FIAE+B2+Chapter+11


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Sarah McGinley
Fair Isn’t Always Equal Chapter 11: Six Burning Grading Issues 3/23/10

This chapter discusses a few good points about grading students. One of the issues is giving students zeros or just giving students 60s for the assignments they do not complete. If the student is not trying at all and does not want to do the assignment then I think I should be able to give that student a zero for that assignment but if the student tried to complete the assignment and then gave up then something needs to be done other than giving the student a 60. I would like to give the student partial credit for the assignment instead of giving them the lowest grade possible and giving the student the message that even though they tried they still failed. This is one of the reasons why I like the idea of the point system where the teacher has to figure out the actual grade at the end of the year. The idea of having students receive that low of a grade relates to allowing students to redo their work. If the student continues to try then the student should receive partial credit. The other situation was about a student being skipped ahead. If the grading system is made for each student and the classroom and assessments are differentiated then teachers should not have to worry about the students that were skipped ahead some classes. Everything should be based on how the student is learning and not based on the brightest student. Teachers need to use formative and summative assessments to know what level the student is learning from and at the end of the lesson find out how far the student has come. I believe having both of these assessments help with how to grade a student at the end of the year.

**Jason Malbon**
Grading is a scary subject with teachers. Whether or not to keep a zero for example is controversial. From my experience, zeros were a fact of life in school. If you made no effort, didn’t hand in work, or got all the answers wrong, you earned a zero. If you’ve shown zero mastery, then you get zero points. I believe a zero can act as a wake up call to many students. If the lowest grade is thrown out as result of new data showing mastery, then what does a zero hurt? Teachers and students can always agree on proper recourse if a grade is undesirable. Test or quiz retakes and extra-practice work can be given for the purpose of showing real mastery. On the other hand, an F has a scale range from zero to sixty while D’s, C’s, B’s and A’s have 10 point ranges. Seems that either we give arbitrary points and have sixty be the lowest grade, or we use the entire 60 point range. A student can easily learn to game the system by showing little effort and earn a few sixties. Then that student only needs to show just enough effort to bring the grade up to a passing score. In the end, I believe we should issue the zero and be willing to throw it out if progress is made toward real mastery.

Diana Quinlan
This chapter is dedicated to grading and all the difficult choices that come with it. According to Wormeli, when a student does not turn in an assignment or scores lower than a sixty it is better to record a sixty instead of a zero. When it comes time to average all the grades together a zero will bring the final grade down drastically and will not show accurate mastery of the subject. I’m not sure I agree with giving sixties instead of zeros for a lot of reasons but I can understand the reasoning behind it. While I was out in the public school I noticed that my mentor teacher struggled with this same dilemma. One thing is for sure though; this chapter has given me a lot to think about before I begin teaching.

S arah Robinson
In this chapter 11, the always-complicating topic of grading is brought to our attention. The chapter starts off by taking about when a student has earned a zero on an assignment should the teacher bring the grade to a sixty, so the grading with even out when done at the end of the grading period. This has taught me that in my future classroom that I will bring that grade up to a sixty because if a student decides to better him or herself and start doing their work then they deserve to be able to improve their grade. The sixty will help students improve their grade more than a zero would. When it comes to grading gifted students this chapter has taught me that there are many approaches to take, to ensure what is best for the students. To go along with differentiated classrooms a teacher should remember that we must do what is fair and not always equal. Gift schools I believe should be graded on a harder curriculum scale to ensure they are being pushed to achieve their highest grade possible. I have been in both situations where in a class that grades have been weighted and not weighted. I find that in most cases that the classes that have weighted grades are when the most students are not doing well in the class and the teacher feels they must weight the grades to help the students pass. I believe in these cases that teachers need to change their teaching styles because they are obviously not working. This chapter has taught that many teachers treat late work in a wrong manner. Students should not have a full letter grade off for late work. They should be able to have a fair grading and maybe have a few points taken off for handing it in late. But if the student has taken the time to do the project then they should be rewarded. This chapter also addresses a topic that I find very interesting and excited to learn about and that is grading special needs students in inclusion classes. What is important to remember is clearly communicating with the special needs student’s teachers and what they all want to grade the student on.

The portion of this chapter that really stood out to me over the others was that of changing zeroes in the grade book to 60's or 70's. I completely disagree with this idea as I feel that it skews the grade and achievement more than leaving the grade as a zero. I feel that a more effective way to grade at the end of the grading term would be to find the median of the grades given. This way, if a student fails to pass in a project they still get the grade that they deserve--that of a zero and they still have the chance that it will not completely destroy their grade.

The book attempted to argue that just because a student fails to pass in work means that they have not mastered the content. My question is "How do you know that a student has mastered anything if you have no evidence to judge by?" If there is no work produced than, in my opinion, they earn absolutely no grade. I think the only reason why I would change a grade to something more than they earn is if they show mastery yet it is not up to a 60 or a 70-- that is when I may bump up the grade to either a 60 or a 70 dependent on what a low D is according to the school.

Mike Lawson
Chapter 11 I think that when it comes to handing in out zeros or a sixty, a teacher should hand out a zero. The only way a teacher should give any points is if there is a product to grade. If there is late work handed in then it deserves a grade. I really don’t like how the book states that it is incorrect to not give credit when the student hasn’t turned in anything. I understand that it decreases the grade by possibly as much as a full letter grade, but this should be motivation to at least get all the work in. Teachers assign homework and projects to make sure students are being engaged in the learning outside of class. If a student doesn’t do any of the work during the grading period and shows up for the final test, passes it with a B and ends up passing the class that is unfair to every student who did the work. Not only is it unfair to the students who put a great effort into the class, it is also unfair to the teacher who spent hours teaching students the material. I couldn’t record a grade in the grade book simply because they are in my class. The chapter refers to weighted grades. I loved weighted grades. In high school I took all honors classes and even some AP classes. All of these had weighted grades at the end of the semester that raised my GPA. The book says that that fact isn’t motivation to students. I know that when I chose between an honors class and a regular level class I noted that the grades were weighted and I saw it as incentive to join the class. As a student who has passed in countless late work, I can associate with this section pretty well. I agree totally with the book in this case. If the student shows chronic late work then it is acceptable to give them consequences of a bad grade. Maybe a letter grade each day it is late will be needed to show that late work isn’t a good thing. However, on the other hand if the grades haven’t even been added to the book or the assignment hasn’t been graded yet then a day late is no problem.

Jared Merrifield
Chapter 11: Six Burning Grading Issues

The first “burning issue” this chapter addresses is the dilemma that teachers face every day: if a student does not hand in work, should this be recorded as a zero or a sixty in the gradebook? I can see why teachers would butt heads on this subject, and before participating in this class, I was on the fence myself. At a glance, it seems to make sense to not give a student credit for not doing the work; then again, a zero does not accurately reflect, if it even reflects at all, the student’s mastery of the subject, thus severely altering the final grade. In my opinion, the latter is more severe, and after reading this chapter, it seems like the more justifiable choice. After all, as the chapter clearly explains, in both scenarios the student would still get an F. The section about grading gifted students was quite understandable and even familiar. If (and only if) a student has mastered the basic material for a class, it only makes sense to offer him or her a more challenging curriculum. If their grades slip because of this, post the higher grade on their final report – it’s only fair (but, of course, not necessarily equal!). Weighting grades is certainly a chore, especially for high schools with different levels of the same course. For example, my friend in high school, who was in a core English class, thought he was “smarter” than me because he received a higher grade in his class, even though there was only about five points difference and I was in Honors English. This was from a competitive point of view, but the point is, how do teachers make grades reflect the appropriate levels of mastery for varying levels of difficulty? While in the field, I actually had trouble determining the skill levels of the students, and found it hard to distinguish what they could solve automatically and what they had to think about. I suppose this is one of the advantages of in-field work: you can start to figure out where the average student is in your specific subject and tweak your lesson plans based on that. It’s also helpful during the first few lessons of the school year to determine what students understand and what they don’t. Even before enrolling in this course, I doubted that I would decrease the grade for late work and instead be more lenient, because as the chapter says being late is discouraged but not unacceptable. Punishment would have to be in order if handing in work late becomes a habit. The section on grading special needs students is really just common sense as long as the teacher remembers the title of this book.

Alicia Kenison
Wormeli answers questions on how to record a failing grade, how to grade gifted/special needs students, whether or not we should weigh grades, automaticity vs. attaining concepts, and grading late work throughout this chapter. I think it is adequate punishment for a student to get a 0 because they gain nothing if we consistently give students 60s. It is fair to put an “I” in the grade book for incomplete and then giving a lower grade when handed in. If we take 10 pts off being late for one student, this practice NEEDS to happen for everyone. We cannot favor one student over the other no matter their excuse. Weighing grades can be beneficial, but I still don’t like the idea. Why give someone a higher grade if they do not deserve it? Grading becomes harder when we differentiate, but sometimes differentiation needs to happen. We need to take every one of our students into consideration when we record grades into our books. This might include talking to paraprofessionals, parents, a community team and the student themselves.

Jared Boghosian
I never truly considered the terrible, terrible things a zero could do to a grade until I read this book. However, after reading this chapter I am convinced the only way I could record a zero is if the student did zero work all the time, because then there would truly be no reason to average a higher failing grade. Another interesting point that this chapter brings up that I never really thought about is the amount of failure that is possible on a 100 point grading scale. Anything lower than a 70 is essentially a failing grade, that leaves only 30 points to achieve understanding and only about 15 points to show mastery. The one thing I disagree with is that there is a major advantage to being top of your class, in many cases it results in free college tuition for state or higher colleges.

Eric Cole
This chapter wants to talk about fairness when it comes to grading. If a student turns in solid A papers, and then forgets to do one do they deserve a zero for the paper or should they be given a grade of 60 for doing absolutely nothing. This chapter would argue that the student should be given the 60 as when you average the 60 out with the rest of the grades the student would receive a final grade of B which is a better indication of mastery of the subject. I have to whole-heartedly disagree with this notion. What if a student forgets to do a paper after getting all A’s on their previous work. Now, forgetting the fact that this scenario is highly unlikely, let us say that the teacher gives the student the chance to make the paper up. The student still doesn’t do the paper. Should the teacher give the student a zero then? This chapter would argue no, but what kind of message does giving a 60 for not completing any work at all tell the other students who followed the rubric and did their best on the paper? How is that fair to them. My policy is going to be you either do the work, or you don’t receive the credit. It is as simple as that.

Scott A. Bowden
This chapter was about grading students and the controversial issues in teaching. I will breeze over what I think is important and overly relevant. I believe that the student should earn what they earn if they don't do the work. They get no points for it. Perhaps I would record it as "Exempt" or "Incomplete" until the work is done, but if it fails to do so, there is no way I could give them a grade for it. Students who are gifted should be held to standards similar to the normal class, but the unfortunate issue is that teachers will hold them to standards too high for them to attain it or too low for it to be a challenge. If a student is performing at a 10th grade math level as a 9th grader, I would grade them accordingly or suggest they advance to the next level class (e.g. Honors Geometry instead of Honors Algebra I).

Susanna Cooper
I ponder the question about a 0 or a 60 still after reading this chapter. Before now I would have always given a 0 if a students did not do the assignment. No work, no grade. But I can see how it makes a difference to give a “just under the mark grade” is better for students over all grade. I can also see now how it would make my life easier and determining the mastery level of my students. I really liked how the chapter gave me a visual example of how these two ways of grading make a big difference. It really helped me to see what a difference 1 number makes in an average. From high school we all know how big a gap there is between a B and a C. If I can keep my students closer to the B range then I guess I would go for it.