This is the second article in the four-part series on grading in PE. In last week's article, we looked at how to determine a grade through professional judgment rather than a calculation.

This week we step back one stage and look at how we organize and summarize evidence of learning, and how that shapes the grade we determine.

Organizing and Summarizing Learning in PE

Before we get to the point of entering a grade, most PE teachers will open their gradebook to make sense of what is there. Whether it is on an LMS, a spreadsheet, or paper, we look at what is recorded and decide what it says about a student's learning.

How we organize our gradebook shapes the grades we determine.

Here is an approach I used at one point in my career. It felt clean and clear, because the categories and point values were right there in front of me. But underneath the surface, it said very little about what students were actually learning and how they were doing with it.

Unit: Basketball

In last week’s article, we looked at the problem of letting the computer algorithm total these columns and average them into a grade. The algorithm was doing arithmetic, but it knew nothing about anyone's learning.

Still, the algorithm was only doing what it is programmed to do. There is a problem that starts earlier, and it has to do with how information about student learning is organized before it is even considered for a grade.

Most of these columns, like participation and effort, are not about what students were learning. They are more about how students showed up and what they did day to day. There is little information here, if any, that tells us what they were actually learning and how they were doing with it. And while some jurisdictions might have learning standards that loosely align to a heading or two, the picture is still unclear.

So, even if we stopped using an algorithm at the end, even if we used our professional judgment to determine a grade, we would still be working with incomplete or invalid evidence.

Principles to Ground Grading

Last week we looked at why it helps to ground our practices in clear principles, so our decisions are intentional rather than just habit or default. One principle sat underneath everything: a grade is reached through professional judgment.

But judgment has to act on something: evidence.

Which brings us to another principle that shows up directly in the gradebook:

This works in two directions. It shapes what goes into our gradebook in the first place, since the gradebook should contain evidence of student learning. And it shapes what our judgment is based on at the end, since a sound grade should come from evidence that reflects learning.

Organize the evidence clearly, and our professional judgment becomes more accurate.

Organizing the Gradebook Around Learning

So, what could a gradebook look like when it is built around evidence of learning?

Instead of organizing it by units and activities, with categories for things like effort and participation, we organize it around the learning standards themselves. Each standard holds the evidence we gather about how a student is doing in that area of their learning.

The example below shows the same class as the earlier gradebook but now organized around student learning. Yours may look different, though the key shift is the same: from recording what students did to recording what they learned and how they are doing with it.

This gradebook shows what the students were learning across the reporting period, listed as the curricular competencies, or CC1, CC2, CC3, and so on. It also shows how they were doing with each one, using levels 1 to 4, from Emerging to Extending.

It is worth being clear that these levels are not percentages in disguise. A 4 is not 100, a 3 is not 75, a 2 is not 50, and a 1 is not 25. Each level describes where a student is in their learning, not a quantity of points they earned. The number is just a shorthand for the proficiency level name.

This is just one way a standards-based gradebook can look. There are many others.

Summarizing Evidence of Learning

With the evidence organized this way, the next step is deciding what it all says.

Take Karan. Look at his evidence for CC1: 2, 2, 3, 3. We could add those up and average them, which would land somewhere between a 2 and a 3. But an average treats his first attempt and his most recent one as if they carry the same weight, and they do not. His earlier evidence shows him at a 2, but his more recent work shows he has progressed and stayed steady at a 3. So, his overall for CC1 is a 3.

That is professional judgment, not calculation. We are reading the evidence and deciding what it says about where Karan is in his learning, leaning on what is most recent and consistent rather than relying on an average.

His other competencies tell their own story. CC2 and CC4 sit at a steady 3 throughout, so the judgment there is straightforward. CC3 climbs from a 3 to three straight 4s, which points clearly to a 4.

With an overall level now set for each competency, Karan lands at 3, 3, 4, and 3. From here, we can use a logic rule we looked at last week to translate those levels into a grade. The judgment we made about each competency feeds directly into that final step, the grade determination.

The Takeaway

How we organize our gradebook shapes the grade we end up with. When it is built around activities and behaviours, even careful judgment is working with the wrong evidence. When it is organized around learning, the evidence reflects what students actually know and can do, and the grade we determine becomes more accurate.

Rather than thinking about rebuilding your whole gradebook, it is worth opening it and noticing what it is built around. Does it lean toward what students are doing, or what they are learning?

Determining a grade was never the confusing part. Making sense of the gradebook was.

Coming up Next Week

This article focused on organizing and summarizing evidence of learning, so our professional judgment is based on something accurate. But that raises an important question we have yet to dive into: What counts for grading in the first place? And where do things like behaviours fit, if at all?

Next week we step back again, to that very question, and also explore what could be done with behaviours.

See you then.