FIAE+B1+Chapter+11

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Amy
CH. 11 Should students that do not turn in assignments receive zeros in the gradebook, or should those zeros be transformed into 60’s for the sake of keeping grading intervals equal? Some teachers argue that the reason they change zeros into sixties is mostly for the purpose of “mathematically justifying” (137) grades. At first, I was slightly surprised by the fact that teachers would consider altering a students grade for the sake of justification. I thought it was not fair to reward a student that decided to skip an assignment by giving them 60 undeserved points. As I continued to read the chapter I started to change my way of thinking because in reality, not doing a homework assignment doesn’t mean you haven’t mastered the material, it just means they didn’t do the assignment that shows some of the mastery. If a teacher penalizes a student with a zero for incomplete work, the gradebook will be inaccurate. This is because the student may have mastered the content, but since she missed one assignment, which equaled a zero in the gradebook, her “real” grade dropped. Another issue touched on in this chapter is, grading gifted students. Teachers need to be aware of the fact that gifted students often need special attention, just like struggling students, however, it is also important to note that there are different levels of giftedness. In these instances, teachers give different levels of work for gifted students, but when it comes to grading, teachers should only grade students on their ability to master to regular assignments. To be fair to advanced students, teachers should be grading based on whether the students have mastered what everyone else is required to master, and receive feedback on the harder material. This is a good way of grading because the students are getting the higher level learning, while still getting graded based on their understanding of the basic material.

Andy
In this chapter the author brings up the situation of grading a student who has skipped ahead of his/her peers and gone on to attend classes with old (biologically speaking) students. I find this whole section hard to take in considering that this book has been talking about differentiating your classroom and your assessments. So, if a teacher was able to differentiate correctly then the students should have no need to skip ahead since the work is adjusted to him/her accordingly. For the sake of discussion I will have to say that they bring up way to many questions on this situation. If a student does skip ahead then he/she should be held to the exact same standards as his/her new peers. Just because they have skipped ahead does not mean that they should be assessed differently. The student will be responsible for all the same information and material that is being discussed and new guidelines should not even be discussed.

Brian
Chapter eleven’s major topic is homework grading. There are many situations where students do not do homework assignments and in turn receive zeros for it in the grade book. Despite how logical this might sound, giving a student a zero on a homework that they did not do, adversely affects their grade to the level where it is hard to determine whether the student mastered the material. Obviously it would be easier if the student had just done the homework in the first place, but we can’t expect every student to do every piece of homework ever. For this reason, giving a student a 60 on a missing homework assignment seems to make the most sense. By giving a student a 60, we are not rewarding the student, however we are not penalizing the student to the point where the homework grade could possible cripple the ability of the grade to display mastery.

Damian
When we grade our students we are making a statement to them, to the administration and to the student’s parents. What statement we are making, however, is a bit more ephemeral than that. What are we saying to our students who don’t do a homework assignment but who ace tests? Moreover, how will those students grades look at the end of the term when the book is festooned with zeros for work not done, yet the student can clearly rattle off the units material. They have learned, just not in the capacity that we as educators have demanded. Raising the grades of homework from zero to sixty, or another number based upon the school’s grading system, may be a more effective way of measuring a student’s overall success. Of course, I would first opt for making homework grades carry less weight. I would ultimately opt for not assigning homework that the students will find mind-numbing, menial and a waste of their time. If the homework helps facilitate a deeper learning of the material that’s one thing, but if it’s just an extension of the lesson I need included to justify some vague administration rationale then I as a teacher need to rethink my homework policy. If students can master the content without doing the homework then maybe my classroom instruction could afford a deeper exploration of the topic at hand.

Cassandra
I can see both sides to the argument: When students don't finish assignments, zeros should turn to 60's in order to even out the mathematical differences. One aspect is that just because a student hasn't completed the homework it doesn't mean that the student doesn't understand the information. If the student has a zero then--even if they had 15 A's--the student would end up with a B. This is clearly unfair and a poor assessment of the child's knowledge. The problem comes up when someone has a 50 on a test or assignment because they really don't know the information all that well. Why should that student get a 50 for not understanding all of the information, and the other get a 60 for not even trying the assignment. Both students should at least get a 60 if the zero is being raised to a 60.

Dan
In this chapter we get opinion on whether to give a student a sixty or a zero in the grading book when they dont complete an assignment. In all honesty before reading this chapter I would say zero, however the book used the word "unethical" to explain that. As much as I wouldn't take it that far, I would agree with their principle. We give students ten points at most to work with within each point scale, except for F. F gets the sixty points to work with. That's six times as much as every other letter grade. We almost set them up to fail. However, the way teachers grade is unfair as well. We have the information in mind for where the cut off is, and sometimes make scales for rubrics so it is hard to fail. Each letter should be 20 points. The lowest students could get is a zero. If we do that, students can get a C and get less than half of the material correct. I still like this idea because its the truth. It will show us teachers if we did a good job or not, if we helped them master the material. In the first case you could know more than half the material and fail. By changing the system all we would do is change our thinking what each number means, nothing else. We would truly see who is mastering content and who is not. We would see who is teaching material in a way students can learn, and who is not.

Ethan
This chapter talks about six issues that Wormeli feels are the most important when it comes to grading. The one I found most interesting was the first one which was the dilemma of whether or not to give a student a zero for an assignment not passed in or to give them a sixty which would not hurt their overall grade so much. When I first read this my initial opinion was that students should get the zero because that was how I was taught and the fear of getting a zero made me turn in the project. Wormeli suggests that this distorts the overall grade and a student that may have passed everything else in but not one assignment would get a C or a D instead of an A or B. This makes a lot of sense but I still feel like it depends on the situation. If a student is continually passing things in late and making no attempt to complete the assignment I feel like the zero should be kept in the grade book because they have done nothing to deserve a sixty. On the other hand, if a student does have everything turned in but misses one assignment then I feel it is appropriate to give them a sixty of fifty. This is something that I feel I will have to deal with on a case to case basis in my classroom.

Sean
This chapter focuses mostly on how to grade our students properly. It talks about scaling grades so students final grades are more accurate to the level of mastery they achieve. I find a serious flaw in this, that being that one of the things it mentions is if a student doesn't do the homework, to not give them a 0 but a 60 to reflect their mastery of the subject. But here's a flaw; when I don't do homework, it's almost always because I just flat out have no idea what I'm doing. By not turning it in, I could get an easy 60 points and have not done anything, while other students could have done the homework and received the same grade. How is that showing fairness?

Jennifer
Since I am not a very mathematical person I never considered how much a zero would distort a students grade and would not be a true indicator of mastery. When I looked at the graphs I thought, students are getting a better grade if we give them a 60 and they have not done the work, but then I realized that this student has been getting A's throughout and this 0 could be because they did not understand it or for another important reason. There are a lot of issues with grading and they affect students so deeply because they believe that a letter or number says they are dumb or smart. As teachers we need to think very hard about what we want our students to learn and how we are going to show our assessment of how they learned it. I was really interested in the section about grading special needs students in inclusion classrooms. I think that it will be important that the teacher and the special education teacher should have open lines of communication for it to work out well.

Josh
Armstrong discusses how to grade fairly in chapter 11. The chapter begins with a discussion on whether or not it is fair to give zero's. Armstrong claims that giving a student a zero for work that was not handed in is not fair, and that it distorts their final grade. If a child is given a zero, their average will lower dramatically, even if they had all A's before. This does not reveal the students true mastery of the subject. The suggestion is to give the child a 60 instead of a zero so that their average drops, but not past the point where it is unfair. While Armstrong does have some good points here, I don't know if i agree with giving a student an undeserved grade. If a student does not complete the work they should not get the same grade as a student who did, and who may have tried but still did not do well, and got a 60. That student will start to wonder why they pass things in if they can get the same grade without doing the work. Armstrong also discusses what to do with late work. A lot of teachers take off a whole letter grade for each day that the assignment is late. Armstrong disagrees with this, and says that it will eventually deter the student from completing the work. Instead, points off every day should be taken, unless the student habitually turns in late.

Zack
I personally am completely against changing the grade a student deserved just so that we can justify it in the grade book. We are teacher's our job is not to be nanny and help them succeed, we are to teach them what they need to know and that is it. We should not be liable for making sure they pass, a student who does the work deserves to pass. A student who slacks off and may be intelligent should not have his grade "justified" just because. Students need to try and respect what their teachers are trying to teach them. I have seen way too many times over the past few weeks students not trying because they know that they will be given a second chance. I know that not always do students pass things in on time, but that should not be the job of the teacher to fix the students mis happenings.

**George**
Chapter 11 talked about issues involving grading, notably grading gifted and special needs students, weighting grades, and whether or not to keep a zero in the grade book or bring it up to just failing. The zero vs. failing debate was interested, but I was more drawn to weighted grades. It was an issue that affected my schooling. Our top 10 my senior year had one student who took nothing but applied courses. I finished 40 out of a class of 150. Someone went through and weighted grades between applied, college prep, honors, and AP classes. I was bumped up to 20 something and the lower half of our top 10 was shuffled. This is sad, because I wasn't ranked high enough in my class to make the National Honor Society.

Liz
Six Burning Grading Issues covers the use of a zero or a sixty, grading gifted students, weighting grades, automaticity versus concept attainment, grading special needs students in inclusion classes, and grading late work. The argument over the use of zero or a sixty is surprisingly interesting. I prefer the use of a 0 but can understand how it lies about student mastery. The mastery of a topic by a student is the concern of education but if a student can receive the same grade for an assignment that they have not completed what are they learning? I believe that if they complete something like a major project they should still be awarded credit as such. To me a zero signifies undone work, if you at least start the work and present that then you will receive some form of a grade. The other thing that was interesting to me was the grading of late work. This is interesting because of my experience in the field. My mentor teacher sets homework as pretty much a 100 if you complete the majority of the questions. If it late but passed in later you get a 70. A fair grade in my opinion considering you would get a 0 otherwise. Then I had the chance to work with my mentor in regards to another project that students need to turn in. It was their notebook. The notebook required several things and points were taken off for being missing. The students however could present their notebooks the next day or the next class period. The next day would be minus 10 points and the next class period would be minus 20. The confusion came when tasked with a student who presented their notebook the next day but in a period after their initial period. My mentor intended to count that as the next CLASS day late but in my previous work with the students I had said that if you turned it in at anytime during the following day you would get 10 points off for being late. It had not previously occurred to me the possibility of having things be two days late if the class period of the student had passed. That seems to be something I will need to think more on. The other focus of the chapter is regarding the grading in a differentiated classroom especially when it comes to gifted students and students with special needs.

Darren
This chapter is interesting to me because Mount Blue has a similar dilemma. The teachers are required to turn zero's into thirties. This switch was put in place to make it easier for students will missing or incomplete assignments to change their grade through other work and progress. However, if you consider it logistically, awarding a student with thirty points for doing zero of the work is a bit...awkward? I mean, if the student did thirty percent of the work, they should rightfully earn a thirty. But a thirty for doing nothing? That doesn't make sense. And this is how, yet again, grades are proving themselves ineffective. If a student masters the content, easily reciting and understanding what they were taught, yet has thirties in the grade book--or even zeroes--what does that show? The grade shows that the student doesn't know a damn thing, yet the student him/herself can show you exactly what he knows. In detail. The idea of late work is also hard because not all students can finish work as quickly as they would like. They are simply not capable. Furthermore, what if a student wants to go above and beyond the requirements but doesn't complete the assignment in time? Should they be punished for wanting to further their knowledge, to reach larger goals?