Yes, grades and marks are the currency in our school system, and we do take some responsibility for our students’ focus on marks. As teachers, we’ve used the line “it’s for marks” many a time to get the attention of the class. The point we want to emphasize is that, when using the five-step approach to arriving at letter grades, students do continue to get marks – on tests or assignments, or whenever a number makes sense as evidence. We’ve not stopped giving marks; we’ve simply stopped relying on numbers alone. And we no longer add up a string of marks to calculate a letter grade.

Using a Learning Map as the basis for determining a letter grade helps students see the learning that underlies their grade. We’ve seen many of our learners move beyond being interested only in their marks and begin to pay attention to and talk about the link between what they are supposed to learn (Big Ideas), how they are actually doing (evidence and highlighted descriptions of learning), and what they need to work on next.