Grading

As mentioned below, grades serve the system more than they do the teacher or the student, but then, the system built the school and hires and pays the teachers, right?

No time to complain. A teacher has to come up with grades for every student no matter what.

And, if there are any perceived injustices or inaccuracies, you will be spending a lot more time on grades than you need to. I mean: A lot more (As in meeting regularly with parents and administrators.)

Trust me on this: it is more than worth it to develop a rigorous, even-handed and flexible grading system--one that rewards hard work and excellence, but which allows for students at the lower end to hang in there and earn passing marks.

And, be comforted by this: in a recent study out of California, student grades earned in high school represent the single best predictor of academic performance beyond high school. Better than the ACT or the SAT, and much better than state standardized tests. So, to the standardized testing zealots out there, I say, no one does a better job of assessing student abilities than do classroom teachers. Period. End of topic.

That said, hear this too: Constructing that fool-proof grading system and its accompanying techniques will take you awhile--probably several years. However, there are shortcuts; ways that you can gain from the accumulated wisdom of savvy practitioners, like myself and others.

You see, unlike real time responses to students during the day, for which only in-class experience will really prepare you, grading policies and procedures are something that you can steal "en toto" from someone else and pretty much successfully adapt, no matter your overall level of instructional excellence.

In other words, prick up you ears and borrow. Borrow as much as you can.

Your overall grading system should reflect the skills, values and aptitudes that you care most about as a classroom teacher.

Also, at times, it has to reflect the values and interests of your particular school as well.

For instance, for many years, I worked in a school district in which I was supposed to lower every student's grade by one increment for every unexcused absence they accumulated. (Thus a B would be lowered to a B-.)

What's an unexcused absence? That's when a student cannot generate a legitimate excuse as to why they missed a class, i.e. if under 18, get their parents to sign a note.

And, of course--no duh!--which parent would be short-sighted enough to not sign a note, for whatever reason, if it means that their kid is about to have their grade lowered and thus lose weight against every other parents' kids in the school when it comes to academic awards and college admission? Do parents really give up on their kids' college aspirations so easily?

Of course not.

So, that's why, I never, ever, lowered a student's grade based on their excused versus unexcused absence from my class. To me, it was a measure of family co-dependence, not a measure of anything having to do with skill or content mastery. I believe that my grades record the efforts of my students in class, not their success at manipulating parents outside of class.

Anyway, we still have to figure out a grading system that works, one that reflects what we believe are the core of academic and personal excellence as a student.

Here's what works for me:

I break my course into three equally weighted grade components: participation, journal writing, and everything else.

Now, I'm an English teacher so keep that in mind. But, even if I taught math or science, I would still keep it roughly the same, though the percentages might change.

Here's why I set it up like this:

A good teacher will have dozens of graded activities throughout a grading period. Some are more important, more indicative of student abilities, than others. What you want to avoid is creating a grading system which is either so heavy with points that a student doing really well on key assignments can't make any traction, or a grading system so light with points that a student is buried by a few crucial shortfalls.

So, in my case, I want to reward everyday effort. I call that category "Participation." I have various ways of measuring it, most of which I will describe in my entries under "Cooperative Learning." But, my point here is that, for me, participation is a measure of "engagement", and I rate engagement as one of the most fundamentally important aspects of learning that there is. So, I set up one category in my grading program entitled "Participation" and I give it 1/3 of the overall grade value.

Then, and again, I am an English teacher, I set up another category that I call "Journals" and I assign that 1/3 of the overall grade value. Journals are writing assignments usually flowing directly from the material in my class in which I ask students to respond andconnect personally to issues.

I value this so highly because, as it turns out, a student's personal response--their internal connection--to external content is the one sure way that they will retain something beyond the end of the semester. In other words, by internalizing material, making it personal, connecting up to it on the inside, we gain content mastery. I value it highly, as well as the skill of writing, and thus journals--as their own category--count for one third of a student's overall grade.

Finally, comes the gigantic category that I call "Everything else." I sometimes refer to this category as the "Portfolio" category because, in fact, I require that all this material be submitted in a portfolio at the end of the year or term. But, at that point, it's already been graded anyway, so that's a bit of a misnomer. The real thrust here is that tests, papers, homework assignments, projects, presentations--all those big, lengthy, or small and tedious assignments combine into one grade, which is equal to 1/3 of the overall grade for that student.

So, there you have it: participation, journals and everything else, each weighted to 1/3 of the overall grade. (I need to interject here and say that with computerized grading programs, grade weighting like this by categories is a breeze. No trouble at all once it is set up and you know how to distribute scores to each category.)

What this means in actual practice is that students who come regularly and participate in class activities, and who have a personal connection to the learning experiences as I lay them out (journals), have a damn good shot at passing the class no matter how well they do on tests, presentations, projects and everything else.

Is that fair? Yes. To me it is. We are talking about young people here. People that will grow and change as time moves on. We do not do them any favors by throwing them overboard the first time they have difficulty with concepts, exams or projects. However, if they have missed significant portions of the class, or refuse to engage personally with the issues, then I feel it is time to give them a "heads up" on what learning is all about.

What really matters to me as a teacher are two things: being plugged in every day with others in class and having a personal connection to the material. I am supported on this in every respect in terms of brain research and studies on personal human development. My job is to keep engagement and a personal connection to material alive in students. That's why I weight my grading system the way I do.

And do you know what?

Good students do very well under this system. And very weak students are able to earn their credits, while gaining confidence and becoming better writers. And average students are able to be average. And I never hear any complaints from anyone. That's because, as you will see, when I set this up at the beginning of the year, I make it clear: if you come and participate and give me a clear indication that you are personally thinking about the material in the class (journals), you will likely pass. If you can show mastery of the concepts and material we study, you will likely do very well.

It's the students who are also able to show mastery of the key concepts and material through exams, homework and presentations who end up at the top. But, you know what: they earn the top grades anyway. In every course in the school. It's just that in my system, I hold them accountable for being a quality member of a cooperative group, and exerting some leadership in the form of sharing ideas and encouraging others. They end up raising the performance of everyone under this system. That's what leadership is about, and that's what we should expect from our best and brightest.

As to how I reinforce that, you'll have to wait till next time. It's been two hours here at the keyboard and my fingers need a rest.

Thanks for reading, and I am looking forward to your responses and questions.