Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School

How to Go Gradeless -- Assessment That Makes Learning Visible

"What's my grade? What's it worth? Is there extra credit? Is this for a mark?" It's time to shift the conversation and make learning visible. Now, you can easily stop reducing students to a number, letter, or any label that misrepresents learning. Now, you can help children see the value in every single assignment.

Today, you can make assessment a rich, ongoing conversation that inspires learning for the sake of learning, rather than as a punishment or a reward. All you have to do is go gradeless.

Throw out your grade book tomorrow!

In Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School, award-winning teacher and world-renowned formative assessment expert Starr Sackstein unravels one of education's oldest mysteries: how to assess learning without grades -- even in a school that uses numbers, letters, GPAs, and report cards.

While many educators can only muse about the possibility of a world without grades, teachers like Sackstein are reimagining education. In this unique, eagerly-anticipated book, Sackstein shows you exactly how to create a remarkable no-grades classroom like hers, a vibrant place where students grow, share, thrive, and become independent learners who never ask, "What's this worth?"

Learn what formative assessment really looks like.

Summative assessment is typically an end-of-unit exam or standardized test, but what is formative assessment? Many teachers struggle with the concept. Hacking Assessment not only explains what formative assessment is, it provides blueprints for implementation and examples from educators around the world, who use this strategy successfully every day.

Read It and You Can Take These Actions Immediately:

• Shift everyone's mindset away from grades

• Track student progress without a grade book

• Communicate learning to all stakeholders in real time

• Maximize time while providing meaningful feedback

• Teach students to reflect and"self-grade"

• Deliver feedback in a digital world

• Create cloud-based learning archives

• Inspire Students to share their work openly

This is not your average assessment book

Hacking Assessment won't bore you with outdated research or unrealistic strategies. In her captivating, conversational style, Sackstein provides practical ideas woven into a user-friendly success guide with actionable steps for creating an amazing conversation about learning that does not require a traditional grade. Each chapter is neatly wrapped in this simple Hack Learning Series formula:

• The Problem (an assessment issue that plagues education)

• The Hack (a ridiculously easy solution that you've likely never considered)

• What You Can Do Tomorrow (no waiting necessary)

• Blueprint for Full Implementation (a step-by-step action plan for capacity building)

• The Hack in Action (yes, someone has actually done this)

Teachers around the world are going gradeless, and you can too

Scroll up and click the Add to cart button; read Hacking Assessment now, and go gradeless tomorrow.

Starr Sackstein is a National Board Certified teacher, popular author and speaker, and two-time Bammy Awards Finalist. She teaches English and journalism at World Journalism Preparatory School in Flushing, NY. She is a Dow Jones News Fund Special Recognition Adviser, Education Update Outstanding Educator, and New York State Director of the Journalism Education Association and an internationally recognized leader in assessment strategies and the no-grades classroom movement. Starr is the author of Blogging for Educators (Corwin, 2015), Teaching Students to Self-Assess (ASCD, 2015) and The Power of Questioning (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). She also writes the “Work in Progress” blog for Education Week Teacher and co-moderates the often trending #sunchat on Twitter and the global Facebook group, Teachers Throwing Out Grades. Balancing a busy teaching career with writing, speaking, blogging and being the mom to 10-year-old Logan is a challenging adventure. Seeing the world through his eyes reminds Starr why education needs to change for every child.