What is Standards-Based Grading at BHHS?

Standards-Based Grading:

• is a means of assessing student work based on clearly defined criteria and using specific  course rubrics;
• uses process and progress as a path to critical thinking and understanding;
• develops meaningful formative assessments (at-home or in-class practice that is not factored in the course grade) with timely feedback as practice for mastery of skill without penalty;
• allows students to take ownership of their learning while establishing trust between student and teacher;
• awards level of achievement that students accomplish over the duration of the course based on summative assessments (unit assessments--students’ opportunities to demonstrate the learning objectives, as described by specific course rubrics); and
• requires students’ self-reflection and self-awareness.

BHHS teachers who use Standards-Based Grading believe that:

• all scored tasks will correlate to one or more of the assessment criteria rubrics;
• students will be well-informed (i.e. feedback, knowing the standard, self assessing their learning, etc.) prior to receiving a summative grade;
• they will stay true to the appropriate rubric descriptors to honestly assess students’ command of objectives;
• grading will represent student performance on standards, not compliance, completion, or conduct; and
• grades are fluid and adapt to new learning, culminating in a final grade that represents the students’ achievement over the duration of the semester.

In practice, BHHS teachers who use Standards-Based Grading will:

• take their individual classes through range-finding activities of sample student work early in the course to help students see how the rubrics are applied and clarify teacher expectations;
• regularly communicate with students about their individual progress;
• regularly document formative assessments in MiStar either with numerical scores or specific anecdotal comments;
• use patterns in data rather than averages to determine overall criterion scores;
• display overall criterion scores in MiStar, adjusted after summative assessments; and
• provide additional rationale in MiStar if overall criterion scores do not seem to adhere to patterns.