FIAE+B1+Chapter+14

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Andy
Within this chapter the author brings up the fact that some schools have an option on their report cards to place an asterisk or an “X” next to certain students. This allows the viewer of the report to know that there is something that might have affected their grade or that something impressive was done. When I first read this I thought this was a great idea, but when I thought about it a bit more I came to realize that this could really bit you the behind. If you were to put an asterisk next to a grade of a student who you have had to adjust the curriculum for him/her so they would not fall behind the parents may find it hard to understand or ask what else the other students are doing that they child is not. I feel that it is one of those ideas that in theory it is a great idea, but in practice it just has too many loopholes or flaws that it will cause more headaches then relieve them.

Dan
Here is the unfortunate part about the report cards that measure mastery against the standards. Although, they give plenty of information on exactly what we are trying to measure, which is exactly what we should do, looking solely at these report cards and not knowing the student, their mastery is still very vague. If student A has all the mastery in science and math, we could come to the conclusion they are ready for an engineering program anywhere in the United States. This is most definitely not true but it should be. So if report cards come out as such, a new system would need to be made to get into college and so on. It's unfortunate but true that we need to know a students talent before they can go on to further education. For those of us who don't believe in SAT's we would have to look at the report cards. With this idea in mind and this type of report card with mastery of standards, there is too much still undecided on how to grade per standard. And an overall mastery of that subjects standards is what? I just want a universal standard throughout the US so a student in Maine CP class with a 90 average (B) isn't the same as a student in California with a ninety average and an A-. Report cards are junk.

Cassandra
Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning when I'm reading about the changes this book wants to make. It's not that I don't fully agree with how students learn and are graded; it's just that I think it's a little ridiculous to give one teacher 100 students and ask them to do 2 different grades for that one student. The D3 was especially agitating. I was under the impression that students would be receiving good grades for their successes, not D's. In that case, there should be no student who has "had a great year" and receives a D! We sheepishly talk about how students need to fit in to the neat little stacks, but we do that for colleges in the end! Are colleges going to just start accepting any student who applies until they run out of room on good faith that the student will succeed? College is hard work; High school should be preparing students for College, our professors don't spend hours trying to use a funky grading system. The teaching should be differentiated so that all students get A's. I'm not convinced that the grading should be that way as well.

Ethan
This chapter seems to be at the back of the book for a reason, it deals with report cards. Report cards are what every student is waiting for at the end of the quarter or semester, so why not make us as readers wait for it at the end of the book. All the other frustrations associated with grading seem to come out all at once when dealing with report cards. Everywhere teachers want a better way to express a student’s growth or participation in the class on the report cards. When I was in high school many of my teachers would make fun of the “codes” they would have to enter to if they wanted to leave comments on a student’s report card. I feel like report cards would be better for students if the teachers could write whatever comments they wanted on the report card and the students parents would also benefit more from this then simply seeing “is a pleasure to have in class” in the comments section of the report card.

Brian
Report cards are a sore subject that this point in my teaching/student career. Thinking back about a high school report card, I think about how much those letters effect where I will attend college. Now when I think back on them I see that all the letters represented was how well I could fit to the system. In English I’d write papers without sources specifically so I didn’t have to know how to site them. I would get 85’s instead of 90’s which didn’t bother me so I never learned how to site sources. The first thing my college professor talked to me about was plagiarism because I didn’t site my sources. After two six college level English classes I was writing essay’s 5 times better than the ones I wrote in college. This is telling me that in order to successfully use report cards, we need them to measure “how ready for the next level are our students?” If report cards are already answering this, then bravo, in my experience they haven’t. I don’t have many answers, but I pose the question how do we fix this?

Sean
How we grade our students in regards to Report Cards is very sticky territory. This made me think back to one of my first college classes ever, DAN 150 with Wescott. She told us straight up that if she didn't have to use a grading system, she wouldn't have, because it's so hard to tell whether or not a student really has understood what you're trying to teach. I still remember that, and it's made me think long and hard about how I want to grade my students. We shouldn't need two separate grades, but one grade that covers the largest area possible. Report cards only say F or C- or A, but that doesn't really mean anything. It just shows a range of numbers that the student falls into.

Darren
I hate these books and current high schools (that I have been in) because they rely on numbering and labeling kids. I want a school where this never happens. I want to live in a town where, since elementary school, grades never existed. Its all so arbitrary. Even in college...the only reason I'm doing this reading response is to pass this class, let's be honest. I don't see the point in grades, never have. It's all about money and administration. We put out report cards to let the parents know we're doing something. What if I have the students keep a journal and they spill their guts to me and never spell a single word right? Did they master the content? No. Did they write because they cared? Yes. They wrote because they wanted to, because they had something to say. That's what is important--not these stupid letters. These letters, these A's and B's and C's don't mean anything. Can I get an A for caring about something? If so, does that mean I really care about it or that I'm doing it for the grade? Forget reporting letters to parents, let the work of the students speak for itself. Let the kids drive themselves to work hard, showcase their work. Show them that you care. Too bad this will never happen, not in our society.

Josh
Armstrong expresses the need for responsive report card formats. As in my high school, a lot of report cards just have the letter grade, and then generic responses from the teacher who used a number key to comment on my performance in the classroom, usually summed up in a sentence. The grades on my report card were never justified or explained. Responsive report cards will help parents understand why their child got the grade that they did. My mentor teacher uses powerschool to submit students grades so that they can see them and show their parents. Beside the grade for each assignment, she write comments about if they didn't try, or it was late, or any other reason why they got the grade they did. It lets the parents know how the student is doing academically as well as any problems with understanding or missing work.

Zack
A grade one place does not mean the same thing at another place, this is wrong, grades need to be more uniform, someone doing good work at a school here should be the same grade for that work another place. The difficulty of the classes should be the same, there needs to be more uniformity in the United States, but not by standards, more of a standard curriculum. Teachers should be told what exactly they need to teach the students, and what books they can use, this way everyone no matter what is exposed to the same stuff. There may be AP classes and CP classes still it is just they learn from the same book just not at the same depth. A smart student here should be given the same possibilities to succeed as someone in Florida.

George
The ideas of grading and report cards were discussed in this chapter. It's an area that is coming under more and more scrutiny because one letter doesn't tell the whole story about how a student is doing. This sentiment is spreading but no great idea to replace traditional grading has surfaced. At the very least people are willing to speak out. One of my favorite teachers, a Farmington grad, said he hated grades and said that he would give everyone the grade they deserved based on how hard one worked and whether you made progress. I like this idea, but I wish we had something better.

Liz
I present to you the greatest dilemma ever: the use of report cards paired with grades especially within the differentiated classroom. Report cards need to reflect upon student learning. That means they need to illustrate what students have accomplished via comments not numbers. Students should be able to understand that their work was looked at and that the teacher took the time to not just slap a grade on it but to understand how the student learned. The parents need to begin to realize and understand that the world IS NOT about how students stack up on a grade book but how they got to their results and what process they followed to get the desired results. Parents need to understand that their children are NOT numbers but instead are statements upon the world. Now that I've ranted we can recognize how the chapter covers the reporting of the grade of a differentiated classroom and how to reflect actual student learning and then the chapter discusses how to show personal growth and mastery of standards. Overall the chapter makes sense in that it focuses on different ways to report information by providing both a number and words to express how a student is doing.

Damian
A topic that needed to be covered was report cards and grading. Regardless of the reader’s personal view of grading methodology the author presented the information in the best way they could. Many people reading this will completely agree, many others will abjectly disagree, and many more will float in the seas of neutrality pulling from the chapter which elements will serve them best in their own educational endeavors. A responsive report card format would help student’s and parents understand why they received the grade they did. Unfortunately, defending a grade that is given arbitrarily is based wholly on subjective evidence. How do you grade quality? No two people will see quality the same way. Leaving report cards devoid of comments and vague is the best way to go because it leaves no room for argument. However, for those brave souls in the teaching profession, I would encourage you to do as I will do, and explain everything you can in as much detail as you can afford.

Jennifer
This chapter was all about report card formats and which ones would best fit the teacher and what they want to show about their students learning. I really like the idea of putting an asterisk or X next to a grade and then having a place to comment. It is important to give as much accurate information about a grade for a student. This way future teachers and parents will not make assumptions we do not want them to make and it is easier for them to understand. Just recording a grade does nothing to show the students progress and mastery. Instead a report card should have multiple layers. The dual approach is another example of putting down a lot of information about the student by recording a symbol for where the student is in the standards or their progress.

Amy
CH. 14 Gradebooks can follow a variety of different formats, from the standard format of assignments and scores, to progression charts, and personal progress compared to standards that have been achieved. The fact that gradebooks and grading systems in one classroom can be so different from those of another classroom is frustrating to teachers, parents, and students everywhere. Inconsistency is not our friend when it comes time to grade a students’ progress via their work. The purpose of a gradebook and report cards are to track students’ growth in a subject area and let them and their teachers know what things they understand and where they need improvement. Instead, report cards are a way to pigeonhole students into certain categories based on whether or not they “fit” into the school’s system of grading. There are too many variables that go into a report card that makes it an inaccurate account of student knowledge. I remember times when I was tested in high school over 100 multiple-choice problems in one class and did poorly on it, which transferred to a poor grade in the gradebook. That really affected me, because I knew that if I could have been tested in a different way, the teacher could have seen that I did know the material, I would have had a better grade in the gradebook. This brings me to the next point, that a gradebook should reflect differentiated instruction and differentiated grading. I wonder if someone will ever be able to develop an accurate grading/reporting system?