By Logan Cioffi
A recent change in the requirement and reporting style of LREI’s electronic interim reports has brought mid-trimester feedback from each class to every student, but some students and teachers seem to value the new system differently.
As described on the top of each student’s interim report, the new system of interim grades has three categories of “standards that [the school] is assessing students on across the academic program.” These standards include class involvement, approach to work, and content skills. Within each standard are substandards such as “consideration of the ideas of others,” “response to feedback,” and “generating original ideas,” that give more specific feedback to the student. Each substandard is then graded with one of the available labels: “ME–Meeting Expectations, DVL–Developing, AC–Area of Concern,” the report states.
This new system of interim reporting was implemented in the first trimester of the 2016-2017 school year. Co-creator and Academic Dean Allison Isbell wanted to improve the old system by increasing the number of students who received reports. “The goal was that teachers have a faster, clearer way of reporting on interims whether they make a comment or not,” says Isbell. But in the first trimester, not all classes gave interim feedback and teachers used fewer standards. Isbell helped implement this new system and believes that it takes “iterations of things to get it right and the first time you launch something you expect you’re going to revise.”
In past years, teachers were not required to give out interim reports to anyone other than first trimester freshmen or students receiving a grade of a B- or lower. But with this new system, all students receive some type of feedback midway throughout the trimester. “All students should get feedback from their teachers whether they are doing well or not,” Isbell says. “Those that are doing well still want to know what they are doing well and what they still need to work on.”
After revisions from the first trimester, the second trimester interims came out with new standards and more substandards. For the second trimester, “the teachers worked together, revisited the list, and added a few more options,” Isbell says. “Most teachers really like it, they feel like they have given more feedback across their classes than usual.”
Science teacher Preethi Thomas-McKnight supports the new system and sees the value in how it helps both the students and teachers. She believes it helps the students who wouldn’t have normally received any interim feedback. So students who receive grades above a B- now can know where they are. Along with helping the students, Thomas-McKnight believes it also helps the teachers. She sees how it is easier for teachers to give feedback that uses one type of wording. Teachers select their standards for each class and then only need to fill out each person’s criteria.
Though this new system of reporting may have benefits for the students and teachers, there are some students who feel it is not working as perhaps the teachers would have hoped. Junior Erika Nally thinks that the system doesn’t represent or support the student as much. “Although it is targeted to be helpful, I felt like the change wasn’t very necessary,” Nally says. “It feels like everyone is sort of a machine. Having a direct comment from your teacher word for word was more helpful than this system.”
Senior Zoe Zeltner believes the new system of grading forces teachers to grade students different than usual. Zeltner thinks sometimes teachers look at student’s progress and grade them with their improvements in mind. She sees that this system doesn’t really leave much room for improvement. “It is very narrow because of the way they just check you off in a box,” she says.
Thomas-McKnight feels it is more personalized than the students may think. She believes each set of standards can mean something different to each teacher. Additionally, teachers choose their own standards for each class so it does have some personalization.
Nally and Zeltner think that teachers’ personalized comments would be more helpful in understanding how a student is doing in class than a checklist of standards. The categories let you know how you are doing in each group, but Zeltner wants to know more. “I might need to work on my participation but that is very broad,” Zeltner says. “Maybe I have too many side conversations, maybe I need to raise my hand more, but this system doesn’t allow for that specificity. This system doesn’t allow for us to know exactly how to improve it just tell us where we are doing bad or doing good.”
There is still an area in the new interim system that allows for teachers to give personal comments and a grade for their students. Whether they give one or not depends on the system of grading for the class and how the student is doing. For classes where the standards-based grading system is used, it gets more difficult to give a grade. “Some of the teachers using standards-based grading are not issuing grades at interims because it’s a moving grade,” Isbell explains. “They don’t want to say what you have right now because it’s not very accurate. While for other grading systems it might be easier to calculate a grade that would be more accurate.”
This system of interim feedback is new and its imperfections are still being worked out. Isbell reassures families that the interim grade is just a “snapshot of where the student is in that moment. It is not permanent, not dire, and hopefully comes early enough if students want to change it.” With the new changes happening, Isbell has found it most helpful to hear from students and teachers about what is or is not working. “I welcome feedback, and would love student feedback on ideas that they have,” she says.