B2+Chapters+7,8,9,10+FIAE

Abstract
In the set of chapters that was assigned the common topic

was grading strategies. There is a lot to grading in school, however teachers are quick to slap a grade on a paper or test and give it back to the student. What is then left for the student is the confusion of what this grade means. What makes a C paper a C? Whats the difference b

etween a C paper and a B paper? These are questions students ask themselves. Grading is a subjective part of school; the definition of each grade varies from school to school and varies even more from teacher to teacher. So how are teachers suppose to make sense of all the madness we call grades. It is [|important to inform students] what each grade means to the class and what it takes to achieve such a grade. Another interesting portion to the chapters was the grades vs. motivation. Their is this crazy idea that giving a student a bad grade will help motivate them into doing better because if they do not then they will fail the class. The truth is that giving students a bad grade can take away their confidence in the class. Students who receive bad grades may start to distant themselves from school and fail classes or even drop out of school entirely. This is not to say that giving out bad grades are frowned upon because they are necessary to give when a student puts no effort in. Giving out good grades only boost confidence for a short while but the student can become disengaged upon the first bad grade he/she gets. Now we can look into the importance of differentiated learning and how grades can be given. As we have read about all students are different in some way. Is it fair to grade every student on the same level when they are all different learners? Their are many different ways to grade students other then just their performance in the class. Teachers could look at the effort that students put into their work and have that play a part in the grade. In the chapters they have a list of what not to grade; much of that dealt with strategies that would not affect students in a negative way. In the chapter they also say that teachers should allow students to re-take test in certain circumstances because it shows that the student cares about doing well and they are eager to understand the content. One last thing that was interesting was the idea of forgetting grading and focusing on the learning. Grades is a system to show schools how students are doing in classes. What if grades were to be taken away? Would students learn better by not having the added stress of needing to get good grades? Would students find school more enjoyable if grades were not a factor? The unfortunate truth though is that grades will probably always be in schools because how will society know if students are learning at an appropriate pace to become a useful part of today's society. By: Jackson Fortin

Synthesis
Chapter 7, 8, 9, and 10 in FIAE are all focused on different aspects of grades and grading. In coordination of differentiated instruction, grading should be differentiated, too. Regarding the grading system, there are the letter-grading scale, feedback, and a combination of both. We all agree that grades should serve as tools for the teachers to assess students’ mastery of essential and skills. Grades are also helpful for the teachers to reflect on their teaching. Most of us agree that letter-grading scale puts too much pressure on the students and also emphasizes the grade much more than the actual learning. Grades should not serve as a motivation, punishment or sorting method of students. Emily and most of us quite strongly disagree with low grades that are intended as a motivation. Low grades most of the time can only discourage students from the course material. Also some of us believe that grading usually is subjectively unfair, because the teachers hold the same standard for everybody without considering individual student’s backgrounds and improvement throughout the learning experience. Andrew and some of us think that a school or class without grade will provide a stress free learning environment, where students are more willing to try and not afraid of fail.

There seems to be split on the issue of including attendance, participation, and effort into grades. Ali and Nicole agree that counting in those factors will motivate and help students succeed in class. Phill thinks that grading participation is going against MI theory. I personally believe that the grade should be a clear reflection on student’s personal improvement of mastery of material, anything other than the measure of mastery would “water down” the grade for it to serve as a summative assessment. But those factors and others, such as work habits, efforts, behaviors and attitudes should all be taken into consideration in a learning environment.

Offering bonus points is another issue that we have different opinions on. Ali and Jackie agree that if used correctly, bonus point is helpful for motivating students. On the other hand, Joe and I agree with the author on test being summative assessment of mastery, and bonus points shouldn’t be offered.

Makeup work, late assignments, and redo test are also topics that come up in most of reflections. There are various opinions among us. Most of us give reasons on their opinions, and it is so interesting to see us taking different sides of one issue. However, most of us reason that the teachers have to take the circumstance and situation into consideration when carrying out policies regarding those factors related to grades.

There are a lot of guidelines, suggestions, and ideas from those four chapters regarding grading. After reading all of our responses, I think grading system is an important part of personal belief of teaching and learning and everyone has his or her own reasons. There is no one right way to do the grading without considering the instruction system, so it all relies on the teacher’s best judgment. By Meng H.

Andrew C.
These chapters all covered differentiated instruction and how it can be used in grading and all of the different aspects of grading. It is clear to me now that differentiated instruction directly impacts our grading policies. Just as we have to have different teaching methods and styles to connect with all students we also need different and varied assessments in order to accurately judge all of the our students. Grading __#|ties__ in very closely with this process. Student’s grades and outcomes of assessments can be affected for many reasons, most commonly occurring out of the classroom. I will be sure to take all of my student’s backgrounds into consideration as much as possible when I am grading.

Chapter 9 made me realize that I need to look at[| homework] as a great opportunity to collect feedback on a student’s progress. It should not be used to assess them because they may not have fully mastered the content yet. I will be sure not to grade my homework when I am a teacher because I know how hard homework can be sometimes when I don’t have the time to master all of the content covered in class. This can be caused by many different reasons ranging from a fire drill to the student being sick and missing some information. For whatever reason students don’t master the content in the time the teacher was hoping for then we should not assess them on it or even have them practice it yet. It is important not to have students practice content that they have not mastered because they may learn it wrong and then they will have to do a lot more __#|work__ to reverse that learning.

Chapter 7 talked about how some teachers prefer not to have grades at all in the classroom because it puts a negative connotation on learning. If students are always told points will be taken for incorrect answers and are then they will be less motivated to do it next time. This makes sense because if a student is not going to get a grade on something they are more likely to try out a more difficult project and there for apply them selves to a deeper level of thinking just because they don’t have to worry about failing it. I would definitely be more tempted to challenge myself if I knew I would be penalized for it. In high school it was very tempting to take the easy way out and just do enough to pass and no more.

I really liked what Paula Schmierer had to say about using the separated report card. It is a great idea to have a place where the teacher can notify parents or members of the staff of a students work __#|behavior__ but in the end it should affect the overall grade. At the same time I feel conflicted because a student who turns in a paper 10 days later than everyone else had an unfair advantage.

Emily H.
These chapters of FIAE focused on the all-important issue of grades and grading. It is not known what exactly the right what the right way to grade is, so it varies from teacher to teacher and from school to school. Some __#|schools__ go off of a letter grading system, while others use out of 4.0 points. As teacher we need to figure out what is the best way to grade and what the definition of each grade is. If this were to happen then we would have an easier time giving students the right kind of feedback and grades. Many practices of teachers are not what should be done in a classroom. When teachers give a student a low grade, the teacher is under the impression that the low grade will push the student to do better. Often this is not the case; most students will shut down when a low grade is given to them. This is a problem for teachers and schools. I’m not saying that everyone should automatically get an A or a 4.0, but students should not be put down by their teachers if it takes a little more for them to understand and master the content. FIAE shared an example of a lower performance school versus a higher performance school. The “high” grades that the students in the lower performance school were getting were equal to “low” grades in the high performance school. This is not fair for the students. The grades given did not show mastery, which it can be assumed the higher-grade students in the lower performance school might not have developed. Teachers should not lower their expectations of their students just because they are in a lower performance school. This is not fair to the students of the school. As a teacher I want my students to succeed. I wish that there were a universal grading system for the country and/ or just the State of Maine. In doing this all teachers could be on the same page. It wouldn’t matter the type of school that they were working at or the students that they had. Lessons can still be differentiated while the grading system stays the same. As a student I remember hearing things like an A in a college prep class was like getting a B in an honors class. That was always confusing to me. I didn’t understand why they were weighted differently when you were expected to be doing the same things. This made students feel less successful when they were in a CP class instead of an honors class. I feel like with a grading system that is the same everywhere will make problems like this go away. On another note I found it interesting about bonus points not being used. I don’t think it would be something I’d use in a regular bases, but maybe in an extreme circumstance. I feel like it’s not fair to the students to totally take this option away. I was a student who did bonus points not for the actual points but for the practice it provided.

Tyler R.
Chapter 7 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal touched upon something that UbD and MI had been discussing in those books as well. This is the current grading system. In our last chapter assignments for UbD and MI we learned about how students get confused and don’t understand what certain grades actually mean. This is again brought up and put into more detail in this chapter as well. According to this chapter grades can be confusing to students because a grade in math class could mean something totally different than the same exact grade in a different class. I can see how this could easily confuse students. As a college student I am sometimes still confused by my grades. I want to be able to tell my students not only what each grade and range of numbers they receive on their assignments means, but I want them to know why they got the grade they did, what that should mean for them, and what that tells me about them and what they learned or lacked of learning. Not only do students get confused by what they get in different classes, but when students don’t even know what the grades actually represent in the first place, how on Earth are they supposed to explain to their parents or themselves about their grades? Students have to know why they got the grades they got and more importantly what each grade means. This needs to be beyond to point of A means very good, B means good, C means average, and so on. These letters need to mean something more to the students and reflect on what they learned overall. As a future teacher I hope to be able to make this happen with my students by going over what each grade letter means and the range of numbers that go with it. I will also keep myself always open for clarification about why a student got the grade they did and work with them to make sure that they actually are learning what I’m teaching them.

Chapter 8 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal brought up a very good point that I enjoyed reading. This point is that students don’t need [|grading] in order to learn. The book listed a few examples of this, but I could already think of several of my own examples where students may possibly learn more from hearing things from other students or the teacher and not be graded on them. I thought the fact that the book was actually discussing this fact was absolutely brilliant. The book also mentioned that most teachers say they only use grades because they are required to. So if teachers were not required to give grades, what would happen? Would there be less pressure on students to have to cram information for a test that could have a major impact on if they pass the class if they don’t get the right grade? Would students begin to perform better without all of that added stress and pressure? These are definitely things to begin researching and studying. = =

Phillip C.
A lot of points brought up in the readings were important to understand. I think one of the most important was the fact that different teachers will grade the same assignment differently. This is something that will probably always be the case. The blind grading exercise was a great example of this. The essay on DNA contained a lot of extraneous details, and claimed some information as fact that is not 100% true. Because of this I chose to grade it as a B or C. Student background was then brought up and the reader was asked what if an English language learner wrote the essay. I think in my class if this happened I would talk with the student and see what they knew. I the student was expected to do the essay on their own, without accommodations, they might not have been able to show what they really knew and a grade of a B or C might be an unfair reflection on them. Further connotations of letter grades and how these have changed over time were discussed too. I liked the idea of grading students over the course of the unit or year on what they [|learn] instead of assessing them at a certain point in time. It shouldn’t matter how fast a student learned a new concept. It should matter that they were able to learn it at all, regardless of the time period. The difference of fudged grades and responsive teaching was a very interesting section of reading. I never really thought about ignoring homework assignments or absences because of a student’s home life and just grading them on what they have done. It does make sense though if they can meet the final criteria of the unit. In that case it works back to the mastering of material regardless of the timeframe idea, which I agree with. Im not sure how I feel about grading participation. With all of the MI stuff we have been studying it would seem unfair to do so if there was a very intrapersonal learner in the classroom. The only part I really agreed with on the grading of participation is that it should be weighted very low. The “Ten Approaches to Avoid When Differentiating Assessments and Grading,” was very useful to me and is a list I might keep in my desk when I work in a school. I really liked the ideas of not penalizing students for failed attempts, not grading homework, and not giving extra credit. I think that having students re try an assignment they did poorly on with feedback from peers and the teacher is much or beneficial than doing an extra credit assignment. There are circumstances and conditions to letting students redo work however, and it shouldn’t be allowed in every case. I agree with this. I think the teacher has the final say and should definitely be able to change the assignment a bit, especially if there were presentations done and good examples were given. In my class I would likely give students a new topic on the same assignment that no one had done yet.

Cameron B.
 The first chapter talks about how grading is used in the classroom. Teachers need to make judgment calls on how they will be grading the students. Should all of the students in the class be graded the same exact way? Or do students who are gifted require to do more for the desired grade. Teachers need to decide this. But one things that teachers should not be afraid of doing is differentiating their instruction if they are realizing that their students are doing poorly. This does not hurt the curriculum in any way. If anything this is strengthening the curriculum by giving students a way to learn that will help them store information in their long term memory rather than memorize and forget. An interesting topic was discussing schools that do not use grades in their class. Some teachers say that there is no better way to teach. Teachers can focus more on what the students know and don’t know rather than focusing on their grades. One misconception teachers have is that if they give a student a low grade that the student will be more motivated to do better. This is usually not true. Students who begin to receive bad grades will end up distance them from school even more and more poor grades will later follow. Even if students receive an A they will only be motivated for a little while to achieve a similar grade. Grading does not lead to motivation. Grading on participation needs to be done the correct way by teachers. If a class is taught that doesn't involve participation in the students learning then it is not fair to grade them on that. Only if by students actively participating in the class for the learning process should it be fair as a teacher to grade them on this. Grading on behavior and effort is a shady category as well. This is strictly a judgment call by the teacher and can be misleading. A student may not do well in the class but their effort grade and behavior give them a large grade boost that may lead teachers to believing they know the content well. That is not the proper way students should be graded, it is unfair to them and will affect them down the road. Teachers should allow students the opportunity to retake a test if they did poorly and no penalty should be involved. For example if a student got a 75 on the test and wants to retake it, the teacher should not tell the student that they can only receive half the points they missed etc. The student should be able to show the teacher they mastered the content and earn an A. A helpful trick teachers can use is imagining how they like to be treated as an adult. Knowing that students can be overwhelmed with their schoolwork, if a student asks if it is possible to get an extension on an assignment the teacher should be able to sympathize and grant the extension. Of course this is something that should not be done on a regular occurrence but every now and then students need the extra time to do their best work.

Ali P
Chapter seven covers the ups and downs of using letter grading and even questions whether or not [|grading] should be used. There are other alternatives such as feedback. Feedback lets the student know where they went wrong and where they succeeded but does not actually give them a specific grade. I personally think grading is unfair a lot of the time. The teacher never knows exactly how much effort of time a student put into the work. As the chapter showed, something as easy to grade as a paper can be graded in so many different ways depending on the teacher. The idea of using simply feedback is interesting to me. I feel that there is a sense of competition with grade but not with feedback. Using only feedback may eliminate the some of the competition we see in classrooms and create comfort. I believe that every grade should be followed by feedback so the student can see where he or she went wrong. Grades are useless if the student does not know why they were given the mark they got.

Chapter eight focuses on the specific content that should or should not be graded. The chapter suggests that attendance; behavior and effort should be calculated into the grade and count as a lot. I believe that these three factors should be a huge part of the students overall grade. I know when I was in high school; classes such as science would have failed me if it had not been for these three grades. Many students work hard in a class but do not feel passionate about the subject. They show up to class, do all of the work, and contribute. Even if a student is doing all of these they may still struggle with the content in the class. By weighing these three components into the grade, all students are able to succeed whether they connect with the content or not.

Chapter nine focuses on what to avoid when using grades. Some of them I agreed with and some of them I really did not. I am really shocked the idea of penalizing students for having to attempt to master something even came up. I assume that all teachers goal of grading is so students will succeed but how can they if they get penalized for just trying? I also believe that extra credit should be used in classes, as long as the extra credit is not just busy work. I feel that extra credit, if used correctly, can help students to dig deeper into a subject and put more effort into it. I respect that a student wants to extra and I feel that they should be awarded for it.

Chapter ten talks about letting students redo their homework and assignments for full credit. I feel that this is a good idea but still needs some rules attached to it. I do not think students should be able to bring nothing to class on a due date. Students need to attempt their work and do the best they can with the understanding that they have. If a lot of students are passing in work that does not meet the teacher’s standards, then there is something wrong that the teacher is doing or not doing to cause this. When grading teachers need to look back at the time, instruction, and content that they gave their students. If they feel that what they did was not enough then it should not affect their grade.

Jackson F.
In the four FIAE chapters that were assigned the main idea focused upon was grading. I liked how the author described grades as being elephants in the room. Everyone knows their there but no one wants to bring them up. Grades for years have always been the tool for teachers, schools and parents to see how the student is mastering subjects. The problem with grades is their subjectiveness; what determines A work and what constitutes F work. Most schools have a grading scale but it is how the teachers determine what kind of work gets a certain letter or symbol. I really liked the idea of how grades can give a negative meaning towards learning. Students how think that grades are the soul reason why they go to school gives learning a negative outlook and students do not cherish the learning. However when the learning is less about the grades and more about the actual learning then students can flourish and not have to worry about the elephant in the room. Another interesting question that is proposed to us is, why do we grade? What we learn is that there are good reasons and bad reasons. When grading is used to help the students see what they need to improve upon or to document student progress. When grading is used to motivate, punish or sort students that is when the grading becomes less affective. Then there was talk about how to grade participation and effort. This part was kind of confusing because they say not to do it but if a occasion calls for it then consider using participation and effort as a tool to grade a student. The chapter I found most interesting was the ten things to avoid when grading. I agreed on most of them but the one that I found I disagreed was about not giving bonus or extra points. The idea of not grading homework was something that I was a little iffy about but depending on the teacher it is quite possible that an idea like that could work. The last topic talked about in the chapters was on redoing work. Up until now I had no idea what I would do about students redoing work. In some cases it might be effective to let students have another shot but it also depends on the behavior of the student. I found these chapters very useful; it got me think about how I will grade students and strategies I might attempt in my own classroom. I believe that I would use bonus points but more as a fun thing to do for assignments or test. What I really liked about this chapter was the emphasis that grades are meant to help the students not deter them from learning. I know their have been times when it seemed like a class was all about the grade and not about the learning. What I would like to do in my class is to not worry about the students grade but to focus in on their learning and encourage students to study to learn and not to get a letter on a piece of paper. Of course if students try and take advantage of that then I have every right to start grading more things in class.

Nicole C.
This set of chapters was all about grading – what kinds of grades there are, why we grade, how to grade, and of course, what common problems there are with grading. The biggest issue seems to be that grades are subjective rather than objective. This means that there is a lot left up to teacher discretion. As a student, I have seen this problem numerous times. Since there is no standard for what exactly makes an “A”, teachers can pretty much decided whatever they like in terms of what an “A” looks like in their class. I liked the suggestion of English teachers getting together to discuss criteria being assessed on rubrics to make sure everyone is using the same basic principles from year to year, and I sincerely hope that kind of collaboration exists at my future school. Another area where there seems to be a good deal of variance is the reason behind grading. As these chapters discuss, every teacher seems to have a different opinion on what the actual purpose of grades are – ranging everywhere from punishing students to not having a decent purpose at all. Grades should be used as feedback – for students as well as parents and administrators. They should document the students’ progress, not hinder it. I am still a little confused as to how to communicate the difference, but I certainly believe in this notion and hope to implement it in my future classes.

A section I found particularly interesting was the section on grading participation. Participation has always been a part of the grade in every class I’ve ever had. It is a small part, sure, but a part all the same. I think that is why I found it a little difficult to understand why this section was advising us not to attach a grade to it at all. I was always told that if you miss enough classes/do not participate in ANY class discussions about important areas in the unit, there is no way you can learn the material to its full extent. I still believe this to a point, but I understand where the book is coming from when it says that participation is perhaps the most subjectively graded part of any class. Everyone has a different definition of participation! I therefore believe it might be wise to go over exactly what participation entails during the first week of classes with students, and only attach a grade to certain assignments where attendance/participation is a vital part of that assignment.

Finally, this section discussed re-doing assignments. Again, this is left up to teacher discretion, although I am a firm believer in the idea that everyone deserves a second chance. Learning is what is important – not the time it takes to do it.

Jackie B.
In chapter seven of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal,// the chapter begins by giving us an example of a prompt a student wrote. I won’t lie, I read it over and I personally didn’t find it to be very good. The author hadn’t given me any background on a student, and it wasn’t until after I had read and scored to essay in my head did it seem almost unfair. The author brings up a few good points, well what if the student is an ESOL student? Or disabled? What if it’s a third grader who is especially gifted in science? Granted apparently some of the information was wrong but it still got me to thinking. Would I change my grading because of something like the above? I feel obligated to treat them equally, the same but if I have an ESOL student in a class of English speaking students I feel like my morals will get the best of me and I’ll want to grade the ESOL student more on the amount of effort that he actually put into the essay than the actual essay itself. Then again this wouldn’t be fair to the other kids so it’s hard to decide how I’d personally go about that. The chapter goes on to talk about letter grades and the pros and cons. In Chapter eight we continue to read about grades but this time it is in regards to should we grade attendance, participation and effort. Should we? I think these are pretty important in my opinion and personally yes, I would grade my students on these things. It’s a good way to help balance out a test or a project they may not have done as well on. I really like how they talked about participation and classroom discussion as routes to mastery. So many times I see kids will turn in their work on time and it will be right but that doesn’t mean they’ve mastered it. In chapter nine we’re told what to avoid when grading. For example at the beginning they mention to avoid penalizing students’ multiple attempt at mastery. For basic homework I could understand this but for tests? I don’t think I could allow a student to retake a test for full credit in an attempt to “master” the content. They suggest avoiding grading practice homework and this is something I //do// agree with. I think homework is a great way to practice what the student’s have learned but they shouldn’t be penalized for not understanding. They will be graded on their knowledge come time of the test and or project. And before I move on I would like to add that I am in fact a fan of extra credit. If students are willing to take the initiative when they realize they may not have done as well as they thought then I think it should be rewarded. Overall I was not a fan of that chapter or the things it told me NOT to do. And wrapping up the reading with chapter ten, we learn about conditions for redoing work for full credit. There are stipulations to this that I would have to think about before allowing this. For one I’m not a fan on assigning homework for a grade so this probably wouldn’t happen to much in my class, but god forbid it did, the student would have had to at least DO it before asking to redo it. I would also definitely ask them to staple the original to the new copy as proof that they did it the first time like the book suggested. Overall these chapters all discussed grading and what the author believed to be a good way of assessing grading and how to go about counting it as a grade and the author’s policies, which I partially agreed with.

Meng H.
Chapter 7, 8, 9, and 10 in FIAE are all about grading and differentiating assessment. I found those chapters very helpful since we just finished writing our own syllabus for Stage 3. I wasn’t quite sure about the “Benchmarks” section in my syllabus but after reading those four chapters I think I did it right. From the reading, I understand that grades are not supposed to serve as ways to motivate, punish, or sort students. Grade is simply the measurement of mastery of essential materials and skills. Grade should serve as a tool for teacher to assess students’ learning and reflect on his/her teaching, and to build a base for teacher’s feedback to assist in students’ mastery.

Including anything other than the academic products in the grade will be misleading, and it “waters down” the grade for its measuring purpose. In this case, attendance, participation, efforts, work habits, behaviors and attitudes should not be included in the grade. However, these are all important factors to consider when looking at the big picture of individual student as a learner. There are so many reasons for low attendance, poor participation, seemingly minimum efforts, bad behaviors or attitudes. And as teachers who try to help student learn, we need to take all the background reasons into consideration when students go “off the track.” This is when good observation and communication with students and their families come in play. Knowing students’ backgrounds helps us to understand their attitudes and behaviors.

Once we understand students’ backgrounds, we can implement differentiated assessment. Differentiating instructions and assessment to suit students’ needs and backgrounds doesn’t mean we are bending or lowering the standards. In doing so, we are acknowledging that the students learn at different paces, in different manners and also we understand and respect that. Also, students should be graded on norm-based standard. All students come in the classroom with different skills, knowledge, learning (dis)abilities and paces. We just can’t hold the same standard for everyone. Students should be assessed based on personal achievement in mastering knowledge. I especially like the part in Chapter 8 that says when teachers “bend a little here and there” (Wormeli Pg 92), it gives students hope and encourages the student to keep trying. This part reminds me of Dr. Grace when I couldn’t meet a deadline despite trying, she would extend the deadline. However, Dr. Grace doesn’t just extend the deadline indefinitely. She makes it clear that extending the deadline is at her discretion and she works out a new deadline that she and I can both agree on. By doing so, she showed me that deadline is not really a “dead line” and also motivated me to finish the late work and keep my other works on-time.

I totally agree and believe these theories or guidelines on differentiating grading. However, I have some concerns about the application of some of them. There was an example for a teacher to pass a student for one class when the student showed mastery through class participation instead of turning in homework. I know this is one extreme exception, but when and how can we be the judges make these kind exceptions? Also, I think it will be a tough situation when a student clearly tried his/her personal best but still failed the assessment. Being a student, I always believe that it’s rewarding and fair to work hard in a course and receive a good grade. As a teacher, that is the message I want to show the students. I don’t know if I have the heart to keep motivating the failing but trying student.

Joe S.
These chapters __#|address__ important difficulties that can arise when subjectivity and non-inclusive components are factored into grading. There are many examples of these cropping up in classrooms, and they are often difficult to discuss with other teachers as beliefs differ immensely when it comes to what individuals deem appropriate grading protocol. Because of teachers’ unwillingness to “create waves” or “stir the pot,” not much collaboration goes into grading policies, and this makes it that much more important to take a stance on how grades will be administered in one’s classroom.

According to the author, a grade serves six purposes: To document student and teacher progress, to provide feedback to the student and family, to inform instructional decisions, and to motivate, punish, and sort students. A gigantic problem with grades is when they become too subjective, or “fudged,” such as when teachers factor students’ backgrounds into the mix, or anything that does not exemplify mastery of the subject, for that matter. One quote from this chapter that I found particularly powerful was when the author cited Karen Gruner, saying, “One of life’s tough lessons is trying hard and failing.” The author is adamant on his stance about grades reflecting only mastery of the subject, and separates work behaviors, participation, and effort from the equation.

Another interesting section in this passage is how the rank of grades has changed over the years, with a C being the satisfactory mark of yesteryear being replaced with a B in today’s school. It is important to make clear guidelines for students to understand what level of achievement constitutes a certain grade over another.

A few other important considerations to take into account when differentiating assessments and grading are to avoid penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery, grading practice problems, giving bonus points and extra credit, group grades, grading on a curve, and zeros. The portion on allowing students to earn back points on tests made a lot of sense to me, especially when considering that you are holding a student’s develop against him or her when you do not allow them full credit back. Working on homework should also not be counted against students, as they are in the process of making connections to material and are going through the process of //confabulation//, or filling in missing pieces of information with prior knowledge that may not be correct. The section concerning bonus points also made sense to me, as when summative assessments are assigned, they have a specific purpose designed to satisfy important components of the unit, and the extra credit assignment will not cover the same material as well as the original. I liked the idea of allowing the student to correct and improve upon their previous assessment. In regards to group grading and grading on a curve, these both skew the assessment of students’ actual mastery of the subject. This happens in a group setting because the teacher cannot discern how much work one student put in in comparison to the others in the group, and when grading on a curve, grading based on mastery completely throws mastery-based grading out the window. Also, while I agreed with most of this section, I had difficulty reasoning with the section on zeros, as while it doesn’t conform to the idea of only including assessments that demonstrate mastery of the content, if students do not complete an assignment, they are missing a key component in regards to illustrating their mastery.

Brittany R.
These chapters summed up assessment and how to utilize it during differentiated instruction. Grading in the past for most students including myself have been looked in a negative way especially when students have the potential to get an unsatisfactory grade. I know ever since I have been assigned homework, I have been worried or scared of what my grade may be. It wasn’t until I took physics my senior year in high school where my teacher told me he wasn’t going to grade the homework but just have the class pass it in to check for understanding. We were “graded” based on if we attempted to do the homework or not. From there we went over the homework as a class to fill in the blanks as far as misconceptions we may have had. With math I feel like without a good foundation of the basics, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible for students to build onto higher levels of thinking. Unfortunately, a lot of practice is a necessity to build a strong mathematical foundation. By using this homework and quizzes as more of a reflection on your own teaching skills, it will benefit students and their skills. There are many instances where students legitimately attempt to do the work and just can’t do it whether it be poor teaching skills or absences. Where a student may be enrolled is also an issue. Unfortunately, schools aren’t uniform in their teachings. Ideally this would be the case but students in different states sometimes aren’t challenged as much as they should be. Because of this one schools “high” standards can be another schools “low” standards. I feel like this concern has been brought up in classes many times. It will take a long time all schools to have the same uniform standards and enforce them but when this is achieved, it will really be beneficial to all. Determining if a student meets a standard shouldn’t be determined by what is written on paper. All students learn in unique ways as we have been learning all semester and will continue to learn. Prior to writing this reflection, I was discussing with my parents the idea of not grading students on their learning ability and that teachers should be able to determine a student’s mastery of a subject in different ways. They couldn’t fathom the idea of not having a graded sheet telling them if they had passed or failed. I can remember many moments where I have learned vital information and it wasn’t during a homework assignment or a test I had taken. It was through class experience and providing said experiences for students will create an ample learning environment. By giving negative feedback to students through red scribbles on a piece of paper with a score at the top, it puts students down and makes them feel like they did something wrong by not absorbing the information as his or her peer at done. Students should be given many opportunities to show their mastery of a subject and not just through pen and paper.

Clayton P.
Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 of FIAE all dealt with the same, looming thing hanging over teachers’ heads: grading. Chapter 7 talks about the definitions of grades and what kinds of grades are appropriate for certain situations. It even talks about the different marks for grades, including the standard A, B, C, D and F grades, the less common O(Outstanding), G(Good), S(Satisfactory), N(Needs Improvement), and U(Unsatisfactory), and the 4.0 GPA scale. This chapter deals with an issue that’s very common: adjusting grades depending on a student’s socioeconomic status. Though teachers are not supposed to have different standards for their students, it does happen. Chapter 8 discusses the reasons for grading, as well as grading based on effort, attendance and behavior. When asked about reasons for grading, teachers managed to break it down into three good reasons and three bad reasons. The good reasons were: to document student and teacher progress, to provide feedback, and to inform instructional decisions. The bad reasons were: to motivate, punish, and sort students. This gives some clear-cut, decisive, and helpful reasons for grading. Along with giving reasons for grading, this chapter also discusses whether or not to grade students based on attendance and participation. If a student is absent quite frequently, but is achieving above-average grades on all of his or her assignments, it seems unfair to fail that student simply for being absent. On the other hand, this would give the student unrealistic expectations of the real world. For example, if school was the student’s metaphorical job, and they had frequent unexcused absences, they would be out of a job. Also, if there is a student who has trouble turning in assignments but contributes greatly to in-class discussion, then it would seem unfair to fail that student after clearly showing their knowledge of the content in class. Chapter 9 gives ten points to avoid when grading work. The first references what was discussed in Chapter 8: don’t incorporate non-academic factors into the final grade. The second stresses to not give a student fewer points for an assignment that they are re-doing. The third instructs teachers to not use homework as a method of teaching new material, but instead to assign homework over material that they’ve already covered. This will show that they’ve mastered the content. The fourth says to always provide students with assistance if they need it, and remove any barriers that would prevent them from getting assistance. The fifth says to not grade students’ work in ways that are not accurate to their mastery of the content. Number six says to limit bonus points and extra credit to assignments that achieve the same thing you were trying to achieve with the original assignment. The seventh stresses the need to grade students individually and not as a group. Number eight says: “Avoid grading on a curve.” This is a fairly straightforward guideline. The ninth says to avoid giving missing work a grade of zero. The tenth states that grades should define how a student is displaying his or her mastery of the content, not how he or she is performing in relation to his or her classmates.