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An excellent linking of Feldman's three and your four pillars. My only disagreement would be with the conclusion of this paragraph - "Feldman points out that in order for grades to be accurate, they must be represented using a meaningful scale. This is because (as we’ve discussed several times) traditional points and weighted averages lack real meaning. In particular, partial credit masks student understanding. Marks that indicate progress (our third pillar) directly address this problem. Such marks directly connect a student’s work to the standards being assessed and communicate clear information about a student’s progress in learning course content." Marks, unless they use a very different scale than the one you mentioned, communicate about achievement, not progress. Achievement and progress are often used interchangeably but, while they are related, they are different.

I would also contend that my four requirements for effective grades achieve what your and Feldman's pillars do. My acronym is CALM and the four requirements are Consistent, Accurate, Learning-Focused and Meaningful. See "A Repair Kit for Grading; 15 Fixes for Broken Grades." Third Edition. 2022. FIRST Educational Resources, Oshkosh, WI.

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This post was very helpful! Thank you very much for all you do! I just started to use standards-based grading last semester and was happy with the way it went but reading this post made me think that I need to tweak things. I wondered if you had some specific suggestions for preparing students to respond to feedback and improve studying. I understand that it is necessary to go beyond just adding feedback and standards-based grading to a course. Specifically, what might be some strategies to address this aspect: "It is essential to help students understand the purpose of feedback, and how to act on it by reviewing previous work, studying effectively, and making use of reassessments."? For example, would you suggest not just returning work with feedback but providing examples of types of feedback and ways a student might address the feedback? Thanks!

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