It’s been nearly a full year since Kentucky schools first closed down for COVID-19 and students encountered a new reality of learning remotely and in other nontraditional ways. What has this meant for what our schools are expecting from students in the classroom? How are schools measuring that? And how is the shifting landscape around expectations and assessment affecting young people? The Kentucky Student Voice Team looks to some high school students for answers.
Participants:
Briana, Jefferson County senior (all-virtual)
Maeve, Fayette County junior (all-virtual)
Krupa, Warren County senior (in-person)
Audrey, Franklin County sophomore (all-virtual)
Spandana, Jefferson County sophomore (all-virtual)
Gradations of Change During COVID
Briana: My grades during COVID dipped a lot. I did have all As. I was proud of that. That went to my colleges. But then they dipped a lot. Some dipped to U. Some dipped to Cs. And there was just so much work.
Audrey: I took my first dual credit class during the pandemic. I had not even registered for the platform we were using virtually. Everything was absolutely crazy. I had no expectations for how my teachers would grade. And it was a lot harder than I expected it to be, because it was all virtual and because I just didn’t really know. It’s definitely been a struggle.
Spandana: I feel like just right now, specifically because we’re in a pandemic and a lot of us have virtual school, I feel like effort needs to be taken into consideration when we’re measuring how well a student is doing, because it’s really difficult to learn through virtual schooling. I feel like there needs to be a lot more effort on understanding the effort that goes into learning, especially right now.
Krupa: I definitely think that what we’re measuring in school right now is a question that is so dependent on each student and community. One student may be able to be best measured through traditional grading. Others might need other support. It’s key to keep all students in mind.
Briana: Right now [during school closures], it’s mostly “Did you do the assignment?” That’s literally it. And then I have one teacher, just one, she’s like, “What’s your quality? Effort?” All that. But other than that, it’s low-key just a participation grade, like “Is it right-ish? Did you do it?”
“One student may be able to be best measured through traditional grading. Others might need other support. It’s key to keep all students in mind.”
Audrey: I’m considered a good student, but I have severely dropped off in effort this year because I’ve had so much time and so many resources available to me, like the internet, to be able to help on certain assignments. But if I’m not getting something, specifically in math, I will do the work. And it could take me forever to do it or I could luckily guess one of the four answers, just check a box and get it right. And I won’t actually know the material, but my grade reflects as if I’ve completely got it and I’m ready to move on.
Shifting Expectations
Briana: So, most of my teachers right now, they don’t expect any learning from me, because I’m not learning anything. I have some classes where we just talk about our schedule and then we leave or go over the homework in class. Other classes, we don’t have a test at all. And I appreciate that, but it’s like we don’t even really have an assignment. So, a lot of these teachers, they know that I’m not learning anything and they’ve got to a point of like, “Well, what can I do?” That’s a whole story.
Maeve: On the bright side, there are teachers who do exist that are helping. With my calculus teacher for example, all the students were not ready for this test that was supposedly happening on Friday. And so he was like, “We’ll just spend more time reviewing and we’ll push it to Tuesday.” And I think everybody really appreciated that and the time that they were given. And everybody performed very well on the test. So, I feel like when teachers are responsive to students, then that’s kind of when just that consideration and empathy kind of kicks in.
“It’s just like, ‘I’m putting in all this effort, and what am I learning at the end of the day?’”
Audrey: I think that my teachers, they’re expecting us to get the basic work done, but they’re expecting us not to bother them. I feel like if I send an email past 3:05, when my school lets out, on a Friday, if I send it at 3:10 on a Friday, I won’t get a response until lunch on Monday. And sometimes things are urgent. Sometimes there’s a deadline right that night and I need information now. And a lot of teachers aren’t supporting that. That’s not to say that all aren’t. I do have one teacher who makes himself probably too available. I mean, he will help us any time of day. He grades things at midnight. And I’m like, “I’m trying to go to sleep here and you’re putting in my math grades.” I think that my teachers aren’t really expecting the same level of learning, but I also don’t feel like they’re putting in the same amount of effort necessarily as before, because they don’t think that we’re going to notice or that we’re going to care, which is definitely not true.
Spandana: I think that before Covid-19, my teachers would grade my homework a lot for accuracy. But now, I feel like it’s definitely more about participation. And that’s good in one aspect and also not good in another aspect. So, I think before, it felt a lot more like rigorous and strict grading. But now, it feels more lenient. I don’t have to put in the same effort to get an A as I would have had to do before.
Maeve: When COVID first started everybody was panicking. Students were definitely more relaxed. We were like, “Yeah. Party. We get two weeks off.” And so, all these schools issued these sympathy measures. Schools are like, “We’re canceling finals. We’re canceling assignments. If you need $10,000, we’ll give you $10,000. If you want lunch, we’ve got lunch for you.” That was definitely the kind of vibe going on there. And then, the work started to get harder with the digital kind of wave and grades got more serious, because it’s like, “Okay, this is long term. We’ve got to have some grades to give these students. And so, we’re just going to kind of increase things,” and they just forgot all of that sympathy they had at the beginning of the year.
Krupa: In my school, in March 2020, when we first went into quarantine, we shifted from an ABC scale to P/ D/Fail. This I thought was a really good thing. I would have liked to see this in the semesters since; however, my teachers seem to have a desire to go back to normalcy. So, we’re back to ABC and normal grading standards, which I think is almost unfortunate and fails to recognize the continued struggles students go through.
The Limits of Grading in General
Maeve: You have these little quizzes, filler work, where you’re just going through the textbook and picking out facts in the textbook and saying true or false. It’s online, so you can just command F it and type the keywords. And I feel like all of this filler work and just little tiny assignments has kind of encouraged this. I don’t want to call it cheating, but definitely a little bit slacking off in usually high performing students, good performing students, because there’s just so much. It’s just like, “I’m putting in all this effort, and what am I learning at the end of the day?”
Spandana: One of my teachers gives us handouts, and we just watch videos, and it’s just fill in the blank with those videos. And it’s about a whole era of history in like 10 minutes. And then, all you really can pay attention to is, “Oh, what do I need to fill out for the next question?” And then sometimes I’m just like, “Well, I don’t really know that much,” even after I’ve watched this. So, I feel like it’s really important that we get that balance between participation and being understanding and also making sure students are learning. Like actually learning the content. But it’s just really difficult.
Maeve: I feel like I’d like to be graded on just kind of conversations and talks — not necessarily 100%, like I just attend the class and ask a few questions and I get an A+ immediately. But just kind of like words that teachers can pick out where they know that a student can understand the material, like this roundtable discussion. If I said something, if I was being graded by you all and I said something that really stood out to you, that I’d learn the concepts, if you recognized that and graded me on that, I feel like that’s kind of more naturally ingrained than just the filler work where it’s just assignments. So, less assignments and more just kind of actual reflection, like “I know your brain gets this.” I think the idea of grading is almost about proving that you can do your chores, that you can do your work. I don’t view it as necessary 100% of the time. I think it’s just to prove that you can do your chores and you’re paying attention, mostly.
Spandana: I think it’s also just sometimes really unfair because students who just don’t have resources and maybe don’t have access to all the same things that other students do could get worse grades because of so, so many factors and barriers. And it definitely is something that’s really upsetting and needs to be worked on, honestly.
“In this time, you really see the financial divide in things and how it’s really taken the toll on grading.”
Briana: So, I have a story. It happened this week. I take AP Calculus right now and we had an assignment. And my teacher accidentally put the wrong day it was due, so some people ended up doing it in advance. So we were in our [virtual] breakout rooms and I asked this guy, I’m like, “Daniel,” I said, “How do you do this problem?” He’s like, “Oh, yeah. I had my tutor help me with this a few days ago.” I was like, “Tutor?” And it just… A lot of kids at my school have the money to just have adult tutors. And I know so many kids that are falling behind because they don’t understand this. Calculus is hard. And I feel like in this time, you really see the financial divide in things and how it’s really taken the toll on grading.
Maeve: For so long we’ve just had the system of you go over material, review it, then you take a test on it. So, I mean, there’s got to be some way to know that you have a comprehension of the material without that kind of vicious workload. But I can’t think of what it could be.
This is Part One of a two-part series on grading during the pandemic. Rachel Belin transcribed this conversation, which took place on February 12, 2021.
