Webinars:
Not All PLCs are Created Equal with Bruce Potter & Dave Nagel
Ed Web Grading For Impact April 2025
Podcasts:
Grading Resources
Teacher clarity is essential for effective classroom practices like assessment, feedback, and grading. Without it, students struggle to take ownership of their learning. Grades should provide meaningful feedback on progress. Guskey and Brookhart emphasize that clarity is crucial for evaluation; ambiguous measures lead to poor decisions (Guskey, 2024). Fendick (1990) and Titsworth et al. (2015) identify four components of teacher clarity: organization, explanation, examples and guided practice, and assessment. To implement this model, we introduce the Clarity of Grading Scoring Guide (CGSG) and Generative Learning Experiences Template. These tools help teachers and PLC teams create a progression of tasks for surface, deeper, and transfer learning while offering guidance for scoring and grading to accurately reflect student understanding and achievement.
CGSG Template & Purpose
Middle School PE 1
HS Social Studies Common And Positive Law
HS World Language
Middle School Math Example
CGSG - Earth & Space Science Unit
SDT Generative Learning Experiences Guide
PLC / CETeam Resources
CETeams Performance Rubric
recent posts
The Four Core Grading Actions: Small Moves, Big Learning
If grading conversations in your PLC spiral into opinions and policy debates, you’re not alone. The antidote isn’t a 60-page handbook—it’s four repeatable actions that turn grades into guidance. Do these well and consistently, and student learning (and teacher...
Bringing Clarity to Grading: Turning Evaluation into Empowerment
“The art of teaching is clarity and the art of learning is to listen.” —Vandana Shiva Grades are meant to tell a story—a story about what students know, understand, and can do. Yet too often, they communicate confusion instead of clarity. When grades become mere...
When Grades Get in the Way (and How to Make Them Grow Learners)
A student gets an 86%. Another gets a 62%. Everyone nods, updates the gradebook, and moves on. But what, exactly, should those students do next? If your answer is, “I’m not sure,” you’re not alone. Most schools inherited grading habits that feel familiar but don’t...
The Case for Clarity of Scoring: Why Grading Practices Must Evolve to Support Student Learning
In classrooms across the country, grades carry significant weight—they determine advancement, influence college admissions, and communicate student achievement to parents and future educators. Yet, how those grades are determined often remains murky, inconsistent, and...
Grading That Grows Learners (Not Just Scores)
Picture two students leaving class with the same 82%. One shrugs—“good enough.” The other pauses and asks, “What does this tell me to do next?” Only one of them is becoming a visible learner. Visible learners can name what they’re learning, how they’ll know they’ve...
From Finality to Fluidity: Rethinking the Story Grades Tell
Every classroom tells a story. But too often, the story we tell through grades is one of finality — a full stop at the end of a learning cycle. The grade becomes the label, the verdict, the destination. Yet learning is not a destination. It’s a journey — dynamic,...