Fairness in Grading

According to Reeves, “Fairness and accuracy are essential elements of grading, but they are not sufficient to form a fully satisfactory system of student evaluation.  Grading systems must also be effective, a complex requirement that includes specific and timely feedback on student achievement.  Grading should be designed to improve communication, making clear to students, fellow teachers, and future teachers the academic performance of a student.”

There are different areas of fairness in the classroom; fairness in interactions between teacher and student, fairness between students and fairness in grading and instructing. Each of these can be addressed by a teacher, aiding children in learning fairness as part of the unofficial classroom curriculum. 

Grading is a challenge for teachers. We want to be sure we are evaluating student work fairly, in the sense that our judgment is not subjective or inconsistent. Effective grading requires an understanding of how grading may function as a tool for learning, an acceptance that some grades will be based on subjective criteria, and a willingness to listen to and communicate with students. It is important to help students to focus on the learning process rather than on “getting the grade,” while at the same time acknowledging the importance that grades hold for students.

I encourage you to try and evaluate our student's progress without ever seeing a name on a paper or test.  According to Robert Marzano, “the score a student receives on a test is more dependent on who scores the test and how they score it than it is on what the student knows and understands.” Make the decision to treat everyone as fairly as possible, while remembering fair isn’t always equal. 

 

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?”

Homework

Homework Debate

Reading this book has not changed my opinion on homework.  Prior to reading this book, I believed that homework needs to be relevant, flexible, and meaningful to students.  Reading this book has only strengthened these beliefs.  Given the complexity and diversity of today’s family life it is obvious homework cannot be approached with a “one size fits all” attitude.  

I do believe homework has its place, particularly in college prep courses.  Homework in reasonable amounts can support and enhance learning; however the negative impacts of excessive homework are quite alarming.  Homework’s negative effects include frustration, exhaustion, lack of time for other activities, and possible loss of interest in learning.  Administrators and teachers need to see that the most important criterion for judging decisions about homework is the impact they’re likely to have on students’ attitudes about what they’re doing.  Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning.  Let’s face it:  Most children hate homework, or at best see it as simply something to be gotten through.  Thus, even if it did provide other benefits, they would have to be weighed against its likely effect on kids’ love of learning.  

Maybe we should find out what students really think of homework.  Most adults simply assume that homework is useful for promoting learning without even inquiring into the experience of the learners themselves.  Do students find that homework really is useful?   How does homework affect their desire to learn?  How does it impact their lives and/or families?  

Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.  Ideally, students should have something to say about what they’re going to learn and the circumstances under which they’ll learn it, as well as how their learning will be evaluated.