Week Twelve
Reflection content
Reflection content
What should Report Card grades tell us about students? |
What factors are usually included in |
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When the table above is complete, see if you can determine the specific factors that result in a B on a report card in your class. Explain how a B is different from A or a C in your class. Finally, identify the specific factors that you feel SHOULD be considered when determining report card grades.
I currently do not teach a graded class. In fact, my school does not give letter or number grades prior to ninth grade. Even at the high school level, our primary reporting tool is in comment form, although numeric grades are provided to high school students to aid in the college admissions process.
However, collecting assessment information to write an informative comment about a student’s progress is a similar process to scoring and recording student work for a grade. Teachers must set student expectations on what material will be considered, collect examples of student work, examine them for content mastery, and provide continuing feedback to the student on their product.
Although the list of factors on the right hand side of my table may be important things for a student to know, they do not belong in a content area grade. (At some times, adequate assessment of a student may be impossible without timeliness of assignment completion, but an inability to measure student understanding is not the same thing as a lack of student understanding). My school handles this by treating ‘work habits’ and ‘social and emotional growth’ as separate reporting areas. A student’s math report gives feedback on mastery of math skills, a work habits report measures academic traits the school finds important in students – organization, participation, timeliness of homework and assignment, and a social and emotional growth report gives students and parent’s feedback on the non-academic aspects of school life – ability to work with others, conduct, etc. I really like the separation in this model – we do not confuse mastery of skills with work habits, but we also give students and parents feedback. Just because a student can get by without doing all the math homework in fifth grade doesn’t mean that is a good academic habit for later grades.
Having never taught in an environment that assigns letter grades to student work, it is hard for me to differentiate between an A, a B, and a C. I looked at an example of student grading criteria at the website of the Newport News public school department website. They define a C as “The pupil has mastered the basic objectives in the subject area and with direction and stimulation by the teacher is progressing in initiative, application of knowledge and accepting responsibility for learning.” Interestingly, a B student has mastered ‘most objectives’ and an A student has mastered ‘all objectives’. The criteria for an A in this case also seem to include more subjective aspects of student learning, such as ‘accepting responsibility for learning’. I think I would find it difficult to combine specific content mastery with such qualitative attributes as ‘accepting responsibility for learning’. In fact, this exercise has made me very glad that I am not responsible for assigning letter grades to students!
Newport News Public School Grading Scale. Retrieved from http://sbo.nn.k12.va.us/resources/grading.shtml December 1, 2005.
Although we have not seen the grading standards this science teacher gave to his students at the beginning of the course, we can make some assumptions about his assessment methods. He has divided his scoring equally between test-based assessments and other assessments. Of the other assessments, half are lab reports, which presumably have clear criteria that have been shared with students. The last quarter of the student’s score is the more troubling ‘miscellaneous’ category, which seems to represent a collection of qualitative assessments. Seven students scores in these categories are provided, with final grades ranging from 80% to 58%.
With only the information given in the spreadsheet, it is difficult to determine the achievement targets being represented by these numbers. Certainly, the tests and lab reports could easily be scored based on a set of criteria provided to the students and provide a clear sampling of achievement. Some of the miscellaneous assignments may provide this clear and unbiased representation of achievement as well – depending on the criteria used, this could be true of the notebook and reading reports assignments.
My biggest concern with the grading system being used here is the attempt being made to combine measurable evidence of achievement targets with qualitative information about conduct and good study skills. Although good teachers understandably want to model and reward academic skills outside the achievement targets of the subject area, such as attending class, participating, keeping clear notes, and caring for scientific equipment, combining these skills with academic achievement into a single grade creates confusion. This teacher might be better served by mentioning his concerns with a student like Marg’s frequent absences and lack of care for equipment in a comment on the report card or directly to the student. Although the threat of a bad grade may be an effective method of disciplining students and forcing them to treat lab equipment with care, in this case, it is also muddying the assessment waters.
I am also concerned with the number of zero’s earned by students who are demonstrating at least some proficiency (in Marg’s case, high proficiency) in other assessments. In the case of the notebook, which two students received zeros on, students may be failing to keep a notebook of class notes according to the teacher’s standards. However, keeping a notebook in a particular manner does not seem like an appropriate science achievement target. It may very well be a specific study skills achievement target at this grade level, but that should be a separate grade, since it is clear from these results that the notebook score and the proficiency on tests are not related.
In the end, this teacher (or possibly this department or school) need to find a way to motivate students in areas outside subject area proficiency. That could be through a separate work habits or conduct grade, through comments on the report card, through conferences with students and parents, or any number of other ways. The subject area grade in a particular discipline, however, should measure student achievement in that subject, which does not seem to be happening in this class.