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Abstract

In the last year, Southwest Allen County Schools (SACS) instituted a “Portrait of a Graduate” vision in their community. This vision provides all stakeholders with information on the skills graduates from SACS will possess at the end of their senior year of high school. To accomplish this, SACS wanted to examine how well the teaching, learning, and reporting of learning aligned. One aspect of this process was to examine how well report cards were communicating student learning and progress to parents and students. To achieve this goal, SACS collected survey data from a variety of community members that evaluated their understanding of the meaning of grades. Survey data revealed that parents, teachers, administrators, and central office staff disagreed on the meaning of grades at all levels. The discovery of this misalignment led district leaders to pursue strategies that ensure greater alignment in what students are learning to the grades that are on students’ report cards. Under the guidance of Drs. Link and Guskey, we partnered with SACS to facilitate the pilot of Benjamin Bloom’s Mastery Learning instructional process in order to increase student learning and develop new ways to deliver on the promises described by the Portrait of a Graduate vision. Mastery Learning allows teachers to meet the individual learning needs of all students, in turn improving student learning and confidence. The use of this method also provides teachers with a framework to align instruction and assessments, ultimately leading to greater transparency and clarity on student report cards.

DOI

10.5703/1288284316988

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