Grading
Students and parents view grading
much differently than school personnel.
They seem to be focused on report cards and honor rolls. Parents assume that their children’s grades
reflect what they’ve learned, but that isn’t necessarily reality. At a very
early age, children learn the point system and how school can be about the
accumulation of points, not the accumulation of knowledge and skills. When you
add up points for homework and extra credit, students can get an A or B in a
course without truly learning the concepts. Differences in evaluation can be subject
to significant misrepresentations that have nothing to do with performance. If
grades are intended to accurately reflect what a student knows and is able to
do, recording anything other than the precise score that a student earns is
inappropriate.
Late work…..although we certainly
want students to learn the importance of submitting work on time, we know that by
automatically assigning a zero or 50% to late work, students feel little
incentive to complete late assignments. Motivating students with a zero rarely works
and, in the end, causes students to give up.
Receiving more than one zero in a nine week term may end any hope of recovery.
Giving a student a zero is generally done in the name of teaching students about
the “real world.” In the real world, failure to complete a task rarely results
in not needing to complete the task. As
we work to ensure that grades reflect what a student knows and is able to do we
need to find a system that handles late work accordingly. In my opinion, students
should receive a consequence, but should be minimal (ex: 10% grade reduction) so
that it does not distort their grade. Major summative assessments should be
accepted up to the last day of the quarter. The old philosophy, “I taught it, and they
just didn’t learn it” must be replaced with the question, “Now what?”
