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Beyond Making the Grade: Motivating  Jagged Learners with ClassROWEs

7/3/2021

 
by Heather M. F. Lyke
Over two years ago, in the spring of 2019, I had grand ideas of how to grade differently—of how to motivate students with an intrinsic desire to learn and grow, rather than with extrinsic letter grades and percentages. After having spent four years working in the office of Curriculum and Instruction for the Rochester Public Schools (RPS), and with plans to return to the classroom that coming fall, I wanted to take what I had learned over my four years—part of which had been a deep dive into grading practices—and implement them with flare. That plan resulted in the article "Seeing the Motivation: Filling ClassROWEs with Jagged Learners," which was first published in May 2019 and the full text of which is also embedded below..​
 
While poet Robert Burns is frequently quoted as noting, “The best laid plans of Mice and Men often go awry,” perhaps 'often' is the key word—at least in this instance. As it turns out, all that planning in this case did work in the favor of both student learning and student engagement
—even during a pandemic.

Below, is my original thoughts and plans, along with why I made them in the first place. The main difference: this time, I have included updated data, actual results, alterations I made along the way, revisions I would make moving forward, and resources educators might find helpful if looking to get started with similar practices.*
*All additions are in this font and noted by a gray, vertical line.

How will I motivate students to focus on learning and growth, vs. letter grades? 

​Embrace Jaggedness
In my brainstorming, I was reminded of what Todd Rose notes in his book The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness (2015). Rose explores the jaggedness principle: the concept that on paper many individuals might all appear much the same, while in reality they’re very unique.
 
Lory Hough, author of the 2015 Harvard Ed article “Beyond Average” captures it this way:
Rose says, “if we ignore jaggedness, we end up treating people in one-dimensional terms”—the struggling student, the good tester. “If we want to know your intelligence, for example, we give you an IQ test that is supposed to tap a range of abilities, but then we merge that into a single score.” Imagine two young students have the same IQ score of 110—the exact same number. One has great spatial abilities but poor working memory, and the other has the exact opposite jaggedness. “If we just want to rank them, then we could say the students are more or less the same in intelligence because they have the same aggregate scores. But if we wanted to really understand who they are as individuals enough to nurture their potential, we can’t ignore the jaggedness—it is the essential information for providing them with an optimal environment and matching them with optimal strategies for success.”
 
But acknowledging jaggedness, in my opinion, won’t alone motivate students. However, combine this principle with a ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) structure, and we might be on our way…
​
Create a ROWE

I first learned about ROWEs in Dan Pink’s 2009 Ted Talk, and then read about it again in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In his talk, starting around the 15 minute mark, Pink states that a ROWE is when, “people don't have schedules. They show up when they want. They don't have to be in the office at a certain time, or any time. They just have to get their work done. How they do it, when they do it, where they do it, is totally up to them.” And, he goes on to note that what happens in a ROWE is that, “across the board, productivity goes up, worker engagement goes up, worker satisfaction goes up, turnover goes down.” 
To create a classroom version of a ROWE, students would have to show mastery of required skills, such as RPS's established Prioritized Learnings.
​ 
​
In my current school community, Dover-Eyota Public Schools, we call these 'Essential Leaning Outcomes (ELOs)'. Some schools call these 'Power Standards'. No matter the name, this is valuable work the really helps hone the focus of student learning and growth.

If you have not yet had a chance to create these for your content area, grade, or course yet, consider reading the "Learning Goals" section of the article "Focusing on Feedback: Reassessing Letter Grades," which explores Sarah Zerwin's approach when she made a similar shift with her students. 
​
​However, students will not need to do this on my schedule, nor by following my prescribed pathway. In a classroom ROWE, like the one I hope to create, students will be expected to meet the standards by the end of the grading period, not by some arbitrary date I choose. Likewise, students can get there via a path I map out for them, but if they want to take another route, I’ll welcome that. And, should they hit construction or a dead end, they can reroute themselves (with my help, should they need it) until they meet the required destination.

​
Last week, a student of mine from 2019-2020 reached out to me to inquire about a letter of recommendation. While a letter was the reason for her setting up a Zoom call with me, during our time together she shared with me that it was this flexibility—this acknowledgement that learning doesn't always happen 'on schedule'—that saved her in the spring of 2020 when we suddenly shifted to online learning. Numerous times throughout the video chat, she thanked me for grading this way.

She shared with me that with that sudden shift, and specifically the amount of time she had to spend at home with parents who did not quite understand who she was, had her spiraling downward in regards to her mental health. However, the structure in our American Literature class allowed her to adjust emotionally—gave her permission to prioritize her health over her academics. Then, once she’d adjusted to this new reality of learning online and being stuck at home she was able to reengage and to do so fully. Once she reconnected, she was able to focus and show her skill development without distraction.
 
Her story is only one of many that students and parents have shared regarding this way of providing feedback—all stories shared have included that thread of student empowerment and accountability.
Related reading: Focusing on Feedback | Reassessing Letter Grades
​Go Visual
I recently came upon a statistic that surprised me: “the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual” (Eisenberg, 2014). When this set of facts is combined with the common belief that 65% of learners are more dominantly visual (vs. auditory or kinesthetic), even despite recent controversy on learning styles, it’s hard to argue that—no matter the statistics—going visual with information can literally help us see more fully the material we’re trying to process.
​
Since 2019, I have also been reminded often of how important visuals are for our English language learners, especially when students are involved with creating those visuals.

Additionally, using visuals is a tool that marketers are well aware of. Some of the statistics they lean into are:
  • It takes only 13 milliseconds for the human brain to process an image.
  • 90% of the information processed by the brain is visual.
  • If a relevant image is paired with written/auditory information, people retain at least 65% of the information three days later, versus when people hear/read information without an image and they're likely to remember only 10-20% of that information.
Advertisers lean into the power of visuals, so why shouldn't teachers? Essentially, we are 'selling' skills, a love of learning, and content...

​​So, in my quest for an answer to how I might motivate students without traditional letter grades, but yet still track progress that allows for jagged learning in a ROWE structured classroom, I found myself wondering the following:
  • Would having students go visual with their learning help them better comprehend their own growth?
  • Since we live in a system with letter grades, would tying these letters to a consistent illustration of proficiency (rather than things I’ve scored in the past, such as homework completion, participation, rote memorization, extra credit tasks, etc.), have greater impact?
  • Is there a way to shift communication with parents/guardians so it focuses on student learning rather than behaviors and overall grades? ​
Radar Chart Example
One way I can see to capture each student’s (jagged) success visually, comes from a 2017 FIRST conference I attended. One of the speakers, Myron Dueck, illustrated a point in Todd Rose’s book by showing radar charts of various football players. He noted that while one player might be strongest in one or two areas, other players are strong in others; but, together the team fills out most, if not all, of the radar’s surface area. Additionally, Dueck highlighted that as a player works on his skills, he’s not going to be strong in every area from the start—some strengths just take longer to build than others.
 
Similarly, students can take their learning and go visual with it by using a radar chart structure!

Related podcast: Pointless Grading for a Purposeful Future

Putting it All Together

With all this in mind, I mocked up a structure that I am thinking about using with my students when I return to the classroom in the fall. Maybe something like this will work with your students, too.
|   Part 1   | 
Each assignment will be rooted in one or more Prioritized Learnings. For one of the courses I will be teaching, American Literature & Composition, these are:
  • A: Students will demonstrate close reading of fiction and nonfiction by using fitting textual evidence to prove a claim.
  • B: Students will write creatively with appropriate structure, purpose, tone, and conventions for various audiences.
  • C: Students will write argumentative pieces with appropriate structure, purpose, tone, and conventions for various audiences.
  • D: Students use a writing process to develop and strengthen ideas.
  • E: Students develop and verbalize a cohesive argument that initiates, builds on, or poses questions to move discussion forward.
 
Additionally, on all assignments where students will receive formalized instructor feedback, I plan to use a 3 point feedback scale. For me, three points make sense because it tightly aligns with our Proficiency Scales (but, should my PLC or building opt for a different breakdown, I’ll adjust). Currently, I am thinking it might break down this way:
  • 3 = proficient
  • 2 = partially proficient
  • 1 = not yet proficient
​
Perhaps the most complicated piece of this whole shift was figuring out how to explain it to students and parents. I suspected that many would need to understand why the shift was occurring and that most would want to know the logistics of how it would work and what they would see when it came to student report cards, transcripts, and online student information systems (SIS) like Skyward, JMC, Gradelink, Infinite Campus, etc.
 
For this reason, I made sure to start the year off with establishing this new structure. There is the old adage “go slow to go fast,” which held true in this instance. I embedded explanations in my syllabi, sent emails home to all parents and guardians via our SIS, sent the same letter home in physical form via the old school student-delivery method, had a copy of both my syllabi and that letter available at fall conferences…
Copy of Syllabus
Copy of Parent Letter
As it turned out, while there were a few parents and students who were initially frustrated, ultimately everyone was either ambivalent (rare) or fully onboard (more common) about the change. Those who were the most hesitant to join us on this journey: students who had done well in the past because they knew how to navigate a traditional school system and now found themselves disquieted by this new one, and those who wanted to know what the minimum requirement was to get an ‘A’.

|   Part 2   |
At the end of first quarter, we’ll take some time to do some metacognition, where students can reflect on their learning.
 
Each student will:
  • Take his/her scores and fill in an individual grading grid
    • Many assignments in English cross into multiple Prioritized Learnings, so for many tasks students will receive feedback scores in two or more areas
  • On the grading grid, circle the highest score for each Prioritized Learning achieved 3 times in a row
    • Why three times in a row? From my lens, achieving a high score once—or even twice—might simply be the ‘context principle’ at play (the idea that environment, context, and overall situation plays a role in one’s performance)
  • Select a color for the quarter and add it to the key
  • Fill in the Quarterly Growth Chart to show where skills are currently sitting

​The four steps above might look something like this:
A visual of the steps noted above
Instead of having students track their own scores, I worked with some coworkers to figure out how to make our SIS do this sorting for us; thereby, simplifying the process. 
Picture

​Finally, once each student has completed the steps above, each will work through some self-reflection questions.

 
Possible questions might include:
  • In what Prioritized Learning area did you grow most this quarter? For each listed Prioritized Learning, explain why you think this was a growth area of yours.
  • In what Prioritized Learning areas did you show the least amount of growth in this quarter? For each listed Prioritized Learning, explain why you think this was not a significant growth area of yours.
  • Wanting to ensure personal growth, in which Prioritized Learning area(s) do you intend to focus next quarter?
  • For the area(s) noted in your answers above, sketch out a three part action plan. (1) What will you do to help yourself strengthen your understanding in this area? (2) What can the teacher do to help you strengthen your understanding in this area? (3) Who, aside from your teacher, might be able to support you in this endeavor, in what ways, and how will you utilize them?
​​
The first time we did this, which was at the end of first quarter, took more time than all other future reflections—once through it one time, it became a structure that students were used to.

Here are the handouts, questions, and instructions I ultimately ended up using with students:
Visual Goal Tracker
Reflection Questions
Instruction Slides (Qtr. 2 Example)
In addition to doing a quarterly reflection, to keep skill growth at the forefront I started to add in opportunities to reflect before/during/after larger assignments that would ultimately be reflected in student's SIS. Furthermore, as the year went on, I made a point to add references to what skills we were working on at the start of a journal entry or daily task—giving purpose to assignments that would not be formally scored, but that would be foundational in growing skills. Toward the end the year, I even began weaving the language of each skill into rubrics and checklists, which saved me a lot of time when grading. 

Some examples of this are shown in the gallery bellow:
In implementation, I found I was missing one step: the 'what-do-we-do-with-this-data?' step. At the start of each quarter, I added Goal Setting opportunities for students to plan their learning and actions moving forward. 
Goal Setting Slides

|   Part 3   |
Repeat ‘Part 2’ (above) at the end of each quarter. By the end of the year, a student’s chart will fill in. For one student, the progression might end up looking something like this:
Picture
Whereas, for another student, the progression might look completely different. However, the hope is that by the end of quarter four, all students will be able to color in the whole of the chart, showing proof of mastery of all Prioritized Learnings.
​

In truth, while some did look as pretty and logical as these, there were more that didn't quite fit this mold. Students sometimes took a step backward in a skill area, some did not get to a '3' in all areas, and so forth. That aside, I was surprised how well this worked. 

Some of my coworkers have gone electronic with tracking. Personally, I find a lot of value in getting students involved and having them fill in their grid. However, it can be time consuming.

One tech-forward option, using Flourish, looks like this:

|   Part 4   |
Utilize this year-round! Some possible ways I anticipate weaving this into my classroom throughout the year:
  • Grouping Students: A tool for creating groups where different students bring different skills to the table, together balancing out their overall skillset
  • Individual Student Conferencing: A visual for student to reference during 1-on-1 student/teacher conferences
  • Conferencing with Parents/Guardians: A visual to focus on during conferences with parents/guardians, rather than focusing on letter grades
  • Re-teaching: A tool for creating skill-alike conferencing groups, allowing for small-group work sessions where all can work to relearn or refine a skill that all in the group have yet to master
  • Enrichment: A tool for creating skill-alike conferencing groups, allowing for small-group work sessions where all can work to build on a skill that all in the group have already mastered
​
Over the course of the school year, I used all of the above!
 
For instance, second quarter, I grouped students in their quads (I had my classroom set up so students sat in groups of four) so that there was a divergent skillset in each group, making it easier for them to help each other when stuck as it would be rare that they would all get stuck in the same skill area. Third quarter, I did the same.

​Also, at the end of each quarter, we did one-on-one grade conferences where students would support what letter grade would ultimately go in the gradebook and be reflected on their transcript. Students used their reflection questions and colored radar chart to guide them. Plus, I brought these to conferences so parents and guardians could see both student growth and student-intentions for moving forward: when a student attended, they were able to lead the conference in place of me.

Finally, particularity regarding writing skills, I would have students work in groups based on shared skill needs. At the school I worked at, we had an hour each week structured for reteaching/enrichment: the students I would bring in were pulled based on common skill needs.
Final Takeaways
I can not see a future where I would go back to using traditional percentages and letter grades. Seeing students engaged in their learning and concerned about their own skill growth was amazing. Additionally, I was surprised to see how well this worked in various levels of classes: it worked in American Literature Honors, Humanities: Search, and Creative Writing. Plus, this past week, I found myself using it with students in a credit recovery summer school program. Every time, it rooted students in their own growth and validated their individual learning journey. 

I guess Robert Burns can't always be correct. Sometimes, the best laid plans of Mice and Men don't go awry. 

​Heather M. F. Lyke is the Teaching & Learning Specialist for Dover-Eyota Schools and author of numerous articles focusing on quality education. 


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