FIAE+B2+Chapter+11

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Jordan
How to accurately grade can develop into a tough situation if a student neglects to turn in an assignment, the student is doing more (and more difficult work), assignments are weighed differently, the work is late, or there is a special needs student in the classroom. In this chapter, Wormeli offers advice to the reader on how to appropriately grade assignments under these circumstances. Though all of his suggestions were interesting, the two that caught my attention the most were recording a sixty versus a zero and the concept of grading late work. When students decided not to hand in an assignment, I have always experienced a zero as a result. However, when considering the dynamics of a differentiated classroom, this method does not work. Instead, it skews the grade and we are now playing a guessing game about what the student did or did not master. I did not consider that even though the student is still given sixty points, he did not make any progress on the project, it just gives the teacher a better representation of what his grade should be. As far the concept for late work goes, I like that Wormeli mentioned that not all students should be given the option to make up work for full credit. In the other books, they direct teachers to always let students make up work for full credit, but Wormeli suggests that if there is no plausible reason, there needs to be some sort of repercussion, just not as severe as most teachers typically make them (i.e. a whole letter grade per day). As a student, all of the concepts that Wormeli covered were dealt with in a negative way. This chapter is beneficial for me in the classroom because I am able to use new approaches to the same problems and turn what used to be negative grading experiences into positive ones.


Teacher's use assessments to have a tangible product that shows their students' level of mastery. If a student does not pass something in, a zero for that assignment does not help reflect that student's understanding. Adjusting zeros to sixties is a more accurate way of displaying students' achievement. Lowering the grade of late work is essentially as bad as giving a students a zero for an incomplete. The numeral grade no longer shows if the student has mastered the content. Wormeli notes that special consideration has to be made when grading for students that are taking advanced course loads in your subject. The letter grade should be given regarding the grade level material and additional feedback about the advanced material should be noted with the grades. It is also important to remember that those students who have only learned the concepts, and are not considered gifted could benefit from being allowed to view more sophisticated materials because learning is not a linear process. The section dedicated to grading special needs students in inclusion classes cleared up a lot of things for me and will be helpful in the future. Watching my mentor teacher and how she grades clears up a lot of grading questions for me as well. I really enjoy the policy that the English Dep. of Mt. Blue has stating that students have three weeks after the due date to hand in late work without their grade being harmed. I think that it might be diffcult as a teacher to get those grades in on time, but it is deffinately beneficial to measure stundent progress.

Mykayla
The whole dilemma with putting a zero in the grade book for not turning in an assignment is difficult to decide on. I see why a zero should not be put in; it drastically drops a student’s grade. However, I do not completely agree with giving a student who doesn’t do any part of the assignment a 60. What if a student completes the project, but doesn’t do well, like they earn a 60? I don’t think it is fair that a student who does nothing on the project gets the same grade. It’s not fair to the student who actually did the work. However, I do not want to put a zero in the book because mathematically it is awful. I just don’t know what the best way to do this is.

Ryan
This chapter deals with the dilemma of grading. One of the problems discussed in this chapter is giving a student a zero or a sixty for not doing their homework. I don’t believe in giving a grade for a piece of work that a student chose not to do, however I don’t feel like giving a student a zero if they new the information. I fell giving a student a sixty only allows students to become lazy. If a homework assignment doesn’t want to be completed then students will at least know they will get a sixty. However, if a student is going to be judged on his or her mastery based on their grade then a zero doesn’t help a teacher understand their mastery of the subject. One way this would work is by weighting the grades differently. So a sixty on homework would be much effect on the grade if everything were weighted more. Giving a student a zero or a sixty will be something that I will have to think about more before I decide to use it in my class.

Cara
Grading is something that teachers will more than likely always disagree on. Honestly, I have always felt that zeros should not be put into the grade book. A student may miss one little assignment and their grade will suffer greatly due to one zero. A ninety-one percent can turn into sixty-eight percent because of ONE zero! I think as a teacher I will encourage students to hand in work late and I will not advertise to students that sixties will be given rather than zeros. If students think a zero will be given if they do not do an assignment at all, they are more likely to simply hand it in late. The book points out that grading scales do not really support the learning goals that teachers have. Wormeli says that students should only be penalized for late work if it is a re-occuring issue. I strongly agree with this. I feel that every one forgets something at one time or another and that it is silly to lower a student's grade a full letter because of a mistake. However, if a student is continually turning work in late, then it is time to have a talk with the student and to lower their grade if this behavior continues after the conversation.

Brittany
A student’s grade is the message that is sent to the world of how progress is coming along in a particular subject. It is important that teachers take into account making sure that these grades accurately reflect the student’s automaticity. Automaticity is defined as indicating how accurately and efficiently the student responds or reacts to something. Teachers need to take steps that are not commonly taken through the grading process to achieve a grade that effectively reflects a student’s automaticity. For example, teachers should not disregard work when it is passed in late. Instead, teachers should embrace that the work was done and proceed to grade the assignment. It is important for this to happen because a student should not miss out on feedback or a learning experience because an assignment was not turned in on time.

Scott
Chapter 11 tells us more about grading and how it reflects student achievement. I was interested in how much recording a zero as a grade negatively effects the students grade and does not accurately portray a student's level of achievement. The section on here regarding how to grade gifted students kind of angered me. They didn't really offer any kind of real suggestions other then to add some sort of supplement or make sure that the name of the class is reflected. This is unfair to gifted students since they are taking on more challenging work, without adding a weight to these or anything, the incentive for taking honors classes is lost. The rest of the chapter pertains to late work and making sure that we are not grading automaticity instead of concept attainment. This are all important to me in helping me decide how I will tabulate my grades.

K

Kirsten
This chapter covers six controversial issues in grading. The first was recording zeroes versus a 60 (or the equivalent) in the gradebook. The author argues that recording a zero distorts the final grade and doesn't show if a student has mastered the material or not. He advocates that teachers round students lowest grades to 60's to most accurately show mastery in a subject. I agree that teachers should not record 0's, because, more often than not, students grades will be so far behind, there is no way they can recover and they'll just give up.

The second subject covered was grading gifted students. The problem here was do you grade them just as you would a regular student, even though they are wading through more challenging work, or do you give them an A, even though they might be struggling with the more challenging work. I think this is a difficult subject to tackle, because you want to befair, but it's not clear as to what is fair, because I feel as though one group or another (regular versus gifted) is going to be left feeling shafted.

The section on weighted grades pretty much opened up the whole GPA and class rank can of worms. Wormeli says that schools attempt to motivate students to take higher level courses by weighing them more heavily than lower level courses, making GPA's rise. The question you're left with here is how do you show that some students are choosing to do higher level work and should they somehow be rewarded for it. You also must start to question the purpose and validity of thing like class rank and valedictorian. Wormeli stresses that there is no value in these concepts. I feel torn on this, since I did feel a great deal of pride in my GPA (over a 4.0) and class rank. I feel like those things were things I earned by being a good student and were a mark of my abilities. At the same time, I know these things are not always accurate, and that there are students who were much smarter than me and worked a hell of a lot harder than me that didn't even break the top 20 in class rank.

Automaticity versus concept attainment basically just looked at two different ways a teacher can look at her students work and grade it.

The last section looked at how do you grade special education students in your class. I felt like there was a lot of emphasis on working with the special education teacher, which I fully support. Teachers of all kinds need to work together for the sake of the students, and sometimes content needs to take a back seat.

In this chapter, Wormelli deals with the dilemma of how to accurately and fairly grade students. The first problem he encounters is that of giving a student a 60 opposed to a zero for an assignment that is not passed in. I do not believe in giving students a grade for an assignment that is not passed in. Why should a student deserve to pass my class if s/he doesn’t do the work? Granted a 60 is still failing in most schools but a 60% on an assignment is a heck of a lot better than a zero. I would feel bad about giving a student a failing grade, especially if they had some understanding of the lesson, but it’s not the teacher’s responsibility to do the students homework. It is a shame that students can have a good term grade ruined by not doing one assignment but that’s why most teachers implement a policy to allow students to redo homework or pass it in late. The decision on how to operate a grading policy seems as if it will be one of the more difficult aspects of being a teacher and it is something I definitely feel as if I need more learning on before encountering.
 * Tim**

D rew
This chapter covers one of the biggest questions any teacher could have. Should you put down a zero in the grade book for an assignment? The text takes the side of saying that giving a zero is not the right route. According to FIAE, one should give a 60 over a zero in order to better show some mastery of the subject. Also, a zero is a very heavy weighted negative and will bring down the best students grade to a much lower less deserved score for a semester.

My stance on this topic is that a zero is only reasonable in the case that there is no evidence provided to prove a students mastery. Just like when doing piece work, if you do not turn in the work, you do not get paid. This will teach students responsibility. However, tardiness is not great either. Having said this, tardiness still provides an artifact in which a student can show a certain level of mastery on a subject. I feel like I would handle things on a case to case basis. I might make individual arrangements with students based on their situation and reason for being late and make a plan with them rather than docking their grades.

Ryan Snowman
This chapter discusses controversial grading issues. One issue that really caught my eye was the decision to record a zero or a sixty when a student does not turn in a project. Wormeli writes that “Adjusting zeroes to sixty is not giving students something for having done nothing. It’s adjusting the grading scale so that it is ethically justifiable…” (p. 140). I agree with Wormeli. Recording a zero damages a student’s grade and the result is not an accurate depiction of what the student knows. I will incorporate this into my grading system. One other issue that interested me is grading late work. Most teachers that I had always knocked down the grade if it was a day or two late. This annoyed me because if I handed in something late, it was only occasional and should have received full credit for it. For students who hand in late –work chronically, I think Wormeli’s idea is great. In this situation, Wormeli suggests that teachers should record two grades for the student: one that represents his mastery of the assignment and one that factors in the late penalties. When it comes time to record the grade in the gradebook, the teacher should document the one that demonstrates the level of mastery. I like the idea a lot and will use it in my classroom.

Jennie
The idea of grading is a big thing with students. A lot of students unfortunately think more about the grade than the material. But Wormeli gives us some really good ideas about how to grade students that don't have to do with the 0-100 scale. I really like what he has to say about giving a student a sixty when they didn't do the project or assignment at all. He says that giving the student the sixty is "ethically justifiable." But whether they got a sixty or a zero, what they are actually telling you is that they didn't demonstrate mastery and we have to figure out what when wrong and how we can fix it.

Rachel
This chapter addresses six of the major issues that arise in grading, such as whether a teacher should record a zero or a sixty, grading late work, and grading gifted students. Each of these is a question that I had not previously thought about. The author suggests never giving a student a zero and gives a very good example why. When finding an average temperature throughout the week but missing a day, putting a zero in that missing spot would make the average an inaccurate representation of the weather. Same with giving a student a zero for a missing assignment, it makes their average grade an inaccurate representation of the work they have actually done. Similarly, regularly deducting points from late work could just result in some students feeling that turning it in late would be pointless. In this case, too, the grade does not accurately represent the understanding that the student has on the topic, which is the actual point of grading.

Sarah
In this chapter, Wormeli discusses grading issues. His idea that I found most interesting and useful was the one about entering 60's instead of 0's in the grade book for missed assignments. Although I do think that entering 60's would give a more accurate representation of a student's ability overall (for example, a student gets four 100s and on 60, their overall average would be a B+ whereas it would have been a C+ had a 0 been entered instead of the 60), If a student does not turn in assignment, I believe they deserve this zero on their record. The more I think about it, the more I want to reconstruct my grading system to make everything out of 40 points with 60 points participation, that way I could justify giving a student a 60 instead of a 0.

Corinne
Armstrong discusses how to grade fairly. The chapter is begun with a discussion on wether 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, and this does not reveal the students true mastery of the subject. The suggestion is to give the child a 60 instead of a zero (an F) so that their average drops, but not past the point where it is unfair. While Armstrong does have some good points here, is it also fair to give 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 dow 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 work.

In this chapter, Wormeli deals with the dilemma of how to accurately and fairly grade students. The first problem he encounters is that of giving a student a 60 opposed to a zero for an assignment that is not passed in. I do not believe in giving students a grade for an assignment that is not passed in. Why should a student deserve to pass my class if s/he doesn’t do the work? Granted a 60 is still failing in most schools but a 60% on an assignment is a heck of a lot better than a zero. I would feel bad about giving a student a failing grade, especially if they had some understanding of the lesson, but it’s not the teacher’s responsibility to do the students homework. It is a shame that students can have a good term grade ruined by not doing one assignment but that’s why most teachers implement a policy to allow students to redo homework or pass it in late. The decision on how to operate a grading policy seems as if it will be one of the more difficult aspects of being a teacher and it is something I definitely feel as if I need more learning on before encountering.
 * Tim**