Grading

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?”