Educators and NWEA researchers offer research-backed suggestions and strategies to help recover unfinished learning and chart a new path forward after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Traditional grading practices typically incorporate non-learning measures such as behavior and effort into an average. Yet by mixing achievement and behavior, we miscommunicate on both accounts. Students and parents still need information on both, but the critical step is to separate reporting, and Dr. Matt Townsley and NWEA User Experience Designer Chris Thoms will share with us both why this is crucial for equity, and how teachers can put it into action.

To successfully create the conditions where grading for learning practices may thrive, consider first the importance of ensuring student-centered assessment. Hear from experts on how formative assessment is crucial to cultivating a growth-mindset in a safe, respectful classroom environment, and learn how to invite students to be co-pilots in the assessment and feedback cycle rather than passengers.

Let’s begin our journey towards better grading practices! Grades have remained a fundamental component of our education system for over a century. Yet despite shifts across so many other areas of educational practice, grading practices have seen little, if any, change to match the demands of modern pedagogy. The pandemic revealed stark flaws in traditional grading protocols and simultaneously presented a profound opportunity for actual change. What should educators, families, and society in general consider around why change is needed and where to begin?

What happens when reliable data becomes a school’s driving force? Read this case study to see how one district collaborated with NWEA to create a culture of higher expectations for all.

Before Floyd County schools brought in MAP Growth, they lacked formative assessment data at the K-2 level. Read this case study to see how they moved the needle on student achievement and changed their culture around assessment.

A Texas school district ensured that rollout of MAP Growth was successful, even in the midst of a pandemic, by diversifying professional learning and ensuring stakeholders were involved from the ground up.