An archived stack of papers: 'Grading'
New For 2010: Grading
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Oct
- 04
- 2010
We’re reading Fair Isn’t Always Equal as our English department professional development this year. It’s sparked some interesting discussion already and a few ideas in my head, mostly with regard to how grading can be tweaked to give students a chance to stay in the game longer. There are a few things... read more
The Conversation
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Nov
- 11
- 2008
The Conversations started two weeks ago. Not a single student grabbed hold of my offer; no one has met me during break, lunch, or after school to discuss the trouble. A lot of head shaking and shrugs of shoulders, but no plans of action have been drawn up. I can’t have The Conversation during class. But I simply must have The Conversation with just about every student.
“How can I... read more
From Rubric To Percentage
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 21
- 2008
How can I take the scores from my assessment on a six-point rubric and turn them into a percentage? 3, 3, 4, 4: that doesn’t convert very well to a score out of one hundred. I have this problem every year, with varying and inconsistent solutions. This time, I’ve set Excel in place to keep my evaluations constant.
... read more
Encourage Risks
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 06
- 2008
I like the ideas under “Creativity” on the Flickr Assessment Rubric and am thinking of something like this to emphasize risk taking in student writing. This means I’ll need to separate style and content when I assess, not letting errors in one impact the grade of the other, but I think I... read more
Writing Assessment By Numbers?
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 01
- 2008
Having just finished grading a small writing sample from my English 1 Support students (those students who we’ve identified through test scores and grades as in need of a little extra for them to make it through English 1), I figured I’d share how I did this first one and welcome any evaluation of my method.
I struggled with how to grade this. Since this class counts as an elective... read more
Formulas FTW
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jun
- 27
- 2008
I’ll expand on these thoughts later, but I want to help this conversation about English assessment grow as much as I can. Eric Hoefler brings up some interesting thoughts, admittedly from a distance that might skew his interpretations. His theorizing feels spot on at first read and that’s a good... read more
After Day Three Of Finals
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jan
- 18
- 2008
Not many kids wrote papers that raised their F to a D-. It helped a small handful of students, but all were already only a few percentage points away from passing. No one managed to raise, say, a 22%/F to a D-. That’s what I was hoping for. There’s one student for whom the jury is still out, but I don’t think she’s going to make it. [Update: She made... read more
After Day Two Of Finals
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jan
- 17
- 2008
Two functions of grades came up in a discussion today. One is to accurately reflect a student’s ability. A second is to help students understand their ability. Initially, I said in no uncertain terms that the first trumps the second, all day, every day. It’s much more important that the grade be an accurate reflection of skill than a student be able to understand how he got that grade.... read more
After Day One Of Finals
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jan
- 16
- 2008
Grades are on my mind and weighing heavily.
My school uses School loop and I’ve been using their gradebook faithfully all semester long. I just realized that things aren’t organized in a way that lets me see patterns. Assignments are arranged by date and not by category. There’s no convenient report showing the percentage of students earning each grade. Even the breakdown of... read more
Why Can’t I Get This Right?
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jan
- 06
- 2008
Experimentation is the nature of any classroom. If you’re just doing the same things you’ve done for the last 10 years, you aren’t responding to the way students, education, and the world are changing. That said, I sometimes wish I’d just do the same thing I did last year because at least part of it was successful. This year, my experiment failed in a big way. Next semester will... read more