Because I wrote this here entry and had to consider my opinions on all this stuff, I’m actually thinking of switching to points. Provided that I assign X amount of points per category, I can make the grades weighted in a way. If essays are worth 400 points each, they end up being just about 50% of the final grade. Obviously, what I’m doing now isn’t working very well. That means that something has to change and my grading system is one of the few things I haven’t changed for the last several years.

Walking them through the calculation process is not a good investment of time (see Dan’s important ratio #1). I’m not convinced it would even make a difference. How many students actually crunch the numbers to make that paper gradesheet work? You might have better luck with simply giving each student an Excel spreadsheet that adds everything up for them, perhaps via Google Docs.

Most high school students have an worldview in which grades are some sort of treat handed out at the whims of the teacher. This is where common comments heard around school come from: “Mr Soandso hates me, he gave me a C.” “Why did you fail me?” “What can I do (the day before finals) to bring my grade up?” Extra credit takes on the connotation of offerings to appease the hungry gradebook god. Teachers are the priests, initiated in the mysteries of grades.

(Sorry, I get these wild flights of simile sometimes.)

The point is, I think most high school students have sort of learned helplessness when it comes to grades, because they don’t understand. The more transparent and accessible the grading process, the better. That said, you’re right about weighting giving a more accurate measure than points. I used to stick with points because of the simplicity for students, but switched to weighting this year because I felt points weren’t as accurate.

I don’t think the answer is in one or the other. The answer is in teachers doing a better job of making the way those letters on paper turn into final grades transparent.

The main idea I’d been pondering for this was handing out gradesheets at the beginning of each marking period for them to record their grades on & walking them through the calculation process.

However, I don’t think that answer goes far enough. I’m pondering a grading scheme based on Dan Meyer’s (who I found you from, btw) because I think that will take a lot of the mystery out of grading. However, if you don’t feel you can modify his method to English (I’m still working out the kinks on how it fits with social studies), at least trying to make the grads->final grade alchemy clearer would help.

I think this is one of the great unaddressed problems in education. There is an assumption that people can automatically tell when they do something right or when they do it wrong.

A paper from Dunning and Kruger(pdf) examines that the very reason people fail to adopt skills is because they are incapable of evaluating their performance.

This can lead to a chicken and egg problem: You can’t teach a skill without teaching the ability to evaluate the skill. Writing a rubric (something I admit to doing primarily to provide myself with some consistency) suddenly becomes an exercise in trying to explain music to a deaf person, or a rainbow to someone blind.

I’m not sure that this helps much with a grading scale – perhaps the grades aren’t that important. But I’m quite sure that enabling a student to self assess is critical to good learning.

i think this is one of the great unaddressed probbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbblems in education. -+* -*- -