean, I've been there, you know, I remember one very clearly. We had. Design thinking. It was a school based PD experience about design thinking, about ideating and prototyping. And the, the learner in me was like, well, this is really cool. And I was department head, and then my colleagues in the department were like, how do we use any of that? And I was like, well, let me think on that, right? And there is ways we could do it, but it wasn't so explicit in that moment. Like the teachers in the department, we had 11 teachers, they were just, they tapped out. They're like, no, I don't get it. It's, it seems cool, but it could be used for, you know, ADST type of class versus PE and I was like, well, but yeah, we want to make things really explicit and also helping that the PE teachers to really, sometimes they just need to get the crap out before they can move forward. It's just like, what, what, what are your struggles? Okay. Now we heard that, let's move forward with things and you don't get a lot of that in PD experiences. It's usually just sit down and listen and try to envision how you're going to do it. And then they go back to class the next day and they hit a moment of struggle and we know what happens with that.

Sharona: I think the thing that I'm finding universal more and more as I talk to the different disciplines is like when you said, I need to be clear on what I'm teaching. And we all have these standards, and I don't know if this happens in PE as much, but in math, a lot of times what we think we're assessing, we think we're assessing a standard, and we're not assessing that standard at all, because the problem doesn't actually get at the student's understanding of that particular thing. Either because there are barriers to it, or because even mathematically, it's just not aligned. So is that part of the issue there? Or is it that a lot of PE teachers haven't even looked at their standards and their learning outcomes? I mean, where, where's the big hold up there?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah. And I'm going to generalize here based on observation, the experiences I've had I would say it's kind of a bit of both. I know early in my career, it, I was definitely someone, I could tell you what kids were doing. I could tell you what activities, from September to the end of June, I could tell you what activities were happening in our units. And I went to, when I became a department head, we went to a district PD event. And the facilitator, this is one of these moments that I know didn't happen, but my head it did. I had my back to him just on how it was set up. And he said, what did he say? He's like, his teachers were really good at telling kids what we're doing, but not so good at telling them what they're learning. And I turned around and I swear to you, he was looking right at me. It didn't happen, but my head made it mean that. Cause for me, it was like, that was a massive light bulb. I was like, holy crap. That is a big barrier. Like I could tell you what games and activities we're doing, but I couldn't align that to what the intended learning was.

And so that's admittedly I was like I should go and this is back when we have what we call prescribed learning outcomes in our district on our province are and it was like a 200 page document that I had never opened and you know, the first 180 pages of the quote unquote front matter. It's pretty much the whole document that the last of it's like, okay, here's the curricular standards. I went and looked at it and like, well, Well, there's actually some good things in here. And, but I'm like, how am I addressing any of that? So where I'm getting at with that is where, until I started being really clear with like, what are the kids learning? I would be coming like a recreational facilitator. I've got great activity, great games we're going to do. I don't know what I'm teaching you. I'm going to teach you how to facilitate how to play and then stand back and watch and what am I going to do because I don't know what the clear learning intentions are. Don't have a success criteria. I'm going to assess what I'm seeing, which is, are you playing hard? Are you putting effort? Are you being nice to others? Are you on time? Are you changed in appropriate attire? Right.

But that's not what we're intending for these kids to learn. So I think it's a bit of both. And I think the more I always say to teachers shift that, what are we doing today to what are the kids learning today? And once you do that shift, you might start to recognize what are the specifics, like you can take that down a few levels, and if you can't answer what kids are learning, then take a moment, step back and really like, okay, well, what, what am I teaching? It should be the same thing is that they're learning and how will we know if they're on the right path? How we know if they're going to be successful? And that's where the criteria comes in to gauge how well the learning is happening.

Sharona: I love that quote. I just wrote it down.

Boz: But I.

Josh Ogilvie: I have to reference it. That's from Damien Cooper.

Boz: Yeah, but that is such a big thing, and it seems like such a small shift. But shifting one's thinking from what am I teaching to what what are the students learning is actually a really big It seems so, so simple, and so, well, obviously, they're the same thing. No, no, no, not, no, they're not.

No.

Josh Ogilvie: Well, how many times have, I know I've said it a lot, like, I taught it, how come they haven't learned it? Right? And this is like, well, there's a gap. And what's that gap? That's the assessment. That's where you find out. What are they learning? How do we know? And when I shifted that, it was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, absolutely.

Boz: This Josh has been a lot of fun. But we are coming up on our time. So is there any. You sound like you're involved in quite a bit of things. Is there any place or social media or places that if people want to learn more about you or what you do that they can go to?

Josh Ogilvie: Yeah, absolutely. I'm all over social media. Twitter, can't call it X. Having a hard time. I'm on there. Who knows how much longer. At Josh Ogilvie4 that's still the number four. On Blue Sky, I joined there about two weeks ago, it's just my name, Josh Ogilvie. On LinkedIn, which is also my name, and then my amateur website development, I have a website, jogilvie. com, just to put things up there because I want that to be a place for people, A, to connect, but like, sometimes you just want to see something and try it, versus like, have a phone call, have a coaching call, have an email or anything like that. So those are very easy ways and then email always works, works great as well.

Sharona: Welcome to blue sky. You're going to, if you haven't already connected with the, the edgy sky groups we're pretty robust there. So

Josh Ogilvie: I'm loving it. It really does feel like Twitter of 10 years ago where, you know, I love in that sense where it's like, Oh, okay. You

Sharona: found out. Yeah. It took a while to hit critical mass, but I've even seen the last, especially in the last month, we have definitely hit critical mass on edgy Twitter being recreated on edgy sky. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for writing in. It was very exciting to have you and if someone is still listening to the podcast at this point in the recording, please, please, please. We really do bring guests on and we'd love to hear your story and what you're doing over to you, Boz.

Boz: All right, and with that being said thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week.

Sharona: Please share your thoughts and comments about this episode by commenting on this episode's page on our website. See www. thegradingpod. com. Or you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. If you would like to suggest a future topic for the show, or would like to be considered as a potential guest for the show, please use the contact us form on our website. The Grading Podcast is created and produced by Robert Bosley. The full transcript of this episode is available on our

Boz: website. The views expressed here are those of the host and our guest. These views are not necessarily endorsed by the Cal State System or by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

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