Proficiency Based Learning
II
Grades are important, but we have to ask “How
Important?”
A former colleague of mine, Jonathan Raup used to
say, “It all changes when there’s a transcript.”
And for
secondary students, it does. The transcript is viewed as the entry
platform to the future. It is with the transcript that student gain
access to employment, to training, to college, and maybe to graduate
schools.
The methodology of recording grades in transcripts is
very important. On the one hand, we have the more “traditional”
methods based on letter grades like “A,” “B,” and
“C.” On the other hand we have more modern methods based
on the proficiency model and frequently seen as a notation of “1,”
“2,” “3” and “4.”
If the “1-4” method of
grading is used as a recording of how a student is doing in a class, then
we have missed the point - entirely missed the point of proficiency based
grading.
Proficiency Based Grading is intended to “rate” a
student based on the level of achievement of a “standard,” the ability
to complete a defined skill. The “1-4” system
is not intended to “rank” a student as a method to determine who knows
what content best.
Somehow they have been all mixed up, and the
original focus of Proficiency Based Grading lost.
The entire beauty
of ALPS by Gryphondale is that it can do both. The Assessment and
Learning Profile System (ALPS) can tell the “numeric” story of
traditional grading and the “narrative” story of proficiency based
grading. With two completely unique transcripts, ALPS provides
parents, employers, and college admissions officers with the kind of
information they need.