25

Findings

A Brief Introduction to My Findings

In this section I will be describing my action research experience and highlighting the
interesting discoveries I made about my students, my assessment system, and myself. I
start off in chapter one outlining how I developed the Core Growth Areas and how I solicited
the help of my students to define them. In chapter two I focus on my students beliefs
around assessment at the beginning of the semester. Chapter three looks at my experience
implementing my new assessment system with the entire class. In chapter four I go more in
depth by looking at two individual students and their experiences with the assessment
system. I hope you enjoy reading my findings and are able to glean some insight into how
you may modify the assessment system in your own classroom.


Chapter 1: Defining Core Growth Areas


Creating the List

At the beginning of this year I could imagine the initial reaction from students hearing that
they would not be receiving grades on their work.

No Grades? WHOOHOO!! This semesters gonna be a piece of cake!!

I hate to break it to ya, kids, but life is not going to be that easy for you. Besides, I doubt Id
have many life changing epiphanies from not grading. Kids are less stressed when they are
not graded? No duh. I want to emphasize that my research is not to explore what happens
when I remove grades from my classroom. My research is looking at what happens when I
replace grades with a different form of assessment.

The new assessment is focused on personal reflections on individual growth throughout
the semester. To focus student reflections I created eight Core Growth Areas. As discussed
in the Understandings section, these growth areas came from research I did on
competencies from a variety of sources:

habits of an engineer
design mindsets
habits of a lifelong learner
21st century competencies
habits of heart and mind

I took these existing lists of competencies and laid them all out using sticky notes on my
whiteboard. I began to group the competencies into similar themes to try to create a list of
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common growth areas. Some popped up naturally; There was a form of Communication
and Creativity on almost every list I researched. Some growth areas required a little bit of
creative interpretation of other competencies. For example, Embracing Experimentation,
a Stanford d.School design mindset, fits into the growth area of Courage because it takes
some gumption to delve into the unknown. After some time grouping these common
themes, I had discovered my Eight Core Growth Areas.


Figure 4. The eight core growth areas
I dont expect everyone to agree with the above list. This list came from a variety of sources
that I see value in. I teach engineering, so Habits of an Engineer and Design Mindsets contain
competencies that I want to develop in my students, yet they may not relate to other
subjects. What do you value? Maybe you teach humanities and care more about developing
a sense of perspective or empathy in your students. If you teach statistics then perhaps
evidence would be a more suitable growth area. Try it out. Take five minutes to
brainstorm a list of all the competencies that you value and would want to develop in your
students. Take that long list and try to group them into themes. Soon youll have a proud set
of Core Growth Areas to call your own. (Note: The number of Core Growth Areas is not fixed
at eight. This is simply a number that fits my class perfectly. Less than that, then I would be
missing some of the intricacies within some of the growth areas. More than that, then the
list would be too complex for the students to easily grasp. Your list can be as many as you
like. I would just encourage you to keep the number lower, for the sake of your students
sanity.)


Student Voice in Defining the Terms

At this point my Core Growth Areas was merely a list of words. You are most likely looking
at the list and already interpreting them; unconsciously creating your own definitions for
each. This list is only a list though without some meaning behind the words. I knew that for
students to thoughtfully reflect upon their growth in these areas, they would have to
develop their own understandings of these words. They would need to put some context to
them and delve deep into the intricacies of each growth area.

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The first day of school at our school is an important day. Most teachers dont jump right
into content. We spend some time getting to know each other, setting norms for the class,
and starting to create a community. I wanted to start the year off right by creating a culture
of growth and early on introducing the students to the Core Growth Areas. I opened up the
wall between my teaching partners and my classrooms so we had the whole team in one
big room. I wrote each growth area on different whiteboards around the room. I spoke
about how this year would focus on personal growth and that I had created this list of
words, but we needed to put context to them. I had the students get into groups of four
and discuss with each other the following prompts:

What actions do you associate with each of these terms?
When have you seen examples of each of these words in previous classes?

I then had the students take sticky notes and post two examples that they came up with for
each of the growth areas (see figure 5). We took some time to roughly group these sticky
notes into common themes and I consolidated them to make a pseudo rubric for the Core
Growth Areas (see table 2). I turned these into posters that were hung in my room so that
the meaning that we placed onto each growth area was constantly visible and easy to
reference when reflecting.


Figure 5. Brainstorming definitions
While in the midst of this first activity, I was getting concerned with the lack of variety in
the responses to the prompts. I had a fear that students definitions of these growth areas
would be surface level.

Collaboration? Thats when you work well with someone.
Communication? Thats when you talk with others.

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There were a lot of these types of responses during the activity. Students were rushing to
get their sticky notes up, jumping to the first thing that came to their head rather than
exploring the alternative, less obvious definitions of each growth area. The experience
showed me that many of the students would need guidance and nudging to recognize the
myriad of ways the Core Growth Areas could manifest themselves. Despite the general
sense of the class that I gleaned from this activity, it wasnt until after the activity when I
took down the sticky notes, went through them with a fine-tooth comb, and began to type
up the posters that I noticed the little nuggets of insight that the students had produced. In
the end, the characteristics of the Core Growth Areas that the students came up with
matched closely to that first table I created, found in Appendix B.


Lessons Learned

In previous years of teaching I have attempted to assess broader competencies and have
struggled. I have mainly attempted to use the habits of heart and mind which are
commonly used at our school. Students had seen these habits throughout their years here
and internalized their meaning. Unfortunately, teachers in later grades focus less on the
habits and students do not reflect as deeply on them. The understanding of the meaning
starts to fade. I asked a group of my students to list the habits of heart and mind, and not
one could. I think it was important to spend so much time on defining these growth areas
with my students so that they would be fully in focus and at the forefront of what we were
doing in class. I had hoped for thoughtful reflection throughout the semester and could not
afford for students to just breeze over the Core Growth Areas as if they already knew them.

That being said, this experience of defining the Core Growth Areas has shown me that the
idea of broad competencies is not new to the students. The definitions they created for the
Core Growth Areas were complex and thorough, and even helped me clarify my own
understanding of them. In addition to this activity helping to clarify the Core Growth Areas, I
believe that it calibrated me and my students. I realized that in my past experiences with
using habits of heart and mind, my understanding of the habits may have been way off from
that of the students. I was confident at this point that we had a good grounding from which
to launch our semester of reflection.

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Table 2. Student created definitions of Core Growth Areas
Mindfulness
Be thoughtful of the process.
Make informed choices.
Be considerate of others.
Be aware of your environment.
Strive for understanding.
Be critical of what you hear and who you hear it
from.
Keep your goals and the end in mind.
Empathize and take other perspectives.
Create work that reflects your unique thoughts
and ideas.
Courage
Confidence in your abilities.
Take risks and get out of your comfort zone.
Follow through with what you start, even if it is
difficult.
Express dissenting opinions.
Dont let your fears overwhelm you.
Stand up for yourself.
Admit when you are struggling or dont
understand.
Try new things/experiment.
View problems as challenges to overcome.
Action
Lead by example.
Less talking, more doing.
Seek opportunities for growth.
Keep moving towards your goals.
Advocate for yourself
Be productive.
Proactive vs. Reactive
Take the initiative.
Ask questions and drive discussions.
Seek out the tools you need to be successful.
Curiosity
Find your passions.
Exercise your mind.
Ask questions.
Seek answers.
Find something that interests you in everything
you learn.
Gain a hunger for knowledge.
Be open minded.
Discover not only the what, but the why.
Play and use your imagination.
Embrace experimentation.
Pride
Acknowledge your own strengths and successes.
Dont settle for mediocrity.
Set high expectations for yourself.
Refine work that does not meet your expectations.
Create work that you want to exhibit and share.
Place value on your work.
Take ownership of your actions and the results.
Focus on your successes, but reflect on your
failures.
Creativity
Think outside the box.
Dont be limited by reality.
Try new ways to do things.
Brainstorm.
Dont focus on 1 idea too early.
Look for inspiration in the world around you.
Be unexpected.
Take the road less travelled.
Communication
Ask questions and seek out support.
Clearly express your thoughts and intentions.
Strive for clarity.
Strive to understand before judging what others
say.
Speak up and share your ideas
Actively listen
Show, dont just tell.
Collaboration
Seek out and be open to everyones opinions and
ideas.
Find common ground.
Distribute work fairly.
Take advantage of group member strengths.
Contribute and be responsible for your own work.
Strive for a common goal.
Step up, but be willing to step back.
Support and mentor each other.




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Chapter 2: Beginning of Semester Experiences

The first day of school was eye-opening for me. The defining Core Growth Areas activity
showed me that students had a pretty good understanding of the habits that students and
professionals share. I can thank the culture at our school for this. So many of our teachers
value qualitative feedback and the discussion of habits of heart and mind in addition to
letter grades, yet grades were still a part of our schools culture and therefore an integral
part of our students school life. Before I sprung the news on my students that we would be
de-emphasizing grades this year, I wanted to gauge what students thought about grades.
Do they value grades? Are they motivated by grades? If not grades, what motivates them to
do work? How have grades hurt or helped them in the past? To begin to answer these
questions I used a beginning of year survey and exit cards


Understanding my Students and Their Perspectives


Motivation is High

An often-cited reason for keeping grades in classrooms is that it motivates students to
perform. To gauge motivation, I modified the academic motivation scale (AMS-C 28)
developed by Vallerand et al. (1992), which asks students to rate how much they relate to
statements about why they come to school. Each of these statements relates to a different
type of motivation as described by Vallerand and Ratelle (2002, p. 42):

Intrinsic Motivation to know, to accomplish, or to experience stimulation (IM) -
participating in an activity due to the innate pleasure or satisfaction that it brings.
Extrinsic Motivation (EM) - being driven by the desire for outcomes that are
external or disconnected from the actual behaviors themselves.
Integrated - rewards are in harmony with the values of an individual.
Externally regulated - rewards are purely external and disconnected.
Amotivation (AM) - a perceived disconnect between actions and outcomes.

For a more thorough discussion of these motivation types, see my review of literature.

I took the results of my modified academic motivation scale and calculated on average how
much my students identified with each of the motivation types; a value of one being a low
amount and a value of four being a high amount. The results can be found in figure 6.

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Figure 6. Average levels that students identify with different motivation types based on a
modified academic motivation scale (AMS)
I was happy to see that students were in general motivated to come to school. All but one
student ranked very low for amotivation. The student that ranked high in amotivation
shared that his goal for life after high school was to join the military and that his learning
was not connected to this goal; therefore, a waste of time. His motivation for coming to
school was driven more by his perception of a high school degree as a prerequisite for
moving on in life and that he enjoyed learning new things and pushing himself.

For the majority of students, motivation levels were high across the board. They were both
motivated by the external rewards that performing well at school may provide as well as
motivated intrinsically to learn new things and feel accomplished. Although not drastically
higher than the rest, externally regulated extrinsic motivation was the highest rated
motivation type. Throughout the semester I had hoped to shift this balance slightly to the
intrinsic motivation side by emphasizing the amazing ways that students were growing
rather than focusing on the end result in the form of a letter grade.


Do Grades Motivate or Not?

One reason why I asked students about their experiences with grades is that I wanted to
ensure that my assessment system did not hurt students in the same way that letter grades
do. I also wanted to make sure that if grades had helped students in any way, that my
assessment system did not take these benefits away. I found that letter grades were a
dangerous double-edged sword. For about half my students grades were a great motivator
and boosted self-confidence:

Whenever I get good grades I get motivated to make them stay that way.
Grades have helped me push myself harder to do better.
They help boost my self-confidence even though its just a letter.
Grades have helped me to feel confident and capable.

Students were motivated to come to school since they saw the external benefits that
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
IM - To Know
IM - toward accomplishment
IM- to experience stimulation
EM - Identified
EM- Externally Regulated
AM
Average level of student response (1-4)
M
o
t
i
v
a
t
i
o
n

t
y
p
e

32
performing well would provide them and they were motivated by the feeling of
accomplishment that performing well provides. I agree that performing well gives a level of
confidence that encourages you to keep going, but this feeling will only occur if the student
is already performing well. The students on the other side of the coin, the ones struggling,
are likely to receive bad grades and there is too much danger for this to de-motivate rather
than motivate:

When you dont do well in a class you feel as if you are not good enough.
Theyve lowered my confidence and Ive given up on raising my grades in the past.
By keeping your hopes down, because you think you cant do better or that you are
dumb. Thinking Im not capable enough.
They make me feel stupid and underrated as a person/student.
Made me feel either really proud of myself or like an idiot, which is most of the
time.

What was shocking was that these comments came from a wide range of students, both
those that historically received bad grades and those who got straight As. It was not
isolated to the students who may be labeled as unmotivated. These comments broke my
heart and were clear evidence that there was too much risk in using grades as the ultimate
form of assessment. Even though teachers at our school use many forms of assessment and
students receive tons of qualitative feedback, students still viewed grades as the final story
on their performance.


Assessment of Learning versus Assessment as Learning

My students have had letter grades as a part of their schooling their entire lives. Grades are
a societal construct, a part of their definition of what education is. When asked to rank the
importance of different aspects of an assessment system from one to four, students ranked
letter grades at about the same level as other types of assessment such as written and
verbal feedback (see figure 7). As expected, many of my students perceived grades in just
the same way as a large chunk of society. Earl (2003) argues that assessments in school
tend to be assessment of learning, telling students only what they have learned in the past
unit, semester, etc. This is a view shared by my students. I asked students what they
thought the purpose of assessment in schools was and grouped the responses into themes.
Almost half the students believed that the purpose of grades is to measure how well an
individual understands the content; in other words, assessment of learning (see figure 8).

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Figure 7. Average responses to survey question, Rank the importance of each of the
following in an assessment system.


Figure 8. Distribution of student response types to survey question, In your opinion, what
is the purpose of assessments in school?

Through my research I had hoped to change these beliefs around assessment. My hope was
that students would value written or verbal feedback; it has so much more meaning in the
words and more direction compared to letter grades. Also, focusing on mastery of content
detracted from what I truly valued in my students which was personal growth in the Core
Growth Areas. I would need to partly measure my success on the change of attitudes in my
students. I was not starting from scratch though. Some of my early data showed that many
of my students had a deeper understanding of the role of assessment.

Although letter grades are very much part of our schools culture, teachers assess students
in many different ways and give feedback in a variety of forms. While the results shown in
figure 7 may make it seem like students did not place more or less value on any one type of
feedback, there was actually a large variation in the responses. The class was pretty split
one way or the other. About half the class valued letter grades, quick and easy quantitative
measures, while the other half cared more for qualitative feedback. Many students (over
25%) also saw more to assessment than just measuring level of understanding:
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Written Feedback/Comments
Letter Grades
Numerical Percentage
Verbal Feedback
Average rank of importance (1-4)
A
s
s
e
s
s
m
e
n
t

t
y
p
e

Assessment of
Learning
46%
Assessment as
learning
27%
Motivation
7%
Standardize &
Compare
7%
Other
13%
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I think the purpose is to grow through my work & being an overall better person.
To show your progress and see if you can retain/use information wisely and to
keep training our minds onto new things.
To realize your areas of improvement and continually work on and improve them.
It helps me in what subject class I am struggling in the most and therefore I can see
what I can improve on.
Grades have helped me because I like to know where I am and if I need to do extra
work.


Lessons Learned

So what were the implications of these findings for my assessment system? If I wanted my
system to motivate all students, then it would need to acknowledge success without
penalizing struggles. For those who struggle though, it would need to provide enough
feedback for growth as well as provide room for incentives to encourage students to push
themselves.

Instead of seeing my assessment as assessment of learning, it should be providing feedback
to the students so that they have direction. Earl (2003) says that Assessment as learning
redefines assessments as an integral part of the learning process, helping students to
understand where to focus their energies and maybe even learning from the assessment
itself. I see assessment as a reflective tool and a growing experience in and of itself. The
system I proposed in this research heavily depended upon self-assessment and reflection,
putting more of the assessment into the hands of the students. A concern of mine was that
students would begin to crave more teacher feedback and guidance since they would be
missing this letter grade which can quickly communicate what the teacher perceives as the
students performance.

While focusing my assessment system on what was most important to me, feedback, I had
to make sure that I was not neglecting what the students craved in their academic lives. For
my students this was something very obvious, learning lots of new stuff.

Academic work could help me by learning new things and being knowledgeable
about more things.
I like to show what I know and my opinion.
Projects and been (sp.) curious and learning new things.

This brought up an interesting question about my new system: Should I be assessing
content? My assessment focused on personal growth in Core Growth Areas. Student growth
in these areas required reflection on content, but not necessarily mastery of many
concepts. Was this lacking from my assessment system? How would I communicate content
mastery and motivate students to tackle difficult concepts through this system?


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Initial Reactions to Assessment System

At this point the students had been introduced to these growth areas but did not quite
know the implications. On the second day of class I introduced the syllabus to the students
and dropped the bomb that we would not have letter grades during the semester. No
graded assignments. No scores on tests. No participation points. The gradebook would
contain no numbers, only whether assignments were collected, late, or missing. What I was
tracking was personal growth in each of the Core Growth Areas and providing feedback in
the form of written comments on a weekly basis. (Ill talk more about exactly how I did this
later.) I was concerned about how students would react to the news of the modified
grading system. I knew from the beginning of year survey that many students were
motivated by grades and look to them to gauge how well they are doing in class. I also
understood that, as seniors, college is in the forefront of their minds and grades directly
influence their chances of being accepted into schools. Therefore, I was expecting a bit of
uproar from the students and maybe some pushback. I was surprised when there was very
little reaction of any kind when I revealed the new assessment system. Did the students
understand the system I had just introduced to them? Was there a lack of excitement? Were
students scared to express their thoughts?

I decided to use an exit card to get a feel of where students were at. The prompt was
simple: After reading and talking about how you will be assessed this year, what are your
initial reactions? I coded the responses as positive, neutral, or negative. The distribution of
responses can be seen in figure 9.


Figure 9. Response types to exit card prompt, After reading and talking about how you will
be assessed this year, what are your initial reactions?

I was happy to see that 59% of the responses were highly positive. Students shared their
excitement for trying something new and how it may be an improvement over traditional
letter grades:
Positive
59%
Neutral
32%
Negative
9%
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Excited! Ive always felt that the grading system wasnt the best and I am very
curious to see how it goes.
I wish grading had always been like this!
I think its super tight. I like that you want to try something new and I am very
much willing to participate.

A couple of the comments showed me that the message was getting across that assessment
isnt just going away, it is being changed. There is more than one way to assess our
performance:

I like the idea about this research and how its not really graded by A B or C but how
one grows.
I am honored to be a part of replacing/changing a modern form of measuring
intelligence.

The rest of the reactions were either neutral (32%) or negative (9%). Neutral reactions
primarily showed interest for the new system without necessarily showing excitement:

I was immediately interested when I read about it. I do not know if it will help me
or not, but I am willing to try it out.
Itll be different. I know that I will have to be more reflective, but I know Ill do
well.

The negative comments revolved around the uncertainty of the system:

Scared at first cuz an A was always my motivation, but after discussion Im
excited.

This comment once again reinforces the idea that some students see grades as a goal to
achieve; a reward for their hard work. I would have to ensure that there is something else
in the system to motivate students. My hope at this point was that their personal goals and
what they created in class would motivate students to pursue excellence, moving
motivation from being externally regulated to internally regulated. Overall, the responses
to this exit card got me excited about moving assessment from grades towards qualitative
feedback. Students were willing to try something new and showed an understanding of
why it may be important to make a change. In the next chapter I will discuss the changes I
made and the specifics of the new assessment system.


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Chapter 3: The Personal Growth Tracking Form


Design of the Personal Growth Tracking Form

At my school, reflection is major part of every class. Students are encouraged to look back
at their work and consider their strengths and weaknesses and to set goals for their future
work. Reflections are often open-ended and give a great deal of freedom in what students
can talk about. Although I used this type of reflection in my class at the end of major units
or projects, I wanted the reflections on Core Growth Areas to be more guided. I wanted
students to focus self-assessments in all of the Core Growth Areas and to see where they
were growing and where they needed to push themselves more. To achieve this I created
the Personal Growth Tracking Form. The form was divided into several sections:

Section 1: Point allotment - This section was where students tracked visually their
growth throughout the semester. Each week the students each receive one point to
assign to the growth area that they felt they had grown most in. Each growth area
could have up to five points. As the semester progressed, a bar graph representing
personal growth developed. An example of an in-progress bar graph can be seen in
figure 10.


Figure 10. Sample point allotment from Personal Growth Tracking Form

Section 2: Reflections - This section was dedicated to student self-reflections.
Students were asked which areas they had grown in and which areas they were still
struggling with. They were also asked to provide evidence to support their claims. I
consider this the most important section because students had the opportunity to
think deeply about the work they had done and how they had specifically grown. (As
I will discuss later, despite being the most important, this is the area that I struggled
most with during the semester.)
Section 3: Parent Signature and Feedback - At the beginning of the year I was very
interested in keeping communication open between me, the students, and the
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parents. This section of the tracking form helped me ensure that the students
growth was visible to the parents as well as allow parents to communicate their
comments, questions, and concerns back to me.

These sections comprised the first draft of the Personal Growth Tracking Form which can be
found in appendix C. In this chapter I will share some feedback that I got from students that
led me to change the form. The multiple drafts can also be found in appendix C.


The First Reflection

We started off the year in a pretty relaxed manner, not trying to delve too deep into content
yet, but I did want the students to get their hands dirty with a design challenge. My
teaching partner and I opened up the walls between our classrooms and spent two hours
with the whole team using the design process to design a gift for a partner (see figure 11).
The students had to empathize with each other through interviews, define the needs of
their partner, brainstorm a bunch of ideas, and then prototype their design so that they
could get feedback from their partner. Despite being a quick design challenge, the activity
allowed students to exhibit their habits with respect to the growth areas. I was also able to
see where some of the classes general strengths and weaknesses laid. Throughout the
activity I saw a great amount of creativity in the students designs. One student designed an
attachment for his partners bike to carry his iPod. Another student designed a
motivational poster for her partner so that she could be uplifted every day. An area I saw
some students struggling with was communication; truly listening to their partners needs.
Some students also struggled with mindfulness; being thoughtful about the process that we
were all going through. I wondered if the students were able to see this within themselves
and to articulate that through the Personal Growth Tracking Form. After the activity I
handed out a form for the students to fill out.


Figure 11. Students designing and prototyping a gift for a partner
39

Lack of pride and courage, strength in communication.

The first thing I did when I collected the first form was look at the distribution of points
across the growth areas. For the first form students were limited to ten points to distribute
across their growth area bar chart. Since we were focusing on growth, it was important
that students had room for additional points, even in areas where they feel that they had
existing strength. There was a wide variety of how students filled out their points with
some students placing all of their points in only two or three growth areas while other
students chose to spread their points out relatively evenly. When I looked at the averages,
the growth areas that stood out to me were Courage, Pride, and Communication.


Figure 12. Average point allotment in first Personal Growth Tracking Form

Were these numbers representative of the actual strengths and weaknesses of the class, or
could there have been something else that pushed them one way or the other? For
Communication I could see that as a true strength of the class. Our school pushes students
to interact with their peers and to communicate their learning through regular
presentations. I could see why many of my students saw that as a strength. Communication
was also an easy growth area to understand. The definitions we created at the beginning of
the year were very clear and concrete. Ask questions and seek out support. Speak up and
share your ideas. It may have been easier to justify strength in that area compared to other
growth areas with slightly more confusing definitions. I see this as particularly true for
Pride.

Pride is a word that many people have an existing understanding of, but which may not
match the context of the classroom. I think this idea was demonstrated by one of my
students reflections who said that Pride was currently his weakest growth area:

I never think of it, and when I do it is as an act of self-indulgence. I need to also
understand that it is a satisfactory feeling to accept oneself and rejoice and not only
reject myself but embrace myself.

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Mindfulness
Courage
Action
Curiosity
Pride
Creativity
Communication
Collaboration
Average point allotment (0-5)
G
r
o
w
t
h

a
r
e
a

40
This view of pride as an act of self-indulgence was what I wanted to steer clear of. There
is a positive side of pride where you can celebrate success and feel good about the work.
This sense of pride can also push you to work harder to reach high expectations. Another
student said Pride was the weakest growth area:

I can view my work from a less-critical eye. I believe I am always looking for things
I could change in my work. But I would like to start looking at the positives of my
work and be proud of it.

From how I was defining Pride it actually sounded like this student already had strength in
pride rather than weakness. This student sounded motivated to create high-quality work
by his desire to be proud of the end product. I understand how this may be harmful though
when high expectations hinder you from seeing the bright spots in your work.

In the end the perceived simplicity of the word Pride makes it harder to reflect upon. It
would be easy for students to reflect on the growth based on their surface level
interpretations of the word. I would need to help students understand the definitions of
these growth areas. It was not enough to merely have posters on the wall with definitions. I
would need to give feedback and ask questions to push students to stretch their own
understandings of these words.


Lack of parent comments.

The final section of the Personal Growth Tracking Form required parents to sign to
acknowledge that they looked at the reflection and also gave parents an opportunity to
provide any comments or ask any questions. It was surprising to me that very few parents
wrote anything in this area, only four out of all the parents. I was sure that these forms
would encourage more communication between me, the student, and the parent, and that
many parents would love to have the opportunity to have their voice heard. At the time I
was discouraged and even considered making it mandatory for parents to write a
comment, but as you will see in the student feedback, just because not many parents wrote
a comment, does not mean that communication isnt happening. There was at least an
opportunity for parents to express their thoughts:

What can my son do in order to improve his communication? What steps can he
take in order to increase his curiosity? In my opinion a driving force in the learning
experience.
Like that students are asked about their strengths and weaknesses and are
encouraged to find a solution.
I like very much how he observes things, situations, etc. and expresses what he
thinks!

Without the Personal Growth Tracking Form these parents would not have had the
opportunity to make these comments. I had hoped that more parents would make
comments, but perhaps they needed some more encouragement or context to respond to.
41


Student feedback and revisions to form.

After students had filled out this first form and got it signed by a parent, I was curious
about their experiences. I had the students fill out an exit card on their experience that I
kept anonymous so that they felt comfortable sharing their true thoughts. The first
question asked students to rate their experience from one to five, one being that they hated
the experience and five being that they loved it. The average score was 3.07. The vast
majority of the students put a three on this question. I saw this as a positive outcome since
it showed that there is buy-in into what I was trying, yet there was plenty of room for
growth as students began to see the value of the process. The results from this question
that most interested me were the negative ones. There were a handful of students who
chose 2 and there was a single student who put 1. The student who put a 1 did not
elaborate further on the exit card and I was unable to follow up since it was anonymous. I
was able to glean some insight from the students who rated their experience as a 2.

I dont like sharing it with my parents because later theyll nag me or criticize for
not being like how the assessment says I am.
Were young adults. We shouldnt have to look to parents for approval.

There was an obvious issue with some students sharing their assessments with their
parents. I wondered if these couple of students had an already delicate relationship with
their parents. My hope for these students was that the Personal Growth Tracking Form
would facilitate more open and meaningful conversations with their parents compared to
how they might have talked about their grades in the past. For many of the students, this
first form was already leading to good conversations.

It was cool, we had a kind of long talk.
It is kind of interesting and fun. It makes sure you work hard because they will see
it.
Its a really good idea because they feel better to know that Im working on
improvements for myself.
My mom was interested in knowing what and how I am doing in class. Although she
said she wants me to be more specific.
I was a bit sad when my dad didnt really want to read it, but my mom did, and
afterwards she gave me advice on what I need to work on. This is the first time she
doesnt say something like stop victimizing yourself.

For several students they found the experience slightly uncomfortable.

It was kind of awkward because they gave me a lesson about improving there.
It was awkward because my mom didnt seem to enjoy it (she seemed bored).
It was weird because I dont really share my work with my mom.

Regardless of the experience the students were having with sharing their reflections with
42
their parents, I was happy that at least some form of communication was happening. I
realized though that my voice was missing from the conversation. In appendix C there is a
revised version of the Personal Growth Tracking Form with an additional section for me to
write comments. My hope was that this would give students some more guidance and
maybe even provide some context for parents to respond to.


Continuing to Use the Form

After the first Personal Growth Tracking Form we dove into the content for the year. In our
engineering class we did two projects. The first project was titled Redesigning Our
Environment where we used the engineering design process to redesign the senior studio
space at our school. In small groups, students learned about architecture and user-centered
design to create proposals for the space. The second project was titled Jambox where as a
class we created an electronic music creation device that anyone can use, regardless of
musical ability. Students learned about electrical engineering and computer aided design.
Both of these projects focused on skills and processes more than content knowledge, which
provided an environment conducive to being assessed in the Core Growth Areas. Any
project work and assignments were entered into the online gradebook with a check,
missing, or late indicator. No assignments had any letter grades associated with them, only
written comments. Several major assignments, such as end of project presentations, had
rubrics that required students to reach a minimum standard for them to pass. The main
assessment tool was the Personal Growth Tracking Form.

For the rest of this chapter, my findings focus on the process of using the Personal Growth
Tracking Form. I will discuss the main effects on the students and what I discovered about
implementing the Core Growth Areas and suggestions on how to improve upon them. In this
chapter I will not discuss my students growth in the Core Growth Areas. I will focus on
student growth in the next chapter where I will discuss the experiences of two individual
students.


Stress and the effect on motivation.

In the middle of the semester I sat down with a small group of students to discuss their
experiences with the Core Growth Areas. I wanted to know how the year was feeling
compared to previous years when they were receiving grades. The conversation was long
and went in many directions, but the trend that stood out the most to me was around the
topic of stress. The group shared how grades caused stress in the past.

It doesn't matter if you have, say if you were to have an A or a B, it's going good, or
it's not going as good. When it's not going as good, you're stressed out and that's all
you think about all the time, and you just can't focus in class.
Sometimes when students stress out too much they just start to not care. And they
just don't do [the work].

43
These quotes show how detrimental stress can be towards motivation. If students cant
focus, then they may get frustrated by an activity and give up. If the stress gets too great, it
may be easier to just not care than to deal with whats causing the stress. In talking about
reducing stress I am concerned about my message being misinterpreted. I am concerned
that my removing grades may be seen as essentially removing any source of accountability
for the students. If students can skate through the year without doing any hard work, of
course they would be less stressed. Does that mean we should do it? I am not advocating a
no stress, low stakes classroom. I am just asking whether a grade is what we want students
to get stressed about. I want students to feel the high stakes and pressure on more
important things. I want them stressed about creating an awesome product. I want them
stressed about a skill that they truly want to master. Stress due to a grade is superfluous
and pulls energy from the important learning that is happening in a classroom.

Basically basing it on your grades is not a good idea, because if you're doing bad
you just stress out, and if you're doing good then you decide to just not do work for a
little bit of time. And I think that [the Core Growth Areas] really pushes you to work
Yeah, you just really focus on the project, the work, and you just forget about it and
give it your all.
And it's interesting because at the beginning of the year when you said, "oh we
weren't going to have grades," I thought everyone was going to take it as a joke and
slack off, but not one person in our class slacks off. If anything, I see them work way
harder than I thought anybody would.

I found during my research that removing stress due to grades is not relieving the students
from responsibility or the need to be motivated. It allowed students to avoid the danger of
being demotivated by bad grades and allowed other sources of motivation to emerge.
During my conversations with students, a couple comments in particular about stress and
motivation struck me as interesting.

So not knowing what we have, I think that that keeps us [. . .] stress free and
working at our top performance the whole time until the end. Like, we kind of earn
our grade.
That you need to give your best at the job, no not the job. Like the project or
whatever that you're doing, because if you turn in a project that's not good, you're
not going to get a good grade. Even though you don't know your grade you know
youre going to get not as much of a good grade.

What I took from these comments was that not having a grade during the semester was less
stressful, yet they believed that a grade was still there, it was just not being shown to them.
This mystery grade was what motivated them. Even if they felt like they were performing
well in class, they needed to keep it up to ensure that the grade they received at the end of
the semester would be good. This was not my intention for this assessment system. I did
not assign any grades during the semester and I never had a predetermined grade for a
student. The final grade for the class came solely from the end of semester conversations
when the students discussed their growth with me and provided evidence to support it. I
now see the importance of communicating very clearly to the students how they are being
44
assessed. The Core Growth Areas is drastically different than a traditional grading structure,
and it takes some time and effort to help the students fully understand it.


Quick versus quality feedback.

During the first few weeks of the semester, students filled out the Personal Growth Tracking
Form weekly. I wanted reflections to be as thoughtful as possible so I gave them half of the
class period on Fridays to complete the reflection. I had made a section on the form for me
to provide feedback so I would take the forms home over the weekend and add my
comments. This proved to be a greater undertaking than expected, and honestly too much
to be sustainable. Although the events of the past week were still fresh in my mind I was
unable to provide rich feedback. I found myself rushing through the forms. I decided to
push the reflections to once every other week. This gave me a bit more time to complete
forms and to be more detailed with my comments, but there were times when my
comments and the students reflections were too separated in time and therefore
disconnected. I found myself commenting on my most recent interactions with a student
rather than responding to what they had written in their reflection.

This balance between quick feedback and quality feedback was a challenge I faced all
semester. The daunting task of providing rich feedback was especially difficult during busy
times of the semester. For example, leading up to the exhibition of the Jambox project I
went a month without having the students complete a single Personal Growth Tracking
Form. The written feedback was not something that I wanted to sacrifice though. When
asked about how much they value teacher feedback, a group of focus students agreed that it
is important and my comments have helped them.

A student needs to feel encouraged. Like, oh, you did great. And theyll feel good.
And if you dont comment on it, theyll be like, oh, he doesnt care.
So, I had an issue with my group members. They weren't doing their work, they
were, I guess not just the balance of work. I would often be behind them, and I told
you about it on the growth area sheet and you told me, you said to, kill them with
kindness. And I was like, ok, so I should be more kind rather than asserting them to
do the work.

In trying to find a way to make commenting on the Personal Growth Tracking Forms more
manageable, I tackled several solutions in my head:

1. Should I only comment on some students forms, the students who most need it?
2. Should I create a system of pre-fabricated comments that I can plug into the
appropriate situations?
3. Should I change the Personal Growth Tracking Form to make it more conducive to
me writing feedback?

The first solution felt like I would neglect certain students, especially the stronger students
who are less likely to need a comment. Dont all students deserve and need feedback so that
45
they have some guidance? The second solution felt inauthentic and unlikely to provide the
students with any sort of substantive feedback. The third solution was the route I went due
to another struggle I had during the semester; students writing quality reflections.


Lack of depth in reflections.

Assessment based on Core Growth Areas relied heavily on self reflection. I was not the all-
powerful evaluator who assigned grades to the students. I was the facilitator to help
students see the growth within themselves. At the beginning of my research I put a lot of
thought into structuring the Personal Growth Tracking Form so that it could serve as a
guide to the students. As I stated in the beginning of the chapter, rather than reflections
being completely open-ended, I wanted students to focus reflections on the Core Growth
Areas. Through my action research I actually found that a well structured form is not
enough. Placing limitations on the types of reflections did not support the students in
creating deep reflections, but instead resulted in very surface level thoughts. Within the
form, the prompt for the main reflections was, Provide evidence for your growth in at least
2 Core Growth Areas. Below are some responses to that prompt.

Growth Area: Action
Evidence: Missed a day of school, found out missed assignments.

Growth Area: Communication
Evidence: In the class there were a lot of people that I didnt know and now I am
communicating with people I never have before.

Growth Area: Curiosity
Evidence: I was curious when we made the 2-point perspective drawings. I was
curious on how I can make my drawings better.

What I found in these responses was that students were referencing work they had done as
evidence that they had merely used one of the Core Growth Areas; not that they had actually
grown in that area. I went a long time during the semester frustrated about the lack of
depth in reflections. I made several attempts to change the assessment system to fix this
problem, yet I never got to the point of being fully satisfied with the results. Below I outline
some of my attempts, the results, and ideas for next time I use the Core Growth Areas.

1. Refining the Personal Growth Tracking Form
My first instinct was that my problems with reflections were due to problems with the
reflection form. Students shared that it was difficult to remember all of the things that we
did in class between reflection forms and that it was a bit too complicated. In appendix C I
have the revisions of the forms. In the final revision I modified the form so that students did
not need to reflect on quite so many growth areas. My hope was that by focusing on one
growth area, students would put more detail into their reflections. There was also more
space to explain their evidence and expand upon growth goals for a growth area where
they were weakest. Revising the form helped only slightly, yet reflections were still not
46
going into the depth that I had hoped. Students were not giving specifics on how they had
grown. I realized that having a well structured form was not enough to support the
students. I needed to guide them towards a strong reflection.

2. Instruction on what it means to write a Thoughtful Reflection
Throughout most of the semester I provided tips to the class on what a thoughtful
reflection would look like. I also asked them to reference the Core Growth Area posters that
we had hung in the classroom to guide their reflections. I found that these little tips were
not enough. I needed to create an actual lesson around reflection. Most Fridays I would give
students some time in class to complete their Personal Growth Tracking Forms, but for this
lesson I used the entire class period. Before filling in the form, we had a whole class
brainstorm around what we should see in a thoughtful reflection. Students said it should
be very specific with a lot of personal detail, goals should be focused on weaknesses, and
that reflections should be honest. The big takeaway was that reflections should avoid being
generic. After the brainstorming activity, students filled out a new tracking form keeping
these new criteria in mind. They then had the form critiqued and revised it to have a higher
quality reflection. A couple of the resulting reflections are below.

Growth Area: Curiosity
How specifically have you grown? Because I did not understand the lesson at first, I
kept myself concentrated on the material being taught by forming questions and
keeping myself engaged. This led me to giving the challenge questions on the
homework a shot.
Evidence: Completed challenge homework.

Growth Area: Communication
How specifically have you grown? I have grown in communication by actually
listening and striving for clarity throughout the entire week during all of the
lectures.
Evidence: To prove my growth in communication, I can use my notes to show how
well I was actively listening and how after striving for clarity my understanding was
improved.

These reflections were a vast improvement from the reflections early on in the semester. I
especially liked how specific they were and not as generic as earlier reflections. I gave this
lesson relatively late in the semester which was unfortunately a little too late. I would have
liked to have done this first thing in the semester, providing opportunities for students to
repeatedly critique each others forms, so that by the end of the semester, every single
reflection was thoughtful and demonstrated great depth. I did not realize at the beginning
of the year how much of a skill reflection was and that it had to be developed in the
students. In addition to including instruction in writing reflections, there is one other big
change to how I would approach the Core Growth Areas next time I use them. I would be
less restrictive.

3. Be less restrictive
When I look back at the Personal Growth Tracking Forms I see how restrictive they may
47
have been. They contained several prompts that were suited for quick and concise
responses. They also had little allocated area for the students to actually respond to the
prompts. I should not be surprised that I was not getting great depth. By trying to guide the
students with a bunch of prompts, I was removing the freedom students had to discuss
their plethora of experiences. Rather than being an avenue to reflect openly and honestly,
the form felt like a weekly worksheet that students had to complete. There was one Friday
when I handed out the reflection form and every student had completed it and handed it in
within fifteen minutes! There was obviously little value placed in these reflections if
students were rushing through them so quickly. Part of the problem may be the regularity
by which we filled out the forms. It felt like a weekly chore rather than a time to be
reflective. Also, how much can someone have grown in a week? I wanted students to
demonstrate their growth, yet it was almost impossible to see a change in oneself between
a Monday and a Friday. This was even more difficult when students were forced to reflect
on growth in specific growth areas.

The next time I use Core Growth Areas as my main assessment tool, reflections would be
much less frequent and would allow students much more freedom when discussing their
growth. I imagine this as a two to three page written reflection driven by a single open-
ended prompt. Reflections would be connected to the end of a project or the end of a unit. I
would still support students weekly in collecting evidence of their work and we would
respond to short journal prompts about how we were using the Core Growth Areas. These
more frequent activities could then be referenced when completing the larger reflections.
Overall, I found that reflecting is an art form. It is a difficult skill to master, and I must be
dedicated to providing the supports needed for students to develop the skill while also
providing them the freedom they need to go deep.


48

Chapter 4: Case Studies

In the prior chapter, I discussed my experience with implementing the Core Growth Areas
with my class as a whole and the general responses I was finding to the assessment system.
In this chapter I want to look at some of the more intricate benefits and possible limitations
of the system through two case studies. The focus students are Tyler (the case of the A
student) and Diego (the case of the F student). During these case studies I mention
experiences from the class projects that we worked on during my action research. Before
we get started I want to briefly describe each project so that you have some context to
place the case studies within.


Redesigning Our Environment

This project focused on user-centered design by challenging the students to redesign a
common space in our school. The space was called the senior studio and was were
students hung out between classes. Unfortunately, the space was also used for storage of
furniture and afterschool equipment which had no other place to go. It was essentially the
dumping ground for junk. Ideally, the senior studio would be a mixture of comfort and
productivity; a place for students to hang out, yet also provide teachers a space outside of
the classroom for work to occur. Students in my engineering class were placed in small
groups and tasked with empathizing with a user, defining the problem, brainstorming
many designs, and prototyping their design. They communicated their design through a
CAD model, foam model, and detailed perspective drawing. This project gave many
opportunities for students to stretch themselves in the Core Growth Areas, but the ones that
stood out to me were creativity, communication, and mindfulness. Creativity was needed to
imagine a wide variety of ideas. Communication was needed when working with group
members, talking with users, and displaying their final design. Mindfulness was important
since students had to forget what they wanted for the senior studio and force themselves to
design with the user in mind.


Jambox

This project focused on criteria-based decision making in design by tasking students with
creating a Jambox. A Jambox is a device that allows a group of people to manipulate music
and sounds on the fly, even if they have no prior experience with music. The purpose of a
Jambox is to encourage social interaction through creating music together. Students started
off working individually. They were assigned a type of instrument to design an interactive
panel to control. Their brainstorming and decision making process was guided using
criteria based analysis tools and they prototyped their control panel using a professional
level computer aided design software. The class only built two Jamboxes, so the project
shifted to groups for the build phase. The growth areas that I felt were most important for
this project were courage, collaboration, and pride. Courage was needed since Jambox was a
49
very technical project and the skills being developed were difficult to learn, frustrating at
times and easy to give up on. Since the students were all working together to create a single
final product, collaboration was very important to ensure the components of the product
functioned when put together, but also to maintain a productive and healthy work
environment. Pride was important since not everyones design would be developed to the
point of construction, so students needed to see the value of their individual efforts.



Figure 13. Peer critique during the Redesigning Our Environment project



Figure 14. Student wiring his product for the Jambox project



50
Tyler: The case of the A student.

I have known Tyler for many years now. As his advisor I have spent time with him every
day since his freshman year. Tyler is the student every teacher would love to have in his
classroom. He is thoughtful, intelligent beyond his years, and motivated to learn. He has
also gone above and beyond by taking community college classes during the breaks to learn
content that may have been missed going to our school. Tyler cannot do this himself
though. He has an amazing support structure at home. His parents are positive, supportive,
and fully involved in his learning, something that I call an anchor relationship.

Young children are constantly exploring the world around them and asking questions.
According to Oerter (as cited in Voss & Keller, 1983, p. 98) many parents ignore these
questions that children ask, resulting in the exploratory behaviors being stifled.
Additionally, Crow (2009, p. 97) found in a study of exploratory behaviors in 5th graders,
that those students who strongly demonstrated information seeking behaviors also had an
adult figure in their lives that encouraged their curiosity and aided them in exploration: A
mother that took her daughter to the library to find books, a grandmother that encouraged
searching for bugs under bricks. This is most definitely the case with Tyler. He has shared
with me the vacations his parents have taken him on and the opportunities they have
provided him to experience culture through museums and various other kinds of
educational outings. It reminds me of what Tony Wagner said in his TEDxTalk (2012)
about patterns he saw in the parents, teachers, and mentors of major innovators from
across the country:

Parents and teachers alike encouraging more exploratory play, fewer toys, toys
without batteries, less screen time. More time that was unstructured. Get out and
play. Parents who encouraged students to find and pursue a passion, who knew that
was more important than mere academic achievement. (12:32-13:18)

These habits that Tylers parents have instilled within him are noticeable everyday in class.
His enthusiasm for learning shines through in his daily work, his project deliverables, and
his reflections.

Along with Tylers stellar performance comes an even higher expectation, both from Tyler
himself as well as his parents. This was evident when we first filled out a Personal Growth
Tracking Form. In the first form I gave each student ten points to distribute between the
growth areas. I limited the number of points purposefully so that students arent tempted
to give themselves full points in every growth area. Every student has potential for growth
and the beauty of this assessment system is that students arent comparing themselves to
other students. Everyone is on equal footing at the beginning of the year and should be
looking internally rather than externally when assessing themselves. In the first reflection
form (see figure 15), Tyler was very reflective about where his strengths and weaknesses
were and in a later interview he shared how this allowed him to focus his efforts in class:

After that first growth area reflection, when we filled out that chart the first time,
and I realized that I was lacking in pride. For the next few weeks after that I can say I
51
was very proud of my work. And I think that's kept going in me, and everything I am
doing, I'm proud of what I've done. I don't look down upon it and judge it. I look at it
in a better light.


Figure 15. Tylers first Personal Growth Tracking Form point distribution

This idea of personal growth did not immediately click with Tylers parents. In the parent
comments section of the form, Tylers mother expressed that He and I did not agree on
his status. After further investigation I learned that she thought that his scores should be
much higher in several of the growth areas. I was able to ease her mind slightly by
explaining the idea of personal growth. This demonstrates a strength of the Personal
Growth Tracking Forms; when parents are open and willing to engage with the reflection
form, it allowed for easy and open communication between me and the parents. This
interaction with Tylers parents may not have happened without this form to connect us.

In the beginning of year survey, Tyler wrote, Grades have always kept me motivated. I
very much enjoy looking at Powerschool and seeing a row of A+s. Although Tyler is highly
motivated by grades, I still believe that he is intrinsically motivated rather than
extrinsically motivated. Tylers comment demonstrates the pleasure he receives from
feeling the achievement. This echoes Tylers response to the beginning of year survey
where he rated high in intrinsic motivation on the Academic Motivation Scale. Yet, the
traditional grading structure has limited his potential. Tyler wrote, In the past, I have
stopped working on a project once I earn an A, even if I know I can do better. This
perfectly aligns with Decis research on the effects of external rewards on intrinsic
motivation. Despite being intrinsically motivated to perform a task, once an individual
begins to perform the task for rewards, they will only continue to perform those tasks as
long as the rewards are present (Deci, 1995, p. 51). Tyler talked to me about how he
approached projects in the past that had grades associated with them:

At times in years previous, it was here is what you have to do. You need to
complete this, you need to design a studio space, and it was ok, Im going to get in,
get this done, and as fast as I possibly can, and get the A on it.

52
In the past, Tyler very easily got the A he was seeking. Content was easy for him and it did
not take much effort for him to create high quality products. He talks about an assignment
from sophomore year when he created a molecule out of foam balls and bamboo sticks. He
received an A, but he put minimal effort into the assignment and felt no pride in the work.
Moving the assessment away from the products and content of the project towards Core
Growth Areas pushed Tyler to find a way to stretch himself. In his case it was the growth
area of Pride:

Keeping in mind that I needed to be proud of [my studio space project] and that we
were going to present what we were doing, I realized I had to create work that I was
truly proud of making. [. . .] I felt a complete and total emotional connection to what
we were doing. That it was very important to complete the work to the best of my
ability.

The Core Growth Areas also allowed Tyler to discover his weaknesses and work on them. At
the end of the semester, I had a conversation with him about where his main areas of
growth were and Tyler talked about moving away from his regular modus operandi:

Ive always known myself to be kind of an in the box person, do things linear, dont
go outside of things. And, I found that in this semester I began that way, thinking
very simple for the architecture project. Very simple design. It works, its effective,
but there was no outlandish idea. And at first when my group mates were giving
those ideas I was dismissing them. But after doing the first reflection after we
started that project, I realized creativity and curiosity, I wasnt pushing myself in
that. And I felt I really worked on that more going into Jambox. Think of more
creative ideas. Dont just put them in a linear pattern and be done with it. I found my
weakness and I worked on that.

As the semester continued, Tyler continued to demonstrate thoughtfulness in everything
he was doing and created work that was detailed and refined. Even without the push of a
grade, he was motivated to learn. A moment that stood out was at the end of the
Redesigning our Environment project when groups were tasked to give a final design
presentation. Tylers group gave a presentation that was not quite up to the expectations I
had for Tyler and I asked them to refine it and give it again in a couple of days. In a
traditional classroom, this may be seen as failing the presentation, but in a classroom
without grades, this looks a lot different. Tyler elaborates:

I think that, at least for me, the thought of failing is crazy, it's not in my vocabulary.
But, going up there, doing that presentation, knowing that not necessarily being it
called "failing", but having to redo it, where as if we were going to be graded I assure
you that our grades would be marked down, if we did not do a good job. So as a
result, by being able to repeat it without having any repercussions, I think made us
strive to do a better job, than we could necessarily have done.

For a high performing student, a bad grade can be devastating. It forces the student to
question their own self concept and identity. In this case, Tylers inability to create an
53
adequate presentation was just another opportunity for growth.


Lessons Learned

I have used Tyler as the case of an A student, but in a classroom devoid of letter grades
and focused on Core Growth Areas, an A student needs to be redefined. Tyler does a great
job of defining it for us:

I think that with this system, in order to be an A student you have to be willing to
put in a lot of time and effort. Its not necessarily the end product that you create
like grading would give. Its how you get there. Its how you learn. Its what you
learn about yourself in the process.

My experiences with Tyler this semester has shown me the great potential of the Core
Growth Areas; the depth in reflection, the opportunities for growth. Tyler is an outstanding
student, yet he found his weaknesses and pushed himself to make improvements. But what
makes him so special? I look back at his reflections on his project presentation discussed
above. Tyler was able to notice a distinction between failing and the need to refine. Do
other students see it this way? I asked nearly all of the groups to repeat their presentations
because I believed there was room for revision and growth, yet not everyone had Tylers
positive outlook. There were a lot of disappointed faces when they heard that they needed
to repeat. Removing the possibility of receiving an F on an assignment does not necessarily
remove the feeling of failure some students may experience. To see failure as an
opportunity for growth would require me to put more time into developing growth
mindsets in my students. The idea of a growth versus fixed mindset was slightly beyond the
scope of my research, yet it will be important to integrate it into future attempts with the
Core Growth Areas. Tyler has shown me the benefits that can arise when the Core Growth
Areas are used with a growth mindset student.


Diego: The Case of the F Student

Diego came to our school a couple of months into first semester his junior year. Prior to
HTHCV he had been at a school in Mexico. Diego is quite a character and shows an amazing
amount of curiosity. With him in the classroom, any form of lecture would take twice as
long as planned. Diegos hand was constantly going up with questions and seemingly
unrelated ponderings. I compare it to a toddler in the midst of discovering the world
around them where everything is new and fascinating. Curiosity is a natural thing inside all
of us. Curiosity is what allows us to grow and develop mentally. Very small children exhibit
inquisitiveness as they explore their environment and learn about the world around them.
People are born with this drive to investigate the world. It helps us to learn, to grow, and to
transform the world we live in into a meaningful place. We are who we are due to the
exploration we engage in as children (Barell, 2003, p. 12; Crow, 2010 p. 50). It would seem
that Diego, with such a strong curiosity drive, would be an amazing student, driven by his
desire to learn. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
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Diego struggled when he first came to our school. During junior year his grades began to
slip and the stress got too much. During a focus group several students were saying how
grades sometimes motivated them to work harder, but Diego felt differently:

Last year I was sooooo stressed. Because it's, I dunno, I don't know how to put it. I
was so stressed with the work, and Oh, I must get my grades up.

Spielberger (as cited in Voss & Keller, 1983, pp. 142-144) developed an Optimal
Stimulation theory of curiosity that says that as a subject becomes more novel, complex,
and interesting, an individuals drive to be curious increases along with the potential
pleasure that may result from exploring that curiosity. At the same time, anxiety increases
due to the level of complexity in the subject. This anxiety hinders the growth of pleasure
that may result from exploration, eventually reaching a point when the potential rewards
begin to reduce. Diego expressed this sentiment in the focus group:

If you, work so hard, and dedicated so hard to something, the results are bad and
thats bad. But, with all that effort and all that trying, and still you get a bad grade.

Diego felt that the effort he was putting in was not resulting in higher grades, so he gave up.
For a student as curious as Diego, it was sad to hear that he struggled like this in junior
year. I wonder if Diego would have shut down if there wasnt this constant black mark in
the form of a grade hanging over him that reminded him that he wasnt capable.

Once the year started I could see why Diegos curiosity could lead to him struggling in a
more traditional class. On top of my core class I also taught a senior elective physics class
that was modeled after a traditional college style lecture class, an attempt to expose seniors
to the style of learning they will experience once they graduated. Diego was in this class. In
this format his curiosity became a distraction. There was specific content that we were
trying to learn, but Diegos questions and ponderings forced him into unrelated tangents
that made it hard for him to focus his attention on the material that would be assessed and
evaluated with a grade. I found myself getting frustrated with Diego since answering his
questions got me off course of my lesson plan which ultimately hurt other students
learning. Although he was still the same curious student he has always been, it was easy to
picture him as an off task student who was a distraction to others. In my core engineering
class, the image of Diego was much different. By shifting the focus of assessment from level
of understanding to Core Growth Areas, Diegos strengths shone through and his curiosity
became what it always should be, an asset. He was engaged in the material and his
successes were reflected in the weekly reflections and assessments:

You get to reflect on what you actually grew in, and you figure out, "oh I actually did
grow in this area."

In Diegos first Personal Growth Tracking Form he assigned himself four points in curiosity,
higher than any of the other growth areas by far. I was happy to see that Diego recognized
his own strength in this area. During the Redesigning our Environment project, Diegos
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strength in curiosity flourished and he was excited to brainstorm and share his ideas. He
was working diligently most days, although he still struggled with distractions, even
without a letter grade to motivate him:

I really didn't even notice that we're not even having grades. [Laughs] I just worked
and I didn't even notice the grades were there or not.

I saw this same trend in many of my students during my research. A common argument for
grades is that it motivates students to push themselves in class, a sentiment that several of
my students shared in our first focus group. Yet, the vast majority of my students were
motivated to complete our first project and to create high-quality work, even though there
was not a grade associated with what they were doing. This is especially important for a
student like Diego who struggles to find success in school and for whom a grade is less a
reward for hard work and more a reminder of his weaknesses.

Although the Core Growth Areas allowed Diego to use his strength in curiosity to find
success in our projects, he still struggled to show growth in areas of weakness. In Tylers
case study above, I shared how he was able to use the Personal Growth Tracking Form to
guide his actions in class to purposefully improve in his weak areas. Diegos growth was
much more passive. Even in his reflections he stated the areas that were required to
complete a task rather than how he purposefully stretched himself.

Growth Area: Communication
Evidence: I communicated with my team on the design project.

Growth Area: Collaboration
Evidence: I collaborated with Mr. Poole by lending him my phone for the pictures.

I doubt Diego actually grew in those areas. Significant growth requires purposeful action.
Evidence of growth needs to be supported by specifics on the change. Diego struggled to
provide those specifics. Fortunately, the Core Growth Areas provided an opportunity for me
and Diego to discuss his areas of weakness and for me to push a little. In our end of
semester conversation, Diego talked about how he felt he had improved in Action.

Compared to last year, Ive worked a lot, Ive improved. [. . .] Like action. A lot of
action. Ive tried to get things done and I try to actually finish them and not leave
them at half done. From what I remember I think I only missed one assignment. It
just flew by.

In reality, he had missed several assignments, and many of the assignments he had
completed were late. Not having grades and focusing on the growth area of Action allowed
us to move away from talking about the missing assignments though, to talking about his
struggles with this broad competency. In a classroom focused on grades, work ethic tends
to be something expected by teachers; a non-negotiable. But, in a classroom focused on
Core Growth Areas, it can be viewed as content itself. It can be discussed and reflected upon.
Goals can be set and progress can be measured. Rather than success in the classroom being
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dependent upon a strong work ethic as a prerequisite, success can be met by setting work
ethic as a learning goal and improving upon it.


Lessons Learned

I have presented Diego as the case of an F student. He has struggled to pass classes in the
past when letter grades were the main form of assessment. In a class focused on Core
Growth Areas though, I now have to redefine what it means to be a failing student, just like
the case of Tyler where I had to redefine what it meant to be an A student. There are
many reasons why a student may be failing. They may be struggling with understanding
the material. They may be habitually absent from class. They may, in the case of Diego, have
a weak work ethic that results in late or incomplete assignments. Whatever the reason for
failing in the past, I cannot let that define who those students are. Everyone has a strength.
It may not be easy to find, but it is there. My experience with Diego has shown me how the
image of a student can be transformed once grades are out of the picture. Allowing his
curiosity to flourish turned Diego into a motivated student who created some amazing
work.

I have attempted to adapt my system so that a students weakness does not necessarily
lead to failure. Yet, the system does not ignore these weaknesses. It transforms them into
areas of potential growth. Instead of failing a student for their weaknesses, demotivating
them with Fs in the grade book, strengths are highlighted and provide at least some
success to build upon. This process isnt easy though and cannot be done passively.
Struggling students are not given an automatic pass just because they are not receiving a
grade. I wish I could have helped Diego with this a bit more during the semester, pushing
him to be more reflective and to make clear, actionable steps. Part of the problem was my
inability to convey that the Core Growth Areas were more than a tool for reflection, they
were the content. It is important to view these broad competencies as even more valuable
than the traditional engineering course content. They are the skills that will stay with the
student long after leaving my class and will hopefully help them succeed in the world
beyond school.