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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

This policy provides first-year students with the opportunity to learn about the standards for academic achievement at Wellesley and to assess the quality of their work in relation to these standards. It further enables them to use their first semester to focus on intellectual engagement and inspiration and to learn how to grow as a learner in college.

Sound liberating? That’s the idea. “When grades become the object of learning rather than learning itself, students are engaged in a form of goal displacement,” Professor of Sociology Lee Cuba t

the more time students spend thinking about getting an A, the less time they’re spending thinking about what they’re really learning.

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

Another finding weakened Mr. Phillips's argument for cheat-sheet exams. An independent scorer evaluated the students' cheat sheets for organization and richness of detail. Higher-scoring cheat sheets, it turned out, had a weak relationship to performance on the exam.

"I was more adamant that the cheat sheet would result in better retention over all, and that wasn't the case," he said. "I think I might use more of an open book."

But, again, the results yielded a surprise. Students thought they would study most for the closed-book exams, but that view was not reflected in reports of their actual habits. Students in the psychology class spent the most time studying for the cheat-sheet exam, or more than four hours. Open-book exams yielded slightly fewer hours of study, while closed-book exams resulted in the least amount of time studying, 3.32 hours.

“Three important developments stand to dramatically change the way we think about degree programs and pathways: The rapid adoption of competency-based education (CBE) programs, often using industry and employer authority for guiding the creation of the competencies and thus programs An eventual move to suborganizational accreditation, with Title IV funds available for credits, courses, and microcredentials offered by new providers in new delivery models, part of the accelerating trend toward “unbundling” higher education Increasing recognition that postsecondary education will no longer be contained to the existing and traditional degree levels but will instead be consumed at various levels of granularity—less than full degree programs and continuing throughout lives and careers”

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:

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?

1) students waited too long to do it. I put an approximate 2-week limit (after returning tests) to re-assess. Students waited until almost the last day just to notify me of their intent to re-assess. The longer they waited the worse they did.

The good news this year, though, was that re-assessment didn’t take over all of my time like I thought it would. It took extra time, sure, but it was manageable. One of my projects this summer is to make a bank of more questions for assessment.

As for re-assessing, my biggest surprise was that many students chose NOT to re-assess! (this is honors, too!). I think back, even last year when I had a lazy group and grades were low. There I was agonizing about why, why, why, and what could I do to improve the grades….what I discovered is that I agonized over it far more than they did. The ones who didn’t re-assess accepted their grades. The ball was in their court, and they didn’t play. And I didn’t have to agonize over anything this year. So I guess it balances out — more time for me to do re-assessment, less time I spend agonizing over grades. I’ll take it.