Competency-Based Challenge at Mark Day School: Part Two

In 1987, I was a 7th grader at Centerville Junior High in the East Bay. Every assignment, test, or project I got back from a teacher was marked with a letter grade, a percentage, a point total, or sometimes all three. The role of the feedback was to let me know, post-learning, how I had done. I experienced every one of those marked assignments as a standalone statement of my achievement. I understood my job as a student was to earn enough points to get an A, and I took that job seriously. Sometimes, at the end of a quarter, I would find myself a few points short of the coveted 93.5%. I would go hunting for points, hoping to earn some extra credit or points for good citizenship.

My story of the role assessment and feedback played in my learning in middle school was a common one for the era and school environment. In February’s “Competency-Based Challenge at Mark Day: Part One” blog post, Head of School Joe Harvey described three ways assessment can be used in the learning process. What I experienced in middle school is an example of the most familiar type: assessment of learning. 

Educators today know much more about effective student assessment and feedback thanks to the abundance of research conducted since I was in school. For example, at Mark Day, a 7th grader does not see letter grades or percentages marked on assignments, because research tells us that once students see a grade–or if they have constant access to check in on the status of their grade–it becomes the only form of feedback they take in, no matter what additional feedback teachers provide. At Mark Day, a 7th grader receives feedback on daily assignments in a variety of other forms, including points, skill rubrics, teacher comments, and actionable next steps for learning. Research and our experience show that growth-oriented feedback focused on specific learning goals is what truly drives student learning.

Students earn letter grades on their report cards at Mark Day starting in the 6th grade, and while students receive other forms of feedback on their work daily, we have long been very intentional about when and how students can check their letter grade for a class. This is because at Mark Day, we understand the importance of also using assessment for learning. Students should not think of feedback like I did, as fixed, standalone statements of achievement that come only at the end of learning or, even more detrimental, as proxies for their worth as students. The “points earned” are actually not the “point” of the assignment. Instead, we want students to understand that they are constantly working toward a clear set of learning goals (i.e., factoring polynomials, or using evidence to support claims, or submitting assignments on time). Feedback is information about what a student’s work demonstrates about their progress toward mastering those goals, and what their next steps should be.

In hindsight, I understand that as a 7th grader, school for me was more focused on point earning than learning. It was not until I was in college that I began to think about learning as a process and to reflect on myself as a learner. Today, as an adult, I feel like a professional learner. I live in the same world that our children are learning to navigate as students, one marked by increasing complexity, volatility, and technological change. It is more important than ever that we all are able to adapt, to be agents of our own learning, to chart our own self-directed paths through life. To get there, students need to use assessment as learning. We want students to act as their own assessors, reflect on their own learning, ask questions, and use a range of strategies to determine what they know and where they can grow. 

Since the 2022 Strategic Plan was drafted, teachers of students in grades five through eight have participated in extensive professional development, worked together as curricular teams and special committees, and piloted software solutions (spoiler: we identified a winner!) as part of a comprehensive and research-driven effort to improve student feedback and assessment at Mark Day, especially when it comes to using assessment for learning and as learning. We have been asking ourselves questions such as, “How can we direct students’ attention to the feedback that will help them grow?” and “How can our system show students their progress on building particular skills and knowledge over time?” Letter grades remain an important part of Mark Day’s assessment and feedback system, and we have carefully considered how to change students’ relationship to letter grades to be more productively focused on learning over just earning.

To advance all of these goals, we have adapted competency-based education–a well-studied educational framework–to align with our unique mission and context. As explained in part one of this blog, at Mark Day, we call it “competency-based challenge.” Fundamentally, this approach is rooted in deeply held educational values that research shows have an outsized influence on student learning, and that have long been part of every Mark Day classroom, including:

• Teachers know their students well and build strong relationships with them.
• Teachers hold high expectations for all students.
• Teachers provide differentiated challenge based on students’ individual learning needs.
• Teachers and administrators have embedded practices that ensure equity for all students in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of the school.

In the fall, teachers of students in grades five through eight will be poised and ready to launch several elements of competency-based challenge new to Mark Day, primarily changes that represent the next evolution of our assessment and feedback practices. For example, teachers are in the final stages of revising how they articulate the learning goals in their classes, aiming to make them clearer to students and help students draw connections between the learning goals they are working toward across subjects. In addition, a new online tool called Toddle will replace the two tools we currently use (Jupiter and Google Classroom) for managing student assignments, providing feedback on student work, and tracking student progress. There is a lot to share!

To learn more about our plans, please join the Competency-Based Challenge Information Evening for parents/guardians on Wednesday, May 20, at 6:30 PM via Zoom. The topics we will cover will primarily focus on assessment in 5th-8th grades. We look forward to seeing you there.