Thank you for sharing your adolescent literature books with us. I hope that the sharing/reading of these books will help us all have new titles to reccomend to our students. Remember that you are a reading role model for them.
"Grading Scales"-What do you think? How do your grades reflect what students know? How do the grades we give help parents know that thier child has actually mastered the content?
8 comments:
Chapter 12 Grading Scales
Yes, like the middle school teacher in our text states “if teachers are just mathematically averaging grades, we’re in bad shape.” This is especially true when scholarship monies are tied to these grades, or a child’s opportunity for advancement is at stake. The grading scales still confuse me. I had a student ask me last week how she could figure her GPA on a 4.0 scale. I told her to ask the guidance department. She came back and said that according to the guidance department, we are on a 4.0 scale. I was confused because I know that students can receive higher GPA points for honors and AP work. I agree that it is time to question the efficacy of sweating the decimals and ranking students or the purpose of determining valedictorian or even scholarships. I know of two former BC students who were affected by these numbers. One was denied the title of valedictorian because she earned less GPA points in some of her non-honors classes, while the valedictorian dropped some of the classes that didn’t award the higher honors GPA points. The valedictorian knew the numbers game, therefore she won.
The second student was actually the object of a cruel joke. This student applied to a school that normally he would not have gotten into mainly because he had not even attempted to take the required courses let alone make a 3.00. He applied anyway and received an acceptance letter as a joke from someone working for the university. The real letter came a week later stating that he had not been accepted. The student was devastated. He was encouraged by me and others to go talk to officials at the university and lawmakers who elect board members to look into the matter. After getting to the bottom of the situation (and firing those who thought it was funny), the student was accepted and given LOTS of help and support. He won’t make it out in four years, but many of our best and brightest don’t either. This student often blamed BC for not preparing him for college. But according to our assessments he was not college material, therefore he was not encouraged to pursue this sort of curriculum. Is everything relative?
Do you think as a state that we might have our grading scale too high? In Wormeli’s school district 64-72 is a D. How many more passing grades would you have if that were true in our district?
Wormeli is right in that to most students “the world beyond school is very far away.” They often wait until the middle of their junior year to think about whether they want to go to college. Our teachers and guidance counselors try to make students think on this early, but many are just not willing to prepare. They would rather face the music when it is time to dance. I think all we can do as faculty members is keep explaining, demonstrating, applying and providing the necessary information to and for our students.
Jane Gregory Chapter 12 Blog 12
The idea of rubric grading in a math class is very interesting to me. It sounds a lot like giving partial credit on each test problem depending on the particular mistake made. So in a sense, I am using a rubric for each test item. I believe giving partial credit for partial mastery allows each student a chance for as fair a grade as possible. I’m not sure there truly is a fair way to grade, but I do have a hard time with the idea of grading students differently. I am a great proponent of teaching students differently in the differentiated classroom, but grading them differently throughout the semester is another matter entirely. At the end of each course, I must assess what each student knows and then can use my discretion to raise their grade to make their grade as fair as possible for that particular student. Integrade Pro gives each student a percentage average. Although I can see the advantages of the rubric, the grade then must be translated into a percentage which is read by parents as the familiar A,B,C,D, or F grade.
I like the ideas of using rubrics to grade all subjects. To do this we must have the standards and goals for the learning spelled out and what we want our students to learn from the assignment. This also lets us differentiate between news skills learned and old skills incorporated into the assignment, test, or porject. Students may have mastered the new standards/skills but may make careless mistakes so partial credit whould be given. This could be incorporated into the rubric. The incorrect answer would mean a point deduction, but we could fairly assess if the student had mastered the new skill. It would be important for the student to double check their work and realize they must be more careful especially when taking standardized tests. Also, when a student has a grade right on the line. I think it is important to look at the individual student. If the student is completing homework, coming to study sessions and giving an honest effort, give the student the point and raise their test grade. This will encourage them to continue to try instead of giving up.
Views of grading scales differ from teacher to teacher. The author suggests learning from smaller grading scales using terms such as advanced, proficient, basic, etc. This scale would work well in the foreign language classroom since it would encompass all of the skills on a proficiency basis. I agree that numerical grades don't always reflect a student's ability in the class. I would like to see a gradual change to the smaller grading scale. I think that less emphasis would be placed on average, and more on achievement of skills.
"The smaller scale" that Ghallager speaks of on page 152 is something I haven't had much contact with (until this class of course). I'm a fairly new instructor, and not once has a conversation taken place in which I discussed how accurately my A matches up with the teacher across the room's A. I see the value in that, of course--but it was not in my first day teacher packet.
Based on Lendy's comments--I had a professor once tell me that when determining who is admitted to college, a line must be drawn. Unforuantely, that line must be mathematical. The decimal points are weighted very much. While my philosophy of education strays greatly from this tough love line in the sand--we must be honest with our students, we must prepare them for what they are up against, even at the risk of terrifying them.
My only fear is that if a student knows what he/she is up against he/she will be more likely to give up than rise to the challenge.
This has been the first year that I have constantly used rubrics and I have found them very helpful. It would be great if there was a universal grading system but we don’t live in a perfect world. While I was reading I disagreed with the statement “the reality is that the difference in learning (mastery) between the high and low versions of one particular grade is not that much.” Yes the difference may only be a few points but a few points here and there can add up and show what the student has mastered. The reading tried to say that ranking a student according to grades shouldn’t be a part of the education system. To me having a ranking system is necessary for achievement and some students really need it to be successful. I don’t believe that grades hinder a student but it keeps them on track and works as a reward system that they can understand.
After reading Jane's comments, it seems it would be hard to have a rubric in math. I guess you could give a rubric for each chapter and spell out exactly what each student needs to know and grade each student according to the rubric. In other subjects, a rubric would be more project oriented and could be tailored for each standard the teacher wanted to teach. It is a fairly simple process in social studies and with some of the rubric websites to help an airtight rubric can be made. I know that when my daughter was in Montessori School we had a conference every couple of months and the teacher would have a long written out report of where she was in relation to being proficient in certain areas. I always like this about Montesorri, but in keeping with Jane's theme, many parents want to know on a scale of A to F. Rubrics do fairly assess student mastery of a subject matter. mitch
Mar. 16
Ch. 12
There are times that I have to make myself spend more time looking at each grade that a student has made, before transferring the grades with Integrade-pro. It is so easy to be lazy and just transfer the grades with the computer program. It certainly does the student a disservice to do that if I have not already made some adjustment or allowance for some unusually low grade that may have hurt their average.
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