Do My Grading Practices Support Learning? By: Peggy O’Neill Lederer CIA 610 SU

Grading Practices “If teachers wish to adopt grading practices that support learning, they must first examine their own grading practices and be prepared to make changes” (Butler and McMunn, 2006, p. 193).

How is my grade book organized? My grade book is organized by categories. Homework - 20% Participation - 20% Process Assessments - 10% Mastery Assessments - 40% Final exam - 10%

Explanation of Categories Homework - 20% Homework is a process grade and is graded only for completion. Students do not get graded for correct answers. Participation - 20% Because I teach Spanish and my classes usually have 30+ students, a participation grade motivates students to engage with me in the target language and allows me to interact with many students in a class period. They are graded on their effort and not on ability. I use this student engagement to help me modify my lesson in order to address areas of need for my students.

Rethinking My Practices Butler & McMunn (2006) give the suggestion that "teachers might place an 'effort' grade as well as an achievement grade on the report card. Zeros would count toward the effort grade but not the grade on student achievement" (p.182). I feel that having an effort grade that is recorded, but does not affect a students grade will still send a message that the students needs to engage more without affecting their overall grade. I once had a parent express their concern that their child had raised their hand a lot to participate, but that I did not call on them. They expressed their thoughts that the student should at least get points for their effort in raising their hand. This has led me to seriously re-think the validity of my participation grade and how I score it or whether or not to calculate it in a student’s overall grade.

Assessment Grades Process Assessments My school administration dictates that all teachers in my school use the technique of mastery learning, which consist of process grades and mastery grades. Process assessments are basically formative assessments that help indicate a student’s progress and areas in need of improvement in order to master the material.

My Philosophy on Process Assessments Personally I feel that students d not take formative / process assessments seriously because they do not count for a big percentage of their grade. I also feel that formative assessments should not be used in the calculation of overall grades. Formative assessments should be used to assess a student’s current level of understanding and aid the instructor in modifying instruction to improve understanding.

Formative Assessment Beliefs Ken O'Connor, in the audio of "Sound Grading Practices", reinforced the belief that formative assessments should not be included in a students grade by stating that "we often get things wrong at the beginning and there is nothing wrong with that. We don't understand it well at the beginning so those formative assessments shouldn't be part of the grade. Butler and McMunn (2006) also support this by stating, “Formative assessments should be used primarily to give feedback to students..on the progress of learning, whereas summative assessments are used to make judgments about the amount of learning and so are included in grades” (p.188).

Mastery Assessments Mastery assessments in my classes measure the ability of my students in the areas consistent with the State and National Standards for proficiency in a World Language. Student are assessed in the following areas and their grades are recorded separately for: Reading Writing Speaking Listening

Grades Should Reflect achievement of Curricular Standards “In order for grades to reflect standards directly and not just by chance, grades must be based directly on standards” O’Connor, 2002, p.39 as cited by Butler and McNunn, 2006, p 186). Forty percent of a student’s grade in my class is based on curricular standard. Although I feel that this percentage is a good representation of a students mastery of the material, because I also include grades for effort in my grade book, I may not be assessing my students in a truly objective manner.

Zero Scores In my class, students are given the opportunity to hand in late work for credit and they are encouraged to work with me to make arrangements to hand in all assigned work. Zero scores are recorded in my grade book when a student fails to turn in work within two weeks or has not made arrangements with me to set up a turn in date.

Zero Scores Although I feel that turning in work is teaching students the life skill of responsibility and the understanding of deadlines, which they will face in the future, I agree that the inability to turn work in does not show a level of student ability. Guskey, as quoted by Butler and McMunn (2006) states that, “Assigning a score of a zero to work that is late or missed or neglected does not accurately depict students learning…Students who receive a single zero have little change of success because such an extreme scores skews the average” (p.189).

Zero Scores As Butler & McMunn (2006) state, “When a student receives a sufficient number of failing grades, a sense of hopelessness can become evident in his or her behavior in the classroom” (p. 183). As a teacher, I want to encourage my students and give them the tools to feel successful, not hopeless. Therefore, I have taken a serious look at my zero policy and have considered the suggestion of Rick Wormeli (2006), that "when we turn students' zeroes into 60s in our grade books, we are not giving students something for doing nothing. We're adjusting the grade intervals so that any averaging we do is mathematically justified" (p.12).