111 - Getting Unstuck from the Grade Wrap-Up: The Importance of Purpose Redux

Episode 111 • 26th August 2025 • The Grading Podcast • Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley

111 - The Importance of Purpose Redux - Getting Unstuck In Decision 4

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Sharona: So, for example, I am looking at one that was given to me a number of years ago. It's computer science one. It has, as categories, exams, quizzes, activities, and labs, expert of the day, mid-semester self-assessments, projects, pre-submission projects, final project. And there are conditions for all of these things, all of these different tasks that go into your final grade calculation.

Boz: Okay, my head hurts just from you listing all those out, can you imagine from a student's aspect, we're talking about trying to get buy-in and stuff, like how complex is that?

Welcome to the grading podcast, where we'll 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 student 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 Grading podcast. I'm Robert Bosley, one of your two co-hosts, and with me as always, Sharona Krinsky. How are you doing today, Sharona?

Sharona: Well, I survived the first week of classes. Which is a big deal because even though I don't actually go into the classroom, I have to have all the stuff ready for, I think I counted 38 instructors or something that I'm working with this semester. So that's a lot of prep between

Boz: all of the, yeah, between courses. Coordin. Yeah. So that's a lot. That's funny you, your, your first week experience and my first week experience back at the college is so different because as you find it very stressful. 'cause like you said, you've got all these different courses that you're coordinating and all these different professors that you're working with. I get to go back to the classroom, which is my happy place. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love my job at L-A-U-S-D, don't get me wrong, but being in the classroom is what fills my soul. So I don't think I could do the out of class positions that I've done in L-A-U-S-D if I didn't have at least some time back in the classroom. This last week was my first week back with my Cal State students. I, you know, I'm only, I only have one class this semester, which is a little bit depressing, but, it's already turning out to be a fun class. And like I said, I just, that's the environment that feeds my soul. So I love this last week.

Sharona: Well, and the funny part is when you're happy, I am happier. 'cause I have to be around you a lot during this first week of classes. So my life is better when you're happier. And you had an interesting experience with your major composition in your class, didn't you?

Boz: So, Cal State LA, the nursing department is one of our larger departments. And I always have a large amount of nursing majors in my classes. That's just how it always is. This semester though, like 24 of my 26 students are nursing. Like I always have a lot. I don't think I've ever had that much where it's just, it's almost, it was almost comical when, we were doing some banter and some getting to know each other and, and that first week it was almost comical how many nursing majors and how funny the students found it by the end.

Sharona: Well, right, because wasn't it, you were going around and talking about all the majors and the first 24 people? 24 outta 24 outta the 26. Yeah. 24 outta 24. It's only the last two that were not.

Boz: Yeah. So what's, what's the probability of having 24 out 26 and then you actually entered go 24 for 24.

Sharona: Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of fun. Now we also have had some good news on the podcast, front.

Boz: So we have hit a milestone. It, it's kind of, you know, hard to believe but a couple days before the recording of this episode, we broke 25,000 downloads.

Sharona: Which that's amazing like that. Those numbers are crazy. And I know we're not like the millions that call me Daddy or the Joe Rogan Show get, but still for this kind of a niche podcast. That is very cool.

Boz: This is going to be 111. So a couple weeks ago, our episode 1 0 8 has grown faster than pretty much any episode I think we've ever done that didn't have a big name person that we were interviewing, like Dr. Thomas Guskey. This episode has just blown up. And it kind of got me thinking, you know, 'cause that episode we were talking about one of the places that people get stuck and how to deal with that. And that really came up from some of the conversations you had at some of the conferences you've been able to go to recently. But that got me wondering, is there any other areas where in the design process. It can be very common for someone to get stuck or like you said, kind of spinning in circles and trying to do that design.

Sharona: Yeah, so the answer is yes. There are definitely other places. There's one in particular that is rising up for me right now, both from people that I'm talking to, some of the schools that we're working with, and also my own personal experience of what I'm grappling with. And it seems like one area that people, they create something and then they struggle with it, is the grade wrap up. It's the part where you decide which final grade a student is getting based on whatever evidence you've collected. Yeah.

Boz: So it's that last decision on the grading architecture. Now there's lots of different ways to do that and we actually in back in episode five, one of our getting starting episodes, we kind of go into more detail with this, but we're looking specifically at that last decision of how do you take the collection of evidence we have from the learning targets, which ones that they have achieved a level of proficiency on, which ones they haven't and how do you take all of that information in and make a determination on a final single letter grade for the, student in the course.

Sharona: And I think this comes up in every flavor of alternative grading, where the end result is a multi-level letter grade. So even a lot of our colleagues who are doing un grading in the classroom, they often have to give a grade at the end. So I think this is somewhat of a universal problem.

Boz: It's close. We've heard of a few scenarios where that final end letter grade is not required. But for the mass majority of us, no matter what kind of system we're using, it still terminates with that final A, B, C, D grade.

Sharona: Exactly. And so what I'm seeing both for myself, and I'll give it a specific example right now and for many of our colleagues, is part of what's happening is that you're not just thinking about evidence of learning actually. This is one of the problems, is that there's a perception that is not wrong, that you have to do certain things in the context of the course. That may be intended to be behavioral in nature and those behavioral incentives. The only incentive that most people feel they have is the final grade, and there's so much conflicting literature on whether or not grades are motivational, but I kind of feel like both for myself and for the people that I've been talking to. This is a big part of the problem. So you have your evidence of learning, however you get collected, whoever decides on it, whether you're collaborative or contract or whatever. But then there's this behavioral stuff. And so I wanna kind of, as we go through this episode today, try to pick at some of these topics. Okay. So now we've done this before though. I wanna call out some of our episodes.

Boz: Yeah. This is such a big topic. You know, and we have addressed this in different ways on, on a few different episodes. Of course, that episode five really being just the definition and broad view, but we did get a little bit more specific on some other episodes.

Sharona: Yeah. And the first one we did, it was episode 30, which was a deep dive into our grading architecture and in our statistics course. I ended up in my head at least translating a behavioral thing into something I wanted them to learn with our Triple P standard. Yeah. So I re-articulate behavior into learning. So if you're interested in more of that, I would check out episode 30.

Boz: But we did it as a learning target, not as part of the wrap up decision. It ended up being one of our 15 learning targets and regardless of which learning targets, if they got that one or not, it still counted the same. So when we did it, when we talk about it in episode 30, that's kind of how we addressed it, but we addressed it earlier on in the architectural scheme of our class. So, that behavior control of having students attendance or homework or whatever wasn't actually part of our fourth decision. We dealt with it earlier.

Sharona: Yes. And because I'm trying to now deal with the same situation in a different context, I'm now having to struggle with it as part of the fourth decision. So if it's okay with you, I'd like to explain what I'm grappling with.

Boz: Well, I think we need to hold off on that a little. 'Cause I think that's getting too specific. I think we need to address the overall problem and some of the ways we've seen it come up before we get too deep into the weeds of what you are looking at right now.

Sharona: Okay. That's fair enough. So in that case, I do wanna bring up episode 97 where we talked about the hurdles. Okay. So one of the drivers for me of this grading wrap up is understanding the difference between a student who gets an A, a student who gets a B, and a student who gets a C. And in that episode we talked about it could be that they were successful on more quantity. It could be that they were successful on harder hurdles. It could be that they did better, they went good to great on things. So that was part of the philosophy that we talked about.

Boz: Yeah, and in that episode, we went into more details about it. But yeah, is the point of the course to learn more information is it to learn it at higher levels or learn ways to do it at more complex task. So we get into that again, that was episode 97. We go into a whole lot more detail, but that really boils down to, you know, which of those three really kind of boils down to the purpose of your course. So we're going back to that same kind of issue that we saw in episode 1 0 8, that pre-work, that really understanding what is the purpose of your course? Does it serve by itself? Is it in a sequence like. That and I know we've talked about this a lot and we're gonna keep talking about it because I do think it is one of the most important pieces of this whole process that gets shortchanged oftentimes.

Sharona: I agree with you, and I think that there's a piece of the purpose that maybe people don't think about as much. So there's the purpose of the course that we talk about. The sequence and all that kinda stuff, but then there's the purpose that an individual instructor or a group of instructors might place on who is the student becoming as part of their course? So I'm thinking of a specific example of an instructor I was speaking to recently who really feels that their course, given where it's situated in the curriculum, one of the big purposes is the student should come out a better prepared research scientist. 'Cause they're starting down a research science path at that point in the curriculum that they want the student to have a bunch of skills of being a research scientist that they don't have before the course. So even though that's not technically the content of the course, it's not the content skills that are in the sequence, it is something that this instructor believes should be one of the things that happens in their course. So that's almost a more student-centric view of the purpose. I don't know. What do you think?

Boz: I agree. And I, and I also agree, I don't think we've talked as much about that aspect. But no, you're absolutely right.

Sharona: Although now that I said that, we do say that as part of our statistics course. We say that the purpose of the course is to create a critical consumer of data, so that is a student-centric purpose for our statistics course. But I'm thinking of all the times I've talked about it in a math context or a science context that we don't talk about who is the student becoming through the course. I kind of wanna put that out into the ether and ask listeners to write that down as one of the things that you might wanna think about as part of your design of your course. Yeah. Is who is the student becoming and is that something that you're gonna try to capture in your final grade? Because there are probably places where it is really appropriate to say, this is the place.

I know that a lot of our organic chemistry faculty in their organic chemistry labs. If you ask them what is the number one thing a student has to get out of organic chemistry lab, they're gonna say safety. Every single one of 'em is gonna say safety. They're like, if you can't be safe in the lab, you can't pass this course. I don't care what you know or don't know about organic chemistry. So that was very interesting.

Boz: That's a good point..

Sharona: So to me, I think it's there in a lot of our cases, but maybe we need to make it more explicit. Maybe we'll add it to our questions about the purpose of the course is who is the student becoming?

Boz: Unfortunately, this is a part that's really skipped a lot, but you know, looking at that really analyzing the course, what you want your students to get out of it, like like what you were saying, and also be able to do afterwards. But all of those should help really guide your grading structure, that last decision in the grading architecture. For example, the class that you and I teach together, our statistics class. It is not in a sequence, it is a gen ed math required class, but it's not part of a sequence. When we look at ours and our grading architectural decision in that class is we want the amount of information in the class. We, we don't actually care about the, the higher hurdles. The doing it from good to great. It's did you get, so many and to us, it really doesn't even matter which ones you did and didn't get. It's, you know, if you got 14 outta 15, it's an A, you know, you got 12 out of 15, it's a B. So we have this very, very simplistic grading architecture because we don't have things that we have to be concerned with like if we were doing this in a pre-calc where that pre-calc really is supposed to be getting the student ready for the next class.

Sharona: I think though that if I were to teach our course, just me not in a coordinated fashion, I probably would try to add something in about who the student is becoming as a critical consumer data, something along a more authentic assessment tasks. Because in the research that you and I have done about authentic assessment, some of the dimensions are purpose and community and growth on the part of the individual student learners. So I wouldn't mind adding some of that in.

Boz: Yeah.

Sharona: But not in the coordinated environment that we're working in. It's too hard.

Boz: All right, so that's what are the areas that it can really start for? So if, if you are struggling with coming up with how you want to do this last decision, that's really where. I would recommend that you start going back and do we really understand the purpose of the course

Sharona: And tied to that, your grading philosophy as well.

Boz: Exactly. But once we get there, and this is where, I know you've seen this and, some of the people you've talked to recently, I have too, we've started to make those decisions and what happens? What are some of the things that we see that either causes issues later down the road or causes the educator to kind of, to spin and spiral.

Sharona: So I think this is where the law of unintended consequences comes in. So there's a few things that I'm seeing happening. One is we think of all the different ways that a student could show us that they're really good at something. They could either do a bunch of the content, they could do maybe less of the content, but some of it at a higher quality. We have all these different imaginary things in our head of what these imaginary students could do.

So we create these grade wrap-ups that have lots of different components. And I've seen this in so many places. I've seen it in computer science classes where they're like, well, we're gonna have quizzes and we're gonna have projects. We're gonna have problem sets and we're gonna have reflections, and we're gonna have this, and we're gonna have that. And they start to say, well, a student who gets an A, I don't wanna make them do all of everything, so I'm gonna make them do some of everything. They have to hit a certain number of quizzes and a certain number of projects, and a certain number of reflections, and a certain amount of homework. And, and, and, and. And when you break it up in those micros, you start to have more and more challenges that students suddenly don't behave the way you expect or minor changes to the way they behave has this dramatic impact on their grade.

Boz: Okay. So could you give a few concrete examples? 'cause , I know there's one that it is like, not just concrete is the, it is the boulder in the road of examples. So.

Sharona: Well, I'm assuming you're talking about the homework levels.

Boz: Homework. Exactly.

Sharona: So the number of times that I have seen a grading architecture where one of the conditions is homework at a certain percentage or better.

Boz: And yeah. Or so many, so many sets completed or, yeah, there something around the homework.

Sharona: And it ties to when you don't meet the expected levels, the grade starts to drop really far really fast.

Boz: Yep.

Sharona: So you'll say, you'll see something where they have however many checkpoints or learning outcomes completed or whatever, and then it says to get an A, your homework has to be at 90%. To get a B, it has to be at 80%. To get a C, it has to be at 70%. The number of students who will complete every single learning outcome on every single assessment, but have a 65% on homework and their grade goes from an A to a D. It's shocking. It happens almost all the time.

Boz: Wait a second. A student can't possibly be successful in my assessments if they're not doing the homework.

Sharona: Don't be sarcastic.

Boz: If you can't tell the sarcastic nature of my voice. That, so that's something that you and I hear all the time. And you know what, it's coming from a good place. I'm not trying to insult any of my colleagues at all. This is coming from a good place. We do know that, especially when it comes to math, the how you get better at math, how you get better at writing is by doing it. Like no, no one is, is arguing that at all. However, the amount of educators that we have talked to that have said those exact words of there's no way a student can be successful on my assessment without doing the homework is staggering. What do we think about that? What have we actually seen in some of the data analysis on our classes, our students and others?

l, even with our Triple P, in: 1092

So I'm thinking, okay, maybe 80%, maybe that's the right bar, that if you get 80% or above by the end of semester on your homework as a collective unit, you're gonna get full credit for the homework piece of the final grade. So I did an analysis just yesterday, looking at our grade books from last semester, and I looked at our grade books for the pre-calculus that is also college ready. So the non-supported one, and of all the students who got an A, not even an A minus, but an A, I would say that 75% got 80% or above on the homework. So 25% of students who got an A had a lower grade because of their homework, because they lost two percentage points or more on the homework grade.

Boz: So now, let's look at that. What that does in a traditional class. So in a, in a class that has a traditional grading system, depending on those weighted categories can have a, a pretty large effect. And that's one of the things that, I know we've talked a little bit on the podcast, but in our trainings, we do a lot of the effect of those weighted categories, but I think in a traditional class. It kind of gets lost in those weighted averages. And there are ways to recuperate, like, 'cause I was one of those students, I didn't do a ton of homework. In fact, I did very little homework when it came to my math classes. But, when we're talking about alternative grading, and we're talking about some of these like you were saying, these different aspects of the grade wrap up, and when we put that front and center, it can end up having some pretty dramatic effects to a student's grade.

Sharona: Yeah. So I'm looking at a student who had a 98% on their exams in this course. They got an A minus. Because their homework current score was a 69% and their participation in class was a 76%. So they dropped a third of letter grade.

Boz: If your purpose of your homework, and this is another thing that, and we've talked about this before, but if the purpose of your homework is to allow the student time to work towards mastery or work towards proficiency. The student's got 98% on the assessments. Have they not shown proficiency? Exactly. I would a absolutely argue they have at a incredibly high level, regardless of the homework. However, we also know that that's not always the purpose of homework. Like there, there are some, we've seen some cases and some courses that use homework in a different way, actually use it as part of their assessment because they're asking students to do things that would be too time intensive to do in a traditional sit down, you know, hour long assessment.

Sharona: Right.

Boz: So that goes back to we call things homework. Because they're doing it outside of class. So that's not really how we should be breaking this up. It's what's the purpose of the assignment? Is it to build towards mastery or is it to actually assess it?

Sharona: Exactly.

Boz: Which again, with something like this kind of gets lost.

Sharona: And I think that's critical. Because "homework" puts time, place, and manner in instead of purpose. And that's something that I've talked about a lot and people have heard me say before. Yeah, there's a difference between time, place, and manner, doing it at home, doing it in class, versus this is an assessment designed to gather evidence of learning versus this is something that's designed to allow people to practice or get ready or something like that. So I'd like, at a minimum, let's change our categories. To say practice work or preparation work or some of those other things instead of homework.

Boz: Yeah, but so again, that's another issue. If we're using that kind of broad definition of homework as part of our grade wrap up in the architecture, there's a danger there. 'Cause again, is your homework you know, actually building towards proficiency or is it assessing, you know, like you said, time, place, and manner. So that's another thing to consider. If you're spinning, trying to come up with your grading architecture and you've got something like a homework category, what is actually the purpose of your homework?

Sharona: So another place that I'm seeing this, and a lot of this comes down to, I really see it when there's these multiple conditions. Right. So this many of a task versus this many of a learning outcome, right? So if you're in computer science class, for example, a lot of them use specifications grading, and you are supposed to complete a certain number of projects, and that seems extremely reasonable to me. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but it does start to get tricky when there's just too many of them. There's too many. Categories. So for example, I am looking at one that was given to me a number of years ago. It's computer science one. It has as categories, exams, quizzes, activities and labs, expert of the day, mid-semester, self-assessments, projects pre-submission, projects, final project. And you, there are conditions for all of these things, all of these different tasks that go into your final grade calculation.

Boz: Okay, my head hurts just from you listing all those out. Can you imagine from a student's aspect, we're talking about trying to get buy-in and stuff, like how complex is that?

Sharona: And why is the distinction doing these things? Why is you get an A because you do more of all of these things? I just that I struggle with that.

Boz: Yeah.

Sharona: So what happens is you'll see that on exams they get a certain amount, whether it's learning outcomes or some grade level, and then the variations on how many they completed of the mid-semester self-assessment or how many they completed a project pre-submission can dramatically vary the grade for the student who got the same. Score in a proctored assessment place. Yeah. And that begins to feel inequitable at times. Yeah. So I do think that these multiple categories that mix evidence of learning with tasks, not to say you shouldn't do it, but it gets really complicated, really fast.

Boz: Well, and the other thing that does, like, and you were kind of hinting at it. It produces what we, what we usually refer to as those edge cases. You know, when we're doing our training, we call these edge cases where you get a student, an extreme student that you don't think likely is possible, and it might not be that likely, but I guarantee you it's gonna happen. Like it, it might not happen this semester, it might not happen in every class, but you'll get that, that weird edge case where. For all but maybe one or two criteria they would have, you know, an A, but because of that one criteria, they drop dramatically.

Sharona: Exactly, part of it also is how you communicate and how you calculate some of this stuff. But we can we can go to that in a minute if you want, if you wanna finish your thought.

Boz: So I was just gonna say . Are we trying to say that none of these should be an aspect of your grading architecture? Absolutely not, but that goes back to really understanding and defining for yourself what is the purpose of your course. Like going back to your bio example earlier, safe in the lab. Is that something that should be really? I would argue, yeah. I mean I think most, most people in the lab with you would also argue that. So is that a level of complexity that we're saying maybe shouldn't be there? Oh, absolutely not. If you're gonna kind of put those kind of pieces into it. Take the time and really examine why you're doing it. Is it something that you believe is necessary for the student to be successful, or is it something that they're showing that is actually part of the purpose of the course?

Sharona: I agree with you a hundred percent. Is it part of the purpose of the course? Why are we doing this? I've also seen in, especially in situations when there's multiple levels of success, so that good to great, that some people see a lot of ways that that great portion could come in and that starts to become tricky, right? So it's, I really want this, but then if they get the greats, that could compensate in certain ways. And although I think that that's a great idea in theory, articulating it to the student is overwhelming.

Boz: And, not just articulating it to the student, but I think starting to track some of that as the educator and all those ORs this or this or this. I'm just thinking in my head, okay, how am I gonna track all this? The wrap up, which for me, when I did it traditionally, or me doing it now with the simple N count, or I have done some more complex systems, like with my Algebra two classes. Oh my God, that last piece, which really shouldn't take that long to do when you're calculating the grades, now all of a sudden becomes huge. Okay, I gotta set up a, you know, almost like a flow chart or workflow diagram so I can check to make sure I'm not shorting the student the grade because of all these different scenarios or criteria or or statements and I missed one.

Sharona: I don't love it. And a lot of times when I've seen it, it's like instructors want better quality. They want a certain quantity of better quality.

Boz: Yeah.

Sharona: Right. So the C is you got the stuff, the B is you got the stuff and two of them are great. And then A is you got the stuff and four of 'em are great. I'm like, is it really then that it's better? I mean, could you just maybe write advanced learning outcomes and bucket them? Everything instead of on a single assessment, you're like, oh, you got this learning outcome at a good versus a great, you got the learning outcome. You have a good learning outcome and a great learning outcome. And maybe they got it the good and they didn't get it the great, it's easier to track in a lot of these systems.

Boz: Well see, and I don't know if I necessarily agree with you there, like there's a point that it becomes too complex and a point that it becomes too, you know, hard to track and stuff. But I don't know if it is just at simply the, you know, the good to Great. So for example you know, one of our, one of our favorite guests that we are trying to get back on fairly soon, Joe Zeccola, he uses this kind of wrap up, in fact, he's even got a second layer of complexity on his, where he has got a couple of essential skills. So, he's doing what I would describe as a bucket with also the good to greats. Okay? So he's got, you know, the, the, a few standards that are absolutely essential. These are things and, and we've talked with him about how he came up with his learning targets. And his learning targets are very broad learning targets. He does this in a write in writing classes and AP lit and lang. So it's very different than like kind of a skill heavy math class. But he's got these ones that you've gotta get at least a minimal level and then going up from there. You've gotta get 'em at a minimum level, and then you've gotta get so many of the other ones. And then to go even higher, you need to get at least some of those other ones at the grade level.

But he can justify it. He has that complexity, and it's not where it started, this is after he's iterated a few times. But he knows the purpose of his course. And because he really knows and understands that purpose and why the complexity is there, he can explain it to the students to get the students to buy in. So it's not having unintentional consequences because he has been so intentional in doing it. So we're not saying don't ever do it. There is time in place to do it. You just need to make sure you really have done that work, and that examining of the course and your philosophies and what you want out of your students to make sure it's necessary for your course.

Sharona: I guess where I'm struggling is the consequences of a small change in a student's success having an entire third of a letter grade or a full letter grade impact, right? The difference of having, you got three of them at great versus four of them at great being the difference between an A and a B. To me, you've suddenly reintroduced the highest of possible stakes. And I don't know I'm not saying you shouldn't do it or you can't do it, but there's something about it that's rubbing me wrong. And I don't know how many learning outcomes Joe has at this point. I think he is on the lower number of learning outcomes, if I recall correctly.

Boz: Compared to, but I

Sharona: also compared to like ours? Yeah. Like linear algebra or

Boz: something like that. Well, but it, it's not that much lower. I think. Okay. The last class that I really helped him set up, his tracker I think had 11 or 12. So it, it's not as many as, you know, say your linear algebra, but compared to our stats, it's not that much lower.

Sharona: Joe's context is a little different and I think that's part of it. 'cause Joe has, oh yeah, a year long class that meets daily, or I think it's daily. He's a block schedule. Right. So the opportunities to get enough at the highest level, like there's a lot.

Boz: Yeah. And, and again, that's part of the design of the course and part of the, that pre-work. Yeah, he assesses on those, on those different learning targets a lot more than like you and I would in our math classes.

Sharona: So I think that's what I'm part of what I'm struggling with is at a university context where a typical class meets two to three times a week for 15 weeks. So you only ever see the students, you know, maybe 30 to 45 times. And you have say, 15 learning outcomes, how many times are you really assessing?

Boz: Okay. That goes back.

Sharona: Yeah.

Boz: Yeah. But that goes back to my argument of to begin with is it goes back to that purpose of the course, the content, the contextual information, the environmental information, like really understanding what you're trying to accomplish out of your course. So you're right. I gave a, a example of where this complexity works and it is very different than what you've got in thinking of in your head designing, because this is a year long course. You're right. It is a high, you know, high school AP lit lang type course. It does have, you know, I think. It's usually between 11 and 13 learning targets, but those are covered over an entire year, not a semester. So yes, but that was just my point. The complexity isn't always bad if you really go back and look at the purpose, the setting of your course, and can understand it and make sure it's necessary for your course.

Sharona: And I think there's ways also that things can be articulated more clearly so that you can give yourself the flexibility. You want to use the grades in different ways, but you don't have to explain maybe every path to the student because anything, any path that you give that allows a student to get a higher grade than what you've base articulated is never gonna get you in trouble. Like if you say you have to do this much to get a B, or to get a, sorry, to get a C. Then you know, that there's two or three ways that a student could actually get a B. Like, you're not gonna get in trouble for giving a student a B instead of a C. Right. Can't go the other way around. But.

Boz: No, and that goes back to one of our bits of advice from the very beginning of this podcast, really one of the biggest advices we give in our trainings, is always give yourself that out in your syllabus. Always give yourself that line of that you may give a grade higher than what was stated in your architecture, as part of the purview of you being a expert educator. And again, that's one Guskey's big messages is never give up your integrity as an educator to an algorithm. You're right don't go down. If you're putting in your syllabus, you, you can't just say, oh yeah, this student got a B, but I don't think they deserve it. They can get a C No. But the other way around. Absolutely.

Sharona: So the other thing, the other piece of advice I would have is that to get yourself unstuck if I can go here, is to, once you've developed your thing. You definitely wanna test it before you put in front of students. So maybe have a colleague or you can do it, come up with a bunch of scenarios. A student got this, a student got that. What is their grade? How easy is it for me to figure it out? What happens if I slightly move? Like if I create a student that had they completed 20 learning outcomes. This other criteria, what happens if the criteria changes slightly? 'cause you really don't wanna have big grade swings based on small things that are not part of the core.

Boz: Absolutely. And another thing I think if you are stuck, like if you're in this process and you're really kinda spinning, here's my favorite piece of advice, and I've actually heard this from Robert Talbert and Kate Owens. Look at your gradient architecture and simplify it, and then simplify it again, and then simplify it again.

Sharona: Snaps to that.

Boz: That if you're stuck, and again, I'm not like I just got through saying and explaining with, with Joe's example, I'm not against the complexity necessarily, but especially if you're new to it or if you're stuck, take a step back, simplify it, see if that doesn't help you get it unstuck. And if not, simplify it again.

Sharona: And we're especially speaking to all you STEM folks out there who love your patterns and structure. I'm pointing it myself just as much as everybody else.

Boz: You know, it really is, and it's not just, it's not just stem, but it is specifically science and math that I, the most complex systems that we ever,

Sharona: I dunno, the engineers like it too.

Boz: That's true but bad. Yeah. The science, some of the most complex ones I've ever seen always seem to come from science. I love, I love my science folks, but both at the high school and the higher ed levels, it's, it's really funny some of the creativity that they can come up with.

Sharona: Here's another one that I'm looking at right now that's not as complex, but still it's pretty complex. This is, I don't remember what the actual class is because I didn't write that down and it's got a number, but there's learning target quizzes, research project milestones, research, writing assignments, preparation and preparedness, and satisfactory Q-A-L-M-R-I critiques, and you have to have stuff in all of those categories to get different grades. The C seems pretty simple. You have to do an APA paper and you have to get some group milestones and some learning targets, but then the B's and A's that's where the participation and preparedness scores come in. And also those qualm MRI critiques come in. So they have some entire sort of content areas of the course. Whatever. I'm not sure what qual MRI is. I'm gonna look that up.

Boz: But yeah. But that's one of those examples of, again, and sometimes it's done out of control. Oftentimes it's really done from a good, you know, a, a honest place of wanting to make sure the students can be successful. But those behaviors, like attendance or, or the class participation, unless there is a needed reason for the class participation, which there might be, and if there is, fine, but those kind of behavioral things are usually the ones that will get you in trouble. That will either add an unnecessary level of complexity, put those edge cases in there, or really turn something that you're trying to do to be more equitable into less equitable, because you will, you'll have those cases and the student has accomplished what you really wanted out of the course, but they didn't do it the way you think is necessary to be successful. And now we've got a, now we've got a problem.

Sharona: Well, and that's one of the things that's bothering me about the precalculus is that I know, although we're not telling the students to start that we will check their grade both with and without homework and participation. So we'll look just at their exam scores versus, we'll look at the whole score. And the problem.

Boz: And why? Why is that? What, why do you do that?

Sharona: So why do we do just the exam scores? Or why don't we tell the students?

Boz: No, no, no. Why do you look at it both ways? Because again, it's homework. You have to be able to do homework to do well on the assessments.

Sharona: So we look at it both ways because since our exams are paper and pencil and proctored, we do feel that they are a much more accurate representation of what a student can do. And we don't tell them because if we tell them they won't do it when they need to.

Boz: So, but again, that wasn't my question. My question was why do you do it? Why do you look at both?

Sharona: Cause for a certain number of students, their grades go so far down because of the homework and the participation that they end up getting a deflated grade.

Boz: Back in what, which episode was it that we actually looked at some of our comparisons between the traditional version of our stats class and the alternative.

Sharona: So episode 80 is where we compared our traditional versus the mastery versions of that 10 90 class.

Boz: So one of those things that we talked about and one of those data points that came up again here was a almost as close as we could get, like actual comparison of two different grading architectures being implemented in a class that was very similar to each other. We found a significant amount of students that putting the homework that is again, supposed to help the students. It's supposed to be where the students get the practice. Students can't be successful without doing it. We found a significant number of students that that dropped their grade dramatically. That taking that homework piece out, that control piece out, added one and sometimes two letter grades.

example, at my grade book for: 1081

Boz: Yeah, so if those other things that weren't the exams, if those things were designed to help build the student towards mastery or build it towards proficiency, then there it's not doing its job. It's the, those percentages and, and the way that those are feeding in isn't doing their job. Now, if the homework is providing some of your evidence of proficiency again, , and we've had this conversation but if the homework isn't serving that purpose, then this is a different conversation. If, if your homework is part of your assessing of proficiency, then yes, this is a different conversation. But more times than not. The purpose of homework, at least in most of the STEM classes that I've dealt with, it can be very different in especially a writing class. But if that's, if, if that's the case, if, if homework is supposed to be preparing, it's not, it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing, and it's artificially lowering those grades and defeating the purpose of trying to make a more equitable grading system.

Sharona: So, we're coming up on time here a little bit. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to specifically mention?

Boz: So, again, just, just some of my advice. If you're in this kind of issue right now, first go all the way back to the beginning. Really look at your purpose and is the complexity of your grading system really necessary? Simplify it if possible, you know, from, from the very beginning then once you've decided, you've stripped it down to what is actually essential, look at the way you're actually doing that decision for and do the same thing. Look at the complexity of it. Is it really necessary? And try to simplify it. I really do. I, I think it was Kate Owens that once said if she was to give three pieces of advice, it would be to simplify it. Simplify it, and simplify it again. Yeah.

Sharona: Absolutely. And I guess my piece of it is look carefully if you're using multiple conditions in your wrap up to try to distinguish between pieces that are learning based or measurement based I should say. So measuring growth, if you're measuring safety, whatever it is, versus behaviorally based. So did they complete something just because you want them to complete it? Like in my history of math class, I had these projects and they did have to complete the projects that was part of the grading architecture because the projects were a lot more than just the learning targets, and it's what I wanted out of the class. But if you're telling them you need to complete this thing, you need to complete that thing. You gotta complete this many of that or this many, and even in my history and math class, most of the behavioral stuff you could get the grade with or without that. Yeah. And that's the thing, it's really when they have no choice but to behave the way you want them to behave, that's when you're gonna get into issues.

Boz: And I do love that piece of advice you gave earlier that I've never really thought of saying out loud, but even though I've done it, I think it's a great thing to do. Have a colleague, especially a similar minded colleague that you know, might also use some alternative grading. Have them kind of do that thought experiment of testing it for, you know, from a student's point of view. I think that is a absolute brilliant thing to do, and, and we've done it. I've just never thought of expressing it. But yeah, you and I do that all

Sharona: time. Me giving good advice on the podcast, huh?

Boz: Yeah, I, I think if you've got a colleague you can do that with great. And if you don't. Hey, send us your grading architecture and we'll try to play devil's advocate with it.

Sharona: Or join the alternative grading slack channel. Throw it up there because then you'll get comments from people within and without your discipline.

Boz: You'll get every possible, every possible scenario you could imagine. If you do it on the Slack channel.

Sharona: Exactly.

Boz: All right, well, I wanna thank everybody again, 25,000. It's an amazing number. It's an amazing feeling. So thank you guys also very much. You've been listening to the Grading podcast with Sharona Krinsky, and Boz, 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, 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 and Sharona Krinsky. The full transcript of this episode is available on our website.

Boz: 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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