Pretty much any Biology teacher will be able to tell you, structure dictates function in the living world around us. This is true on a molecular level in the form of water being a polar molecule leading to its properties as a universal solvent, on a cellular level for as the shape of a protein is changed so too is the way that it functions, and even within a particular environment as in the length of a giraffe's neck allowing it to reach more nutrients within a tree and therefore give it an advantage to live long enough to produce offspring which carry that same trait allowing it to be better adapted to that specific environment (natural selection). There are literally thousands of examples in nature where structure determines function and it is not uncommon for us to get ideas from nature to help our own cause. That is what took place for me this week as I came across yet another example of structure dictating function. This time it was within the classroom.
The conversation being overheard boiled down to “we don’t have enough assessments on this standard and need to give another test so we have enough points in the gradebook” I suspect this, or something like it, sounds familiar because whether you are using a standards based report card or a more typical point accumulating report card, the number of points in the gradebook are being used to determine the grade. It is a classic case of structure dictating function. In this example, the gradebook and its need for points (structure) is dictating the pedagogy (function) taking place within the classroom and as a result students are being assessed not for gaining an understanding of where they are in their skill level, but because they need more points for the gradebook. This happened to be in a second grade classroom, but it could take place in any K-12 classroom where the demands of the report card (structure) interfere with meeting the needs of the young people within the classroom (function of school). Another quick example was overheard at the high school when a teacher commented on the need to have more homework assigned so there were enough points in the gradebook to give students a chance to overcome their poor test scores. Neither of these pedagogical practice had anything to do with learning and had everything to do with meeting the demands of the structure in place (the report card). The structure of this grade reporting system also tends to force concepts or standards to be taught in isolation or silos if you will.
How many times have you found yourself short on time because students are struggling with applying a concept, but you are reluctant to slow down lest you not cover what needs to be covered by the end of the grading period? Part of the reason why our young folks struggle with applying particular concepts is because those concepts or skills are often taught in isolation and they are taught in isolation because we have to be able to identify the point value to submit in the gradebook. This is yet another example of structure dictating function. Time is currency in a school and it should be treated as such. We should not be spending valuable time in class focusing on having enough points, but should instead be using that time accumulating information through a variety of ways to have a better understanding of what our young people are learning or not learning in class. To add to this dilemma, think about the purpose (function) of a report card. Why do we have them? In my mind our gradebooks and therefore report cards should be able to clearly and honestly communicate to parents what skills their children have developed as well as what they understand about a designated topic. If that is the case, what does a “B” mean? How about an 83%? What would a “3” mean to a parent? Is it really any more informative than a letter grade? Should an “F” be given to a third grader who doesn’t understand a concept yet or to a middle schooler for that matter? I ask, because if the function of a report card is to clearly and honestly communicate to the parents, does the current structure allow for that to take place? If your answer is “no”, like mine, how can the structure be changed to meet the function? That is the question we are working on in our district at the K-5 level to start.
As we self-reflected, we found there was not really a grade reporting structure that wasn’t “accounting based” in our district. The 3-5 grades were using a traditional point accumulation grading system and K-2 were struggling with a standards based system that was connected to an accumulation of points. Teachers go into our profession to help kids not to be accountants, yet the grade reporting system was forcing them to focus on point totals and not kids. We are wrestling with the idea of changing the structure of our reporting system so it meets our expectations of clearly and honestly reporting what our young people understand (function). In this way the pedagogy will dictate the reporting and not the other way around. In order to gain insight we continue to meet with teachers to gain valuable insight , but also have come across some interesting resources including Starr Sackstein’s “Hacking Assessments: 10 Ways to go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School” in which she shares some interesting ways to shift the focus to learning over points as well as Larry Geni ’s “Teacher Handbook” which includes a number of suggestions including the development of student contracts. I am excited because we are rolling out the first iteration of our “new gradebook” to our Grading Practice Committee this coming Tuesday. Being it is the first iteration, by definition, we know there are a lot of changes to be made to the structure, but we hope to ultimately be able to have a reporting system (structure) that can clearly and honestly report to parents while giving teacher the latitude to be able to follow best practices (function). Stay tuned for updates. :)
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