Making the grade
- Colleen Farris
- Sep 7
- 3 min read
For the last five years, I’ve been fortunate to teach without an end-of-course standardized test. But in the seven years before that, I taught Culinary Arts in North Carolina, where state exams were required. I had to prepare students for a 100-question test at the end of the year, using a practice test bank, a textbook, and the provided lesson plans and materials.
One experience crystallized for me how useless and misaligned these tests were with the essential understandings and skills of my content area. As a new teacher, I encountered a question in the test bank about ingredient substitutions that I could not find anywhere in the textbook or materials. It was a “gotcha” question that it took me over a year to locate. The source and answer to the question was in a footnote in the teacher edition of the textbook. Exasperated, I wished there was a more authentic way to assess student learning. I wanted to support my students to develop mastery, not just earn an “A” on a multiple choice test. This experience was the beginning of my thinking about standardized testing, grading, and student mastery of Culinary Arts content.
How different would our education system be if it was structured so that teachers, administrators, and legislators thought the best of our students instead of the worst?
Standardized multiple-choice tests cannot measure whether a student is able to sauté a breast of chicken and make a pan sauce, but practical exams can. I believe authentic tasks, used in teaching, learning, formative and summative assessments are the best way to measure and support student achievement (Shepard, 2000). When students are actively engaged in a task, their reasoning and understanding are on display.
The best way to motivate students to achieve mastery is to create a learning environment that supports the idea of learning as a process, rather than a discrete outcome (Selwyn, 2011). Shepard (2000) calls this a “learning culture.” In Culinary Arts, industry standards for novice cooks are a baseline from which to develop a career-long journey of improved skill performance and knowledge. Lifelong learning is not only expected, it is required.
To help students begin this journey, constant formative assessment with feedback from teachers and peers is essential; however, the most important source of feedback for students comes from reflecting on their own work (Shepard, 2000). Students must learn how to be good at self assessment. By learning how to assess their own work, they learn how to detect errors, find solutions, and continue their learning journey.
Traditional grading does not support the idea of this learning journey. Instead, traditional grading practices implicitly reinforce the idea of learning as a product (Selwyn, 2011). Standards-based grading, on the other hand, presents students with clear performance goals (Shepard, 2000). As students present their work for assessment under this system, feedback and revisions allow them to meet the standards.
This grading approach assumes that all students are able to meet the standard. There is no need for a grading curve when everyone is capable and supported to achieve mastery. The follow-on effects of shifting from traditional grading to grading for mastery are dramatic. Instead of assuming all students start with a failing grade, this system assumes all students begin with the ability to earn an “A,” and the job of all teachers is to support students in earning that “A.” Isn't it time we started thinking our students can make the grade?
References
Selwyn, N. (2011). Education and technology: Key issues and debates. Continuum International Publishing.
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14.
