photo by Martin Mercy
On October 25, 2018, Lick-Wilmerding students received similar comments over and over again on their first quarter report cards. This semester, over 30 Lick teachers are piloting a cohort to move away from the previous narrative comment system, instead giving comments online about specific assignments throughout the semester.
“We lose a lot of instructional time because everybody’s giving big assessments in the same two week period [before quarter comments],” Randy Barnett, Administrative Head of Education said “All the kids are having a hard time. The teachers are, too, because they’re grading all that stuff and then they’re writing report card comments.” The new comment system eases pressure on the students, giving them more time to improve their grade without stressful, intense weeks of assignments. While the new system gives teachers a longer period to write comments, Barnett warns a longer period doesn’t mean less work. “[Gradebook comments are] not there to be a time saver. It’s the same amount of work, you just spread it out over the semester,” Barnett said.
Yetta Allen, a Lick math teacher, said that moving to gradebook comments was “convenient, because I was already leaving regular gradebook comments. The cohort was asking for what I was already doing.” For teachers like Allen, who has been writing thorough comments in the gradebook for more than three years, switching to strictly gradebook comment cuts out unnecessary work.
“At the time, [writing narrative comments] was one of the worst aspects of this job. I didn’t like writing them. It takes forever. I often feel that I don’t know what to say, and because it’s on paper without context, there’s no back and forth and I often fear it will be misunderstood,” Allen said. However, she also sees merit in narrative comments. When asked if she would completely abandon narrative comments, Allen said, “I should still, for some students, write a summative comment that encapsulates all the things that I have seen in the longer period of time. I still wouldn’t want to do it for everyone. For some students, it’s not necessary, or for some students, I don’t have that kind of insight to write about. But for some, I’m starting to see trends, and there are things that I really want to articulate.”
While the gradebook may be useful for specific comments, in some instances, narratives can show larger themes in a student’s learning.
Some teachers would rather stick to the old method. Yeshi Gusfield, a Lick history teacher, chose not to join the gradebook cohort. “I was not super clear on what they were doing… A lot of teachers didn’t understand the specifics — how many comments to write, how long each comment should be,” Gusfield said. While teachers like Allen already had a working grading system, Gusfield is hesitant to abandon her process. “I don’t like using my computer on the weekends, and I do most of my grading outside of school. When I’m doing grading at a cafe, I don’t like having my computer with me. I like having a hard copy. I didn’t do the cohort because I didn’t want to be connected to my computer,” Gusfield said.
Narrative comments are not lauded, however, even with those outside the cohort. “I don’t think anyone likes doing narrative comments. There are some ways that [narrative comments] can help give students a bigger picture of where they are in the class,” Gusfield said.
Some students, such as Saray Baldizon ’20, think the grade book comments are more focused as well. “I like gradebook comments more because I know exactly what to fix on my specific assignments. Narratives are more general; teachers repeat themselves a lot. Every quarter is the same thing,” Baldizon said.
“I preferred the narratives, where they just wrote about how you were doing.,” Max Rostaing ’22 said. “Since I’m a freshman, and I don’t know my teachers well, writing about how I could do better, and what I’ve done well makes me understand my relationships with teachers better. When there’s nothing there, when there’s no writing, it’s not as helpful or personal.”
While there are benefits and drawbacks to the new system, gradebook comments are here to stay. Though the entire faculty hasn’t tried the new system, the cohort is growing.
