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From my perspective (others can add their thoughts) what this book has completely reaffirmed in my mind is that, as teachers, we need to stop grading failure. Learning is about trial and error, taking chances and making mistakes until we get it right.

We don’t let students who might be stuck in the “fixed mindset” take a zero on an assignment for fear of being labeled “stupid”. We want to teach students that they are accountable for their work.  We want them to fully understand that true learning is about doing, making mistakes and redoing.

Teachers sometimes think that reporting multiple grades will increase their grading workload. But those who use the procedure claim that it actually makes grading easier and less work (Guskey, Swan, & Jung, 2011a). Teachers gather the same evidence on student learning that they did before, but they no longer worry about how to weigh or combine that evidence in calculating an overall grade. As a result, they avoid irresolvable arguments about the appropriateness or fairness of various weighting strategies.

Teachers also indicate that students take homework more seriously when it's reported separately. Parents favor the practice because it provides a more comprehensive profile of their child's performance in school (Guskey, Swan, & Jung, 2011b).

At the same time, no research supports the idea that low grades prompt students to try harder. More often, low grades prompt students to withdraw from learning. To protect their self-images, many students regard t

When schools or school districts begin discussing grading practices, they usually have an agenda. A team of administrators may have decided that district grading practices and policies should move from conventional to standards-based, learning-focused practices. Or the push for grading reform may come from teachers who see a disconnect between standards-based instruction and conventional grading practices (Brookhart, 2011).

Some think about the motivational aspect of grades:

Through repeated practice, you can create a rigorous driving question that is open-ended, complex, and at the same time kid-friendly. A driving question is not “Google-able” but may contain many “on-the-surface” questions.

If the project is for an outside audience, the purpose may become more complex, because that audience’s lens and needs are unique and challenging. If you pick an audience outside of the classroom and a purpose that is rigorous and challenging, then the project will require some critical thinking.

Don’t forget that when you demand critical-thinking skills, then you must scaffold these thinking skills with lessons, modeling, and so forth

What do you think the purpose of grading is? Is it to communicate students' academic achievement to students and parents? Is it to motivate students to put forth their best effort? Some combination of both? How might that belief affect your grading practices?

If educators' goal is for students to learn, does it matter if it takes some students a little longer than others?

What's your current policy on offering redos and retakes? How did you arrive at this policy? Reflecting on the ideas Wormeli and Dueck present, how might you change your policy? If you don't offer retakes, what steps might you take to introduce them in your classes? If you do, what new ideas do you have for making the practice more effective?

A not-authentic "dessert project" would involve the kind of assignment students are typically given in school: compose an essay, create a poster or model, write and present a book report, or make a PowerPoint presentation on a topic they've researched.

Beyond their teacher and maybe their classmates, there's no public audience for students' work, no one actually uses what they create, and the work they do is not what people do in the real world.

PBL means students are doing work that simulates what happens in the world outside of school. In a project that is somewhat authentic, students could play a role (as in choice "c" above) -- scientists, engineers, advisors to the President, website designers, etc. -- who are placed in a scenario that reflects what might actually occur in the real world. Or students could create products that, although they are not actually going to be used by people in the real world, are the kinds of products people do use.

In the years from 1911 to 1960, school systems experimented with various letter and number reporting conventions. Percentage grading was the most popular system during the latter half of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century. In that system, the teacher assigned each student a number between 0 and 100 supposedly reflecting the percentage of the material that the student had learned. T

One well-known system, which evenly distributes the grades on either side of a bell-shaped curve, would automatically fail a certain proportion of any given group—even in a group composed of known high achievers. Research has shown that rigid adherence to such practices can be very damaging to students.

« Twitter, Simply Complicated. The Homework Option Plan May 22, 2011 by tomwhitby I was recently asked, along with several other educators, to comment on a post dealing with grading homework. The premise on which we were asked to comment involved a teacher grading homework and giving a zero as a grade to those students who did not do the assignment. This is not an uncommon practice amongst educators. I employed this strategy myself for many years. It was and probably still is an accepted strategy, but after decades of teaching, I have grown to a point where i am not a big believer in giving homework. I stated my homework philosophy in this post, Hmwk: Less Value or Valueless? If homework is to be given by a teacher, students need to believe that the teacher will value their efforts in completing it. Homework requires a sacrifice of personal time on the part of the student. If students observe that the teacher is not at least checking homework, they will not spend time, which is important to them, doing the assignments that are not valued. A mistake often made however, is that rather than assess the work, the teacher records a zero, or a failing homework grade for the student. This would also apply to a project prepared outside of the class that was to be presented at a specific time, a deadline. I see assessment having two functions. The formative assessment is to tell me how much the s

he zero seems more like retribution for not finding value in what the teacher values, or has been told to value. It’s more of a control thing, and not an assessment thing. If a student consistently performs well in class, how is it that when assessed on the same skills performed outside the class in the form of homework, the work gets a zero? It is a power issue.

If the grade is an assessment of the work, and the student’s understanding, but it was not done, how can it be assessed?

- More times than not homework adds little value when it comes to student learning… - There is pressure from society to continue giving homework because that is the way it has always been done… - Homework that is assigned rarely has any true relevancy or purpose for students, thus completion rates are negatively effected…

- When a student receives a zero for not completing homework, he/she is NOT learning about responsibility and “the real world.”

- Grading homework on completion typically inflates grades and ultimately distorts overall content mastery…

How effectively do children’s after-school assignments advance learning?

one-third of parents polled rated the quality of their children’s homework assignments as fair or poor, and 4 in 10 said they believed that some or a great deal of homework was busywork.

Here’s how it works: instead of concentrating the study of information in single blocks, as many homework assignments currently do — reading about, say, the Civil War one evening and Reconstruction the next — learners encounter the same material in briefer sessions spread over a longer period of time. With this approach, students are re-exposed to information about the Civil War and Reconstruction throughout the semester.

In a first-semester freshman English class, a student has a score of 45% going into the final. This student has been a discipline problem the entire semester and has not done much homework. No matter what score this student receives on the final, he cannot pass. The entire semester was designed so that students understand the fundamentals and concepts of writing a five-paragraph essay; the final is the culmination of that effort. Since you do not trust this student, you stand over him and watch him write his essay so you know he did not cheat. When you grade the essay, you find it is perfection.  He learned every first-semester English standard. What semester grade do you assign?

Summaries and Reflections

Visual Representations of Information S

When you use formative assessments, you must keep track of the data that you collect.