Grading+and+Assessment

Grading and Assessment

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Grading is arguably the most controversial issue that you will deal with in education. While in the past schools were involved in grading practices in a number of ways (e.g. setting the range for letter grades, having policies on late and make up work, etc...), today there is much more pressure from reformers and administrators on teachers to modify their grading practices. Some argue for standards based grading where letter grades are totally eliminated or drastically redone (e.g. Ken O'Connor and Douglas Reeves), or getting rid of grades entirely (e.g. Alfie Kohn). While educational theories come and go, grading reform movements are not going anywhere, anytime soon.

How does this effect you as an aspiring teacher. While I this obviously is not an all-inclusive list, I came up with a few things to keep in mind regarding grading in your teaching career...
 * 1) Have a clearly stated grading policy on your syllabus. Doing so will save you a lot of trouble later when (not if) you have an issue you have to deal with. Be sure to include statements about late work, group work, cheating, retakes, final test exemptions...basically general rules for everything you can think of...
 * 2) Discuss specific grading issues discretely with students before class, after class, or have them go out in the hall with you while a movie clip is playing.
 * 3) Come up with a great system for tracking assignments. While I am sure that there are different and better ways, here is what I do. I have a printed, hand-written sheet which I write grades on when I collect them. If a student is excused absent or didn't get an assignment done because of an excused reason, I surround the box for that assignment with blue. If a student should have turned it in and they did not, I mark it with a red box. When I add the make up assignments to the computer, I highlight them so I remember.
 * 4) Back up your grade books, either with a physical paper copy, or by printing out extra copies in case something happens
 * 5) Have clearly explained directions regarding how something will be graded, either by using rubrics or some other specific guideline
 * 6) Save the paper copies of all of the major assessments, projects, tests and quizzes. Then if you have an issue with grades, you can go back and check those documents to support your position.
 * 7) Be prepared to get pressure to change grades from virtually everyone. This does not happen all of the time, but when it does it is always difficult to handle. Also, I have had pressure to specifically change a grade for a student from almost every stakeholder in the school (e.g. the student themselves, a parent, an administrator, another teacher, a coach, etc...) at least once in my career so far. Understanding the value that our system places on grades, as well as having a clearly stated and consistently followed grading policy will help you to deal with these issues.
 * 8) Doing the six things above (and others) will help you to make sure that your grades are valid and reliable, which should minimize the pressure to change grades.


 * Strategies and Issues**
 * Rubrics -** Rubrics are tools used to grade a variety of assignments in a straightforward and consistent manner. Even for assignments which I do not have a physical rubric, I still have a mental rubric which I use to grade assignments (for example, essays for tests). See the links below for good ideas regarding how to build good rubrics.


 * Groupwork** - How to handle grading on groupwork is an important item to consider. Some teachers refuse to do group work because it is often so difficult to grade. However, students can learn a lot from group work. One day to deal with this problem is to subdivide the work and have the students sign off on who is doing each part. Another technique involves giving an overall group group and then having the students divide the points. Either way, having the students decide allows them to take ownership of the grading, which should help you to avoid some difficult issues, as well as helping the students to take more of an active role in the project itself.


 * Academic Dishonesty/Plagarism/Cheating -** Cheating is something that I guarantee you will deal with early and more than you think in your teaching career. Many of you have seen cheating while you were in high school or even participated in it at some point in your academic career. I would be (and I think many other teachers would be) lying if they stated that they had not been involved in cheating at least one point when they were students in high school. I would estimate that at least 1/2 of the students in a high school setting cheat at various levels at least once a week in high school at some level. Keeping these things in mind, here are a few suggestions I have regarding how to handle cheating...
 * 1) Have a clear policy explicitly stated on how you will handle cheating (see above)
 * 2) Do everything possible to proactively deal with cheating. Move the students away from each other, use different versions of quizzes, use things like [|www.turnitin.com] to let students know that you are checking for plagarism, and design types of assessments which are harder to cheat on.
 * 3) Utilize assessments which make cheating virtually impossible, such as well design projects. Worksheets with multiple choice options are arguably the easist type of assessment to cheat on. Avoid using these and you will discourage cheating.


 * Late Work -** This is one of the largest issues that I deal with consistently. Students will come to you with a variety of different reasons regarding why they did not finish an assignment, asking to have more time. Again, it is important to have a clearly stated policy regarding this. If you have a clearly stated policy, you will avoid many problems in this area. The other thing to keep in mind is that life does happen to kids. If you get a kid who is in the hospital, has parents who are getting divorced, is in an abusive home, etc... I think it is perfectly acceptable to work with those kids on a case-by-case basis. However, be aware that kids will take advantage of you in the excuse department. Developing skills of discernment will help you in this area.
 * FERPA -** This stands for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Simply and shortly stated, this basically limits who is allowed to see student's grades to the student themselves and their parents or guardians. When posting grades, use the student's ID numbers scrambled in random order, be careful when discussing grades with students to ensure that no one else hears, and be sure keep your gradebooks stored in a secure area. These steps, and others, will help to avoid difficulties in this area.


 * Test Writing -** In my view, grades for students should consisten of an accurate and valid sample of student learning and performance over the semester. Some people would disagree with me in this area, saying that grades should represent the most recent evidence of student learning. I can see the logic in this in part, but I believe that the latent functions (or unintended consequences) of this approach are detrimental to the learning of many students. Since, in my view, grades should represent a sample of student learning, it is important to ensure that your tests are valid (e.g. they measure what they intend to measure) and reliable (e.g. they consistently produced roughly the same results). Writing good questions which are easily understood and worded well is the best thing you can do to ensure this.


 * Time Management -** One thing I struggle with often is how to balance providing students with effective, specific and immediate feedback and with preparing to teach (let alone how to balance that with being a husband and father). Assuming that your students read your feedback, this type of feedback (specific and timely) is a very powerful learning tool. So, how can you do this without killing yourself? Here are some general tips...
 * Walk really fast wherever you go to save time
 * Use consistent, explained and clear abbreviations when giving feedback or entering grades
 * Come up with a system for correcting that works for you
 * If you cannot provide individual feedback, correct a sample of the tests and give general feedback to students.
 * Blur out student's names and place examples of poor, average, and good essays up on the board from different class periods. Explain what is good and what is bad about each one.
 * Keep a pile of stuff ready to be corrected on your desk. If you have a spare moment, correct a few


 * Record Keeping -** Keeping accurate records is essential in order to assess and communicate student performance. This also takes a directed effort. I mentioned many of these suggestions above, but I would recommend keeping a paper copy and editing the electronic copy from that. Also save the copies of your major assessments in a folder or box for a while afterwards so that if someone comes back to check, you have the paperwork to verify your grades.

media type="youtube" key="jduiAnm-O3w" height="315" width="420" Toxic Grading Practices - Doug Reeves

media type="youtube" key="TM-3PFfIfvI" height="315" width="420" Rick Wormeli: Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs

media type="youtube" key="b6zVwl6i1UY" height="315" width="560" The Life of the Public School Teacher

Links Ken O'Connor - "Grading Doctor" - Website for Ken O'Connor, "The Grade Doctor," who suggests a variety of reforms in the previously mentioned "15 fixes." Critique of O'Connor's 15 Fixes for Broken Grading - You will need to scroll down to see the review of the work on this page. Rubistar - Rubistar lets you log in and create rubrics for free. Simple, easy to use tool which is a great way to save you formatting time. DePaul University - Two Types of Rubrics - College website which describes types of rubrics well. Penn State - PDF Overview of Rubrics - A simple, two sheet description of strengths and weaknesses of rubrics and different types of rubrics. Georgia State Rubrics - Another college resource describing types of rubrics