Date of Award

6-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Tonya Thompson

Second Advisor

Lynda Leavitt

Third Advisor

Robyne Elder

Abstract

“Grades are an essential currency of our schools. Schools, colleges and employers use grades to determine many important, and in some cases, life-altering decisions-college admission, financial aid and scholarships, athletic eligibility, promotion, retention, awards, and supports” (Feldman, 2018, p. 3). Grading is not addressed in teacher preparation programs, or within professional development during teachers’ careers; teachers have chosen their own way to grade guided by their own personal experiences, uninformed of research or best practice. Using a human centric, design-based approach, the researcher identified multiple discrepancies with grading practices among the K-12 school organization. Within the discrepancies, other issues were identified by the researcher: equity, motivation, and overall mastery of Missouri Learning Standards. Once the gap in teacher understanding of alternative grading practices was identified, the researcher created a stakeholder team and the researcher collaborated with district stakeholders and identified and created a list of needs and wants for grading practices in the district. Within the leadership stakeholder team, the goal was to create a prototype of possible solutions and test the solution to see if educators’ knowledge and level of understanding surrounding evidence-based grading practices had changed since the intervention. A total of 70 employees, including building administrators, school counselors and teachers from across the district completed a total of 15 hours of professional learning on grading practices. Additionally, during the professional learning sessions, qualitative data was collected by the researcher. Each school building created a train-the-trainer professional learning action plan. Quantitative participant data was completed with a pre-survey before the professional learning sessions started, and then a post survey at the end of the intervention period was administered and focused on the educators’ perceptions, knowledge and attitudes of grading practices within the classroom setting. The scholar practitioner reported future interventions backed by the theories of organizational change and professional learning set forth by the Leadership EdD framework.

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