Giving Compass' Take:

• At an all-girls school serving students in grades 5-12 in Washington, teachers are focusing on utilizing an open resubmit policy to concentrate on measuring learning growth instead of grades. 

• Can other schools adopt similar resubmit policies? 

• Read this analysis of a growth mindset study. 

"Are you going to resubmit your chemical changes model?" Valentina asked Jayda.

"I'm not sure,” Jayda responded, “I'm already at proficient and I understand all the concepts, so mastery work wouldn't really be worth it for me." Hearing a student say that work isn’t worth it would send most teachers into a downward spiral, but these words brought me joy.

Jayda was confident that she understood the material, and hearing her make a choice not to pursue additional work for the purpose of chasing an extra few points on her grade made me proud.

At Forest Ridge, an independent all-girls school serving students in grades 5-12 in Bellevue, Wash., we've been grappling with how to support students in focusing on growth over grades for years. In 2016, our school began putting intentional effort into getting our students to value the learning process and to focus on growth rather than grades.

The culture around grading was still pretty toxic—even with the new resubmit policy. Perhaps it was because the only students taking advantage of it were the ones who already had very high grades.

Simply having an open resubmit policy wasn’t enough to drive productive revision for all students. I worked with my colleagues and students to develop a feedback and revision system that leverages digital technologies and classroom protocols to teach feedback literacy skills, make actionable feedback constantly available and give students the agency to act on their feedback.

With the addition of feedback and assessment literacy practices, my students now have the information and strategies necessary to engage in iterative learning.

When we teach students to revise productively, we don't have to worry about them taking advantage of retakes as an opportunity to slack off the first time, or suffer a growing achievement gap in our classrooms. An open resubmit policy works, as long as it's paired with a robust feedback system.

Read the full article about growth over grades by Christine Witcher at EdSurge.