FIAE+B2+Chapter+12


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Sarah McGinley
Fair Isn’t Always Equal Chapter 12: Grading Scales 3/23/10

There are a few different types of grading scales but the most popular ones are the four-point grading scale and the one-hundred-point grading scale. I am planning on using a much larger grading scale where the students can earn point for almost every assignment but at the end of the year this too will be based on a one-hundred-point grading scale where all of the points earned will have to be put into a percent. In the reading, it said that the four-point scale is the best because the small the better when it comes to relating all grades together from each of the students’ classes. Teachers in every class discuss each assignment and tells the students how much each assignment is worth. I believe this would also work for the grading system I would like to use. My system would be based on a high number, such as 900 points, and each assignment would be worth so many points out of the 900 total. This way the students feel that each assignment is a large chunk of their grade and the students become more willing to do well on the assignment. Another good thing about this grading system is when I have to take points off or give partial credit the student will not get a zero but instead receive some of the points the assignment was worth. This way the student does not think that trying the assignment was a waste of their time.

Jason Malbon
In the next few chapters, we get into the subject of grading scales, grade books and report cards. Topics that will mean a whole lot more when we are in our own classrooms. We seem to have a choice between two basic formats, the 4 point and the 100 point scales. A general sense from the author is that the 4 point system is more useful. There is more chances to have uniformity among teachers in the grading. The 100 point system invites the temptation to fudge the numbers. There is also more subjectivity to the grading. A grade of a B in one teachers class may only be a C in some others class. In order to create more objectivity, it is suggested that we use rubrics as much as possible. Admittedly, it can take several years to build high quality rubrics that are consistently reliable. Other ideas in grading include abolishing the plus/minus designation. Do we really need to calculate down to the minute detail is we are measuring mastery? In the grand scheme of things, a C versus a C- doesn’t distinguish a lot of difference in mastery. In fact, the minus may have a negative impact on the psyche of the student.

S arah Robinson
In this chapter grading scales are compared, and the two grading scales that are compared are the 100-point scale and the 4-point scale. It is clear to see that this author favors the 4-point scale but also gives good credits to the 100-point scale. This chapter has made me realize that the 100-point scale does make it easy and obvious the grade that the student has achieved and how to equally grade every student. But this chapter also shows that the 100-point usually does not show how well the student has mastered the subject being taught. The 100-point scale does allow the teacher to justify the student’s number grade but the teacher cannot show mastery very well. This chapter gives the great idea of using rubrics to with grade scales to grade students so it is easier for the teacher to see how much of the subject the student’s have mastered. The book does understand that having a 4-point grading scale does require a lot of agreement between teachers and school departments, but it is very beneficial to the students in the long run. Although I believe that students can still prove that they have mastered a subject through the 100-point, the book gives a great way to use both the 100-point and 4-point scale in the grading book. This chapter also teaches that teachers should not use plus or minuses with grading students, it does not help teachers provide good feedback to the students. This chapter has shown me that in the my future classroom I must give timely feedback because that is what is going to help my students learn best from their grades, and how to improve their grades. I know it will all depend on how my school district has decided to do a grading scale, but I know with the help from this book I will be able to make that grading scale benefit my students.

Amanda Fitzpatrick
This chapter focused on how to grade and which grading scale to use in a differentiated classroom. Personally, I have always gravitated towards a 100 point grading scale (or higher dependent on the situation) as to me a lot more can be explained in a 100 point scale rather than a 4 point scale. In my opinion, there is too much variance in a 4 point scale. I like the ability to say that a piece of work is an 83. (Rather than have to stick to 80 or 85.) How does one relate an 83 to a 4-point scale? I can see how the 4 point scale can be beneficial to writing, but I still believe that as a student one understands what a 93 means a lot more than they know what a 3.5 means.

In the latter part of the chapter, I really liked the different things one could use to replace 1-4 on a rubric. I will look back to this chapter when creating my future rubrics.

Mike Lawson
Chapter 12 When it comes to grading, many people, including students think that a grade is developed through what they got for grades on assessments. They believe that teachers simply average the numbers together to get a number which is this student’s grade. I know that when I go through the “final grades” of my students I will take into account the averaged grade, but also who the student is. If a student sits though class and is very engaged with everything, but they don’t take tests well I may boost their grade a little. Personally when it comes to giving grades I’m partial to the 100 point grading scale over the 4.0 grading scale. It is much less confusing and gives a large range of numbers. My favorite part of the chapter was a section that I call “Common Sense Grading”. This refers to looking at student’s grades and making a grade based upon what the majority of them are. So if I looked at my grade book and saw that 4 out of 5 assignments were 100 but one of them were a 0, I would give them a 95 for a final grade. I also liked at the end of the chapter when it discussed why we grade and how we should be evolving it to better fit the reflection of complete assessment.

Jared Merrifield
Chapter 12: Grading Scales

The main idea of this chapter echoes what has been stressed all semester: teachers (and students) should be more concerned about the student’s level of mastery than about their mathematical grade. Just a grade is not enough to represent a student’s progress or final product. Still, that’s not to say we should omit grading altogether, that is if a proper scale is used. For example, I really liked the Logic Rule of the 4-point scale, for it accurately reflects the student’s overall grade and makes grading much less of a hassle. The concept that there is not much difference between a plus and a minus after a letter grade may take me a while to swallow. I spent my entire school career feeling relieved when I received a B+ and wary and a little disappointed when I received a B-. As I read on, I saw that Wormeli actually address this problem, that a “minus” grade can degrade a student. I do know of some schools and classes that omit the plus and minus aspects of grading altogether, and from what Wormeli says, that doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Diana Quinlan
There are two different grading scales which are used today. One is the 100 point scale and the other is the 4 point scale. The 100 point scale is obviously a larger scale used in most public high schools whereas the 4 point scale is smaller and is used in most college and university settings. The advantage to using the smaller scale is that the smaller it is, the more alike it will be school and even nation wide. When using a large grading scale it is easy to just use math to figure out a student’s grade and completely remove yourself from the equation. This also makes it easier to explain to students and parents. Even though the smaller scale requires the teacher to judge mastery, it often leads to a more accurate average grade. The large scale grading system used now makes it very difficult to actually determine mastery of a subject. This is why a smaller grading scale is recommended. I always knew grading was a tricky subject but I did not think anything could be done about it. After reading this chapter I would like to try using a smaller grading scale in my classroom just to see if it is really beneficial or not.

Alicia Kenison
At the beginning of the year, you must decide on a grading scale and stick to it. The two most popular scales are the 4pt and the 100pt. On both scales an A means that the student has mastered the material. With a 4pt system, there is more leeway because there is a list of what you are looking for. The looking for items include recognizes what they need to do, understanding, doing it correctly, double checking and arriving at the correct response. Students gain credit for each piece that is correct, unlike the 100pt scale, where you only look for the answer. With the 100pt scale, you are either right or wrong. I think it is unfair to be either correct or incorrect, because in my high school we used to get ½ a credit for being ½ right. This got confusing because grades would round up and that ½ would become a whole. We also have to take into consideration to not base all grades on a rubric and learn to differentiate and reexamine grades before recording them. I think the most important question to consider in teaching is, “What is fair for my students?” We need to ask ourselves this with every assignment and every grading process to meet the needs of our students and their personal growth.

Jared Boghosian
I witnessed an interesting thing while out in the field at Mount Blue High School. My mentor teacher combines a rubric with four distinctly different categories. However, this rubric also has number values that correspond with each of the criteria. Most of his grades are set in a 100 point scale, which I have found while grading to be extremely easy to do. This chapter seemed to hop around the ideas behind using one or the other. The only problem is that they set up basically the same number of pros and cons for both the 4 and 100 point scales. So what I have taken from this chapter is that it is all up to the teacher as to which one they would rather use.

Eric Cole
The main idea of this chapter is one that I agree with whole-heartedly: School should be about the mastery of the subject, and not the grade that a student receives. In fact, if you wish to be radical, grades should be eliminated completely. Now some people might argue that grades do show that a student understands the items that the teacher wants them to learn in the class, and they have mastered them, but those people have obviously been out of high school far too long. In the real world, grades and school are just a game that students and teachers play together. Teachers give the work and tests, students take them and pass them to get the grade, and then students forget about everything that was on the test. That is the way it works. It is not the way it should work. My favorite idea in this chapter is the 4 point grading system that measures students using a list of standards that they need to show mastery of. If a student shows mastery of the standard then they get credit for it. This to me is the best way to measure students, not having them sit down to take a test.

Scott A. Bowden
This chapter was about the scales to which we hold our students grades. I must say that I am more a fan of the 100 point scale than the 4.0 or 5.0 scale. I can understand the validity of the 4.0 scale, but through years of learning the 100 point scale, for me, it would be a hard switch. I like how on the 4.0 scale, there would be a rubric system/point system outlined before the examination whereas the 100 point scale is subjective to the teacher. But that subjectivity is key in differentiation because we can modify a student's grades to match their learning or mastery trend.

Susanna Cooper
This chapter brought up some good arguments that I have also thought some about on my own. If a student is a few points away from that higher grade do you give it anyways? I know quite a few teachers that did in high school and it seemed that they were softies, and were too easy on us. Yet I like the point this chapter brought up about how the average is just a number, and in the end it is up to us as teacher to provide the true evaluation of mastery in a topic. I think that I would give an extra assessment to a student that wanted me to bump up their grade. I would ask them to prove to me they should get that extra grade by doing a small quiz on some material that would have already been taught. This would show me if that students know the material and would give them a few extra points if they did well, which would put them at the next grade mark.