Douglas Reeves states, “If you wanted to make one change that would immediately reduce student failure rates, then the most effective place to start would be challenging prevailing grading practices.”

In this video we cover:

• Why grading practices need to be challenged.
• What a grade should and should NOT represent.
• Why grades are messy.
• The relationship between a grade and student proficiency.
• How to provide accurate, specific, and meaningful grades that drive student performance. 

Unfortunately, we are operating in an outdated grading system that sets many students up to fail instead of succeed.

In this video we cover:

• The problem with using an unequal proportionate scale to score students. 
• The consequences of using the 100 point scale. 
• Why kids can never recover from a poor score.
• Teachers weigh items differently on the exact same test.
• How to create a system that truly represents the student's level of knowledge right now.
• Why do we dock students for not understanding the material at the beginning of a learning cycle?
• The penalties of averaging grades.

There are more standards than can be taught to mastery in the instruction time available. What does it mean to have a priority standard? How does that impact planning?

In this video we cover:

- The problem with too many standards.

- How to fix the problem by selecting priority standards.

- The difference between Tiers 1, 2, and 3 standards.

- Understanding the learning progression towards mastery of standards.

Scales articulate learning progressions for each priority standard. How do scales work with standards? How do scales help students? How do scales help with common assessments and expectations for student learning?

In this video we cover:

- How scales clearly articulate learning progressions for all students.

- How to unpack standards for both the simple and complex skills and processes.

- What scales measure and how they drive assessments

- How to align grading practices vertically and horizontally for consistency. 

The primary purpose of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and improve learning, not to sort and select students or to justify a grade.

In this video, we cover:

- The three principals of effective assessment design and alignment.

How to use proficiency scales to drive your assessments.

- How to differential simple and complex skills.

-How to design assessments that allow ALL students to demonstrate what they know and can do.