How and What We Grade Matters: Grading for Mastery

by Dr. Mary Beth Townsend, Ed.D.

If we as teachers and administrators want to close the achievement gap, we need to take a hard look at our grading practices. Zaretta Hammond suggests in her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain that there are four things teachers need to do to create social-emotional partnerships with our students that will allow for deeper learning.

First, Hammond states, teachers need to establish an “authentic connection with students that builds trust”(p. 19). But, according to Joe Feldman in his book, Grading for Equity, if everything a student does is graded, it sends a message that there is no room for failure. Students are then expected to be perfect from the very first assignment on the very first day. They will not trust us enough to take chances or stretch themselves at the risk of failure (p. 31).

Current grading policies do not build trust between the teacher and the students. The teacher is the sole arbiter of the grades. This system makes students less likely to take risks in our classrooms. They are less likely to be creative or to work for the pleasure of learning (Feldman, p. 20).

This is how my grading worked for most of my career. Students on the first day of class or at least the first week of school were given an assignment. It might be something simple like turning in the syllabus signed by their parent or guardian. It might be a response to questions about themselves so that I could get to know them. Students who turned in the assignments received a score (usually a 100%) and students who did not, received a zero. This grade served as a messaging system to my students: “You need to do this. It is hurting your grade.”

But like Kristen Brown’s 2021 post, “Grading for Equity: A Teacher’s Reflections”, it became clear to me in recent years that my grading practices were inequitable.

Much has been discussed and debated about whether giving a zero for missing work is an equitable practice, and according to a 2018 article in Edutopia some school districts that adopted the practice of not giving zeros are walking away from it. But whether you agree with the practice of assigning partial credit for missing work, there are other practices worth considering.

Grading Policy Messages

What are the messages we are sending students through our grading policies? If your school district examined the policies from teacher to teacher, would they be the same? How difficult is it for students to navigate your system of grading policies? Do these policies disadvantage your low income, immigrant, or students of color? Feldman argues that current grading policies stem from the behaviorist ideology that if we reinforce the behavior we want and punish the behavior we don’t, every student will learn how to do school. But, these policies instead seem to have contributed to the achievement gap and reinforced the racial and social hierarchies that we need to break down (p. 20).

Positive Relationships Build Learning Environments

Hammond’s second suggestion in building learning partnerships with students is that teachers need to leverage the trust they built to lead students to rise to even higher expectations (p. 19). A brain that does not feel trust is flooded with cortisol and unable to think and learn. Trust increases the amount of oxytocin in the brain, allowing the prefrontal cortex to focus on higher order thinking (Hammond, p.48). We want our students to trust that we have their best interest at heart and that hard work and effort will pay off. But do our grading practices give a conflicting message? If we grade everything they do, are we sending the message that there is no room for failure?

Mastery Mindset

How can we increase our students’ capacity to learn? Grading for mastery allows students to take ownership,and helps them see gaps in their understanding. This is not about a deficit mindset but about increasing their capacity to learn. If we are grading for mastery, students are encouraged to turn things in multiple times, knowing that their hard work will pay off. Yes, it is more grading and regrading, but digital tools can speed that up. It is also more than a growth mindset. It is not enough to have a student go from a zero to a 60%. Expecting students to work toward mastery means not letting them go easy with a 60% and calling it passing. Students are expected to redo work that falls below the mastery threshold.

My fellow ESL teacher and I experienced this phenomenon this past school year when we co-taught a sheltered EL geography course. Students were encouraged to retake any quiz that they didn’t get 100% on and expected to retake any quiz they didn’t score at least 80%. They felt encouraged and supported by our expectations, not discouraged and defeated by a poor grade. Over time, they took it upon themselves to redo any quiz without any prompting from us.

The SEL Connection to Transparent Grading Practices

The third suggestion from Hammond is for teachers to give feedback in emotionally sensitive ways that don’t deflate a student’s energy, but instead give the student a path forward (p. 19). One suggestion from Feldman is to use a rubric for every assignment. If everything that is assessed has a rubric attached, and if that rubric is attached to specific standards or competencies, students can see exactly which areas they need to focus on for mastery. If we consider grading for mastery instead of for classroom management, we might get a very different outcome (p. 188)

Finally, Hammond says, teachers need to hold students to high expectations (p. 19). Teachers need to be the ally and act as a “warm demander” to encourage students to try harder (p. 95). Teachers need to start with the relationship. Once the relationship is built, teachers can encourage and support productive struggle. In this scenario, students become the drivers of their learning. When students trust their teachers to be their advocates, when they feel safe enough to try and not graded on every attempt, and when they are given a clear path toward success via rubrics, they feel empowered in their learning.

To Grade or Not to Grade?

Do teachers at your school grade “soft skills” like participation and effort?How is participation rewarded as a grade? Feldman argues that while those skills are important, they do not belong in the grade calculations (p. 120). For one thing, giving a grade to soft skills leaves the teacher open to accusations of bias. A student whose cultural practice is to speak over others might get marked down for interrupting. A student whose cultural practice is to wait before speaking might get graded down for not trying or not cooperating.

If an assignment is part of the learning process, should it be graded at all? If given a grade, how much of the overall grade should it be worth? Feldman argues that only summative assignments should be counted toward the grade (p. 142). That might be a challenge for most teachers in most school districts. What is your district’s policy toward grading formative assessments? Could you change your grading practice to only count summative assessments toward the grade? If not, what would be your dividing line between summative and formative percentages? Do you offer retakes on summative assessments?

It’s not that practice doesn’t matter, and in fact, tracking performance on practice assignments can inform students about their progress and understanding of the standards. Counting the practice makes less sense when grading for mastery. In a mastery grading system, only the highest grade on the summative attempt should count. That is where the students demonstrate their understanding. But this also means that retakes are not only allowed, but expected.

Digital Tools that Can Improve Equity in Practice

We need to start leveraging the digital tools at our capacity to improve communication, SEL check-ins, self-reflection, engagement, empowerment, and hopefully, reigniting excitement for learning. There are lots of digital tools that can improve communication, SEL check -ins, and self-reflection. One such tool that is quick and easy to use is the Google Jamboard. Templates can help teachers push out a quick check-in or self-evaluation on the learning material.

Learning management systems like Canvas have tools like rubrics for self evaluations, peer evaluations and quick and consistent teacher feedback. Canvas also has a mastery grading system that can be aligned to content standards, prerequisites and requirement features in modules that encourage mastery, as well as a mastery path option in which students take a pretest that determines their path based on their initial understanding of the content. I personally rely on the prerequisites and requirements in the modules to inform my students of their progress and empower them to move toward mastery of the content.

There are also many tools for practice such as quiz games like Quizizz, Quizlet,and Kahoot! Flashcard tools like Brainscape help students identify their areas of weakness as they review. Many learning management systems have methods to allow for regrading of assignments, messaging of students, and ways to allow for multiple attempts at a quiz, test, and assignment. Finally, portfolios where students curate and submit their best work and summarize their understanding of the learning targets can give students the ownership of their learning. Digital programs like SeeSaw have been used as portfolios, especially for younger students, but a portfolio can be a set of Google Slides or other slide program, and they don’t need to be pricey to work.

Where to Go From Here?

I have not decided whether to count only summative assessments in my grading policy for this coming year, in part because I do not know if my (new) principal and school district will support it or what other teachers in my school may say or do. I do intend to give formatives assessments the lowest percentage allowed and to reduce the overall points each formative is awarded. I have always allowed retakes on summative assessments, and will continue to use requirements to push my students to be better than just the 60% needed to pass. I am also working on adding rubrics to everything I assign in Canvas and to connect everything to the content standards.

But when school starts, my focus will be on relationship building to build trust and engagement. When I was teaching completely online and then dividing my time and attention between the students in class and the ones in the Google Meet, it became increasingly obvious that without relationships, it was very difficult to engage students in the content. That is one lesson that I will take with me even after the pandemic is long over.

Mary Beth Townsend, Ed.D. she/her/ella. Two Rivers High School Social Studies Teacher, West St. Paul, MN Digital Learning Coach. Digital Storytelling PLN Editor. Mobile Learning PLN Leadership Team. Twitter: @MaryBTownsend1