When a teacher is ready to begin differentiating, one of the first stumbling blocks is worrying about adding to their grading burden. “Won’t multiple groups mean I have more work to grade?” the teacher asks as they melt into a puddle.
First, most of us grade WAY too much to begin with. Over-grading burns teachers out and leads to Gollum-like students who value precious points more than learning. Don’t grade so much stuff!
Secondly, differentiation shouldn’t add much complexity at all in terms of grading. Students should all be graded on the same assessment, measured against whatever standards are used in your situation. Differentiation goes beyond that baseline.
Preassessment Grading Flowchart
Here’s a flowchart of how I implemented it (with more details below):
Now, that chart leaves off the most important step: you must believe that your students are naturally curious people who would love the opportunity to learn interesting things at an appropriately quick pace.
Too many teachers never differentiate because they simply don’t trust their students. Will the occasional kid take advantage of some freedom? Sure. But that’s easy to solve, right? (The answer is down below.)
Will this work beautifully the first time? No! It might take you a few years to work out the bugs. But it’s worth it. And I always recommend simply watching a classroom that already has this in place. That’s how I learned! Reading about it or hearing someone merely talk about it will only get you so far.
The Pre-Assessment Flow
So, assuming you have an optimistic mindset and you’re willing to work out the kinks, here’s more details about the flow that I used. (Very specific tips are here)
- I announce the pre-assessment a week or so in advance. I do this to give my students a chance to prepare. First time pre-assessing? You’ll want to explain the process and clear up any fears students have.
- Administer the pre-assessment. Not everyone needs to take it! It’s ok if they decide halfway through that it’s too hard. Don’t make this a long, complicated process. It’s usually very easy to tell if a kid already knows the material!
- Split the class. Using your pre-determined threshold (I like 85%; don’t go higher than 90%), split your class.
- Recording grades. For students who scored below the threshold, just toss the grade. (This is important. Non-passing pre-assessment grades don’t affect final grades). But, if they made it, record a 100% or A or 4 or whatever the highest grade possible is. I don’t want my brightest students worrying about missing 5 points or some other grade baloney. If they got an 85% with zero instruction, they’ve earned the top grade. I do quick mini-lessons if needed to clear up those missed questions.
- Teach your typical group as usual. They sit through lessons, do the homework, take quizzes, take the final test. The earn their grade the usual way.
- Meanwhile, your test-out group does an alternate assignment. It could be a larger project, a deeper dive into specifics related to the unit, an ongoing assignment, whatever. This task needs to be awesome! If it’s boring or annoying, students won’t test out in the future. They’ll act out and the whole thing will fall apart. Make sure this is actually interesting.
- While teaching the typical group, I check in with my test-out group throughout the period to answer questions, clear up confusion, etc. Yes, this means I’m running around a bit, but it sure makes the time fly!
- Final presentation. In the end, I have my test-out group present what they were working on to the rest of the class. As a multiple-subject teacher, I’d also use this presentation as a “speaking” grade. But mostly, the presentations were a commercial to the rest of the class to study for the next pre-assessment.
My mentor teacher gave me the best advice about running that test-out group. If the task is interesting, they won’t act out. Because they know that their consequence is that they will not be allowed to test-out in the next two units. I literally never once had a problem with my test-out group distracting the rest of the class. Of course, I explained their rules and consequences and all of that on the first day. Again, more nitty gritty details here.