1. TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. ..1
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ................................................... 3
2.1 Definition of grading ........................................................... 3
2.2 Philosophy of Grading ..........................................................3
2.3 Institutional Expectations and Constraint ............................4
2.4 Alternatives to Letter Grading .............................................6
2.5 Some Principles and Guidelines
for Grading and Evaluation ................................................10
CHAPTER III DISCUSSIONS ................................................................... ......... 14
3.1 What is the purpose do grades serve? ...................... ......... 14
3.2 What is the trouble with evaluation of students? ..... ......... 17
3.3 How to make grading more effecient? .................... ......... 21
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSIONS ................................................................ ......... 25
REFERENCE .........................................................................................................26
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2. CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the justification and rationale of the present topic. It
cover background of the study, purpose of the study and critical questions.
1.1 Background of The Study
For teachers, grading is often the old ball and chain. Teachers, give
assignments and grade the results so as to have something to mark down on report
cards or to truly explore what our students understand and how they are best able
to present their knowledge to us? If our goal is the former than the standard
regime of tests and quizzes should suffice but, if (as is hopefully the case) we are
aiming for the latter, we need to think carefully about how to assess in ways that
accurately measure student learning not just at the end of a cycle of teaching but
throughout; we need to make sure our assessments have real world applications,
and perhaps most importantly we need to ensure that we offer a variety of
assessments to ensure that every student has the opportunity to demonstrate what
they know.
1.2 Purpose of The Study
The purpose of this paper are:
1
3. 1. To find out what the purposes do grades serve?
2. To find out how to make grading more efficient?
3. To find out what is the trouble with evaluation of students?
1.3 Critical Questions
1. What purposes do grades serve?
2. How to make grading more efficient?
3. What is the trouble with evaluation of students?
2
4. CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
This chapter presents theories related to the topic. It covers Definition of
grading, Philosophy of Grading, Institutional Expectations and Constraint,
Alternatives to Letter Grading, Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading and
Evaluation.
2.1 Definition of Grading
Grades in the realm of education are standardized measurements of
varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in
letters (for example, A, B, C, D, or E, or F), as a range (for example 4.0–1.0), as a
number out of a possible total (for example out of 20 or 100), as descriptors
(excellent, great, satisfactory, needs improvement), in percentages, or, as is
common in some post-secondary institutions in some countries, as a Grade Point
Average (GPA).
When we think about grading we tend to focus on tests, quizzes,
homework etc. But in fact you should be examining a wide range of student
performances when you grade. For example, a student who freezes up on tests
might be able to create an excellent model of the science concept you are trying to
teach. Try to grade in ways that reflect the way students would use concepts in the
real world. This is known as Alternative Assessment and can include portfolios of
writing samples, creating a book explaining a math concept for children etc.
2.2 Philosophy of Grading
Gronlund (1998), a widely respected educational assessment specialist,
gave the following advice:
3
5. Grades should represent the extent to which the intended learning outcomes
were achieved by students. They should not be contaminated by student effort,
tardiness, misbehaviour, and other extraneous factors.... if they are permitted
to become part of the garde, the meaning of the grade as an indicator of
achievement is lost. (pp.174-175)
Earlier in the same chapter, Gronlund specifically discouraged the
inclusion of improvement in final grades, as it ―distrorts‖ the meaning of the
grades as the indicators of achievement.
Gronlund’s point is well worth considering as a strongly empirical
philosophy of grading. But, not everyone agree with Gronlund. For example,
Grove (1998), Power (1998) and Progosh (1998)all recomended considering other
factor in assessing and grading.
The importance of triangulation, for one, tells us that all abilities of a
student may not be apparent on achievement tests and measured performances.
One of arguments fo considering alternatives in assessment is that we may not be
able to capture the totality of students’ competence through formal test; other
observations are also significant indicators of ability. Nor should wediscount most
teachers intuition, which enables them to form impressions of students that cannot
easily be verified empirically. These arguments tell us that improvement,
behavior, effort, motivation, and attendance might justifiably belong to a set of
components that add up to a final grade.
2.3 Institutional Expectations and Constraint
A consideration of philosophies of grading and of procedures for
calculating grades is not complete without a focus on the role of the instituation in
determining grades. The insights gained by the ALI teachers described above, for
example, were spurred to some extent by an examination of institutional
expectations. In this case, an external factor was at play: all the teachers were
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6. students in, or had recently graduated from, the Master of Arts in TESOL program
at San Francisco State University.
Typical of many graduate programs in America universities, this program
manifests a distribution of grades in which As (from A+ to A-) are awarded to an
estimated 60 percent to 70 percent of students, with Bs (from B+ to B-) going to
almost all of the remainder. In the ALI context, it had become commonplace for
the graduate grading expectations to ―rub off‖ onto ALI courses in ESL. The
statistics bore that out.
Transcript evaluators at colleges and universities are faced with variation
across institutions on what is deemand to be the threshold level for entry from a
high school or another university. For many institutions around the around the
world, the concept of letter grades is foreign. Point systems (usually 100 points or
percentages) are more common globally than the letter grades used almost
universally in the United States. Either way, we are bond by an established,
accepted system.
Some institutions refuse to employ either a letter grade or a numerical
system of evaluation and instead offer narrative evaluations of students (see the
discussion on this topic below). This preference for more individualized
evaluations is often a reaction to the overgeneralization of letter and numerical
grading.
Being cognizant of an institutional philosophy of grading is an important
step toward a consistent and fair evaluation of your students. If you are a new
teacher in your instituation, try to determine what its grading philosophy is.
Sometimes it is not explicit; the assumption is simply made that teachers will
grade students using a system that conforms to an unwritten philosophy. This has
potentially harmful washback for students. A teacher in an organization who
applies a markedly ―tougher‖ grading policy than other teachers is likely to be
viewed by srundents as being out of touch with the rest of the faculty. Thr result
could be avoidance of the class and even mistrust on the part students.
Conversely, an ―easy‖ teacher may become a favorite or popular teacher not
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7. because of what students learn, but because students know they will get a good
grade.
2.4 Alternatives to Letter Grading
Few artifacts of formal learning are as iconic as the letter grade.
What can I do to get an A?
She’s a C student.
He’s always gotten As and Bs in all of his classes.
Then we turn the letters into numbers–letter grades become averages of
letter grades, which, when calculated, determined whether or not a learner
qualifies to play sports, get into college, or thinks of him or herself as ―smart.‖
She has a 4.0 GPA.
You’re not getting into Stanford with that GPA.
It is an incredibly powerful symbol that isn’t going to be erased by long-
winded rhetoric. Learners and families–far and away the most vested stakeholders
in education–understand them. They ―get‖ what a B means, and what an F means.
The issue is, in all honesty they probably don’t.
A. The Failure of the Letter Grade
The letter grade fails because its job–to communicate learning results to
learners and families—cannot possibly be performed a single symbol.
Further, the letter grade ―pauses‖ learning–basically says that at this point,
if I had to average all of your understanding, progress, success, and performance
into a single alphanumeric character, it’d be this, but really this is over-
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8. simplifying things because learning is messy and understanding is highly
dynamic.
While standards-based grading is one attempt to reduce how subjective
letter grades are–measure and report proficiency based on standards as ―grades.‖
This is a step in the right direction–at least parents know what a grade is based on,
but they still don’t know any more about their son or daughter.
The ideal ―response‖ here isn’t a single change, but a total merging of schools
and communities. But until that happens, there are options.
B. 12 Alternatives to Letter Grades
1. Gamification
A comprehensive systems of badges, trophies, points, XP,
achievements. This uncovers nuance and is capable of far more resolution
and precision than a letter.
2. Live Feedback
Here, students are given verbal and written feedback immediately–as
work is being completed. Live scoring without the scoring and iteration.
No letters or numbers, just feedback.
3. Grade–>Iterate–>Replace
In this process, work is graded as it traditionally has been, then,
through revision and iteration, is gradually improved and curated.
Eventually ―lesser‖ performance (as determined by students, peers,
families, and teachers) is replaced by better work, but without the grades.
Grades jump-start the revision process, and that’s it.
4. Always-on Proving Grounds (Continuous Climate of Assessment)
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9. In this model, assessment never stops–the result of one assessment is
another. Not tests, but demonstrations. It doesn’t stop, so rather than
halting the process to assign a letter, the process continues on.
5. Standards-Based Reporting
This one replaces letters with numbers, so it’s really not much better,
but it can reduce the subjectivity of grading.
6. ―So? So What? What Now?‖
Here, students are asked–and ask themselves–at the end of every
assignment–So, So What? What Now? This is similar to #4 above, but
leaves the next step up to the student. Okay, you’re ―finished‖ with this
work. Now:
So: What did you ―do‖? Summarize details and big picture
So What? Why was this work important?
What now? What is the logical next step with this assignment, idea, or
topic?
7. Metacognitive Action/Reflection/Narrative/Anecdotal
This approach dovetails behind #6. Rather than halting the learning
process with a letter-as-performance-indicator, instead learners are tasked
with reflecting on their thinking process–not as a patronizing ―tell the
teacher what they want to hear‖ activity on an exit slip walking out the
door, but as a measure of their understanding and intellectual growth. This
can be based on metacognition, reflective on the progression through the
content, or more anecdotal about the learning process itself.
8. Curating the Highlights
8
10. A variation of the reflective and anecdotal approach, curating the
highlights amounts to the student and teach getting together to extract the
highlights of an assignment, or the process of project-based learning.
9. Pass/Fail
No letter grade–you either pass or fail. Not a great solution to anything
other than the shades of grey between an A and a D, but an alternative
nonetheless.
10. P2P, S2S, or Mentor Celebration
Gather with peers within and across schools to celebrate academic and
learning success. No grades necessary–just planned visibility from the start
of the project with a diverse groups of peers. Peer response can also be
embedded throughout a lesson or unit by design, rather than only at the
end as a summative evaluation.
11. Non-points-based Rubrics
This is much like the current systems–student performance is still
evaluated against a rubric, but not grade or points are ever assigned. It is
up to the student and their family to determine ―how they did.‖ The goal of
the teacher is not to grade students, but rather to support learners. Students
will wiggle and writhe trying to turn the rubric’s assessment into a letter
grade, and that’s fine. As a teacher, you’ve moved on to taking data from
that performance to plan the next steps.
12. Publishing
Make all learning public. Publish it. It can by anonymous if necessary,
but it’s visible to families, peers, and communities. Peers can collaborate
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11. on revisions, families can respond, communities can celebrate or scoff, but
the process has been decentralized and, in a way, democratized.
This approach won’t work for every student every time, but the idea is
sound–return the stakeholding to the stakeholders.
2.5 Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading and Evaluation
To sum up, we hope you have become a little better informed about the widely
accepted practice of grading students, whether on a separate test or on a summative
evaluation of performance in a course. We should now understand that ;
Grading is not necessarily based on a universally accepted scale,
Grading is sometimes subjective and context-dependent,
Grading of tests is often done on the ―curve‖,
Grading reflect a teacher’s philosophy of grading,
Grading reflect an institutional philosophy of grading,
Cross-cultural variation in grading philosophies needs to be understood,
Grades often conform, by design to a teacher’s expected distribution of
students across a continuum,
Tests do not always yield an expected level of difficulty,
Letter grades may not ―mean‖ the same thing to allpeople, and
Alteernatives to letter grades or numerical scores are highly desirable as
additional indicators of achievement.
With those characteristics of grading and evaluation in mind, the following
principled guidelines should help you be an effective grader and evaluator of
student performance.
There the interconnection of assessment and teaching was first
highlighted; in contemplating grading and evaluating our students, that co-
10
12. dependency is underscored. When you assign a letter grade to a student, that letter
should be symbolic of your approach to teaching. If you believe that a grade
should recognize only objectively scored performance on a final exam, it may
indicate that your approach to teaching reward end product only, not process. If
you base some portion of a final grade on improvement, behavior, effort,
motivation, and/or punctuality, it may say that your philosophy of teaching values
those affective elements. You migh be one of those teachers who feel that grades
are necessary nuisance and that substantive evaluation takes place through the
daily work of optimizing washback in your classroom. If you habitually give
mostly As, a few Bs, and virtually no Cs or below, it could mean, among other
things, that your standards (and expectations) for your students are low. It could
also mean that your standards are very high and that you put monumental effort
into seeing to it that student are consistently coached throughout the term so that
they are brought to their fullest possible potential.
As we develop our own philosophy of grading, make some attempt to
conform that philosophy to our approach to teaching. In a communicative
language classroom, that approach usually implies meaningful learning,
authenticity, building of student autonomy, student-teacher collaboration, a
community of learners, and the perception that our role is that of a facilitator or
coach rather than a director or dictator.
Just as there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty
research, there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty teaching.
However, by thinking carefully about the purposes of evaluation, and by crafting
multiple methods of evaluation that suit those purposes, one can devise evaluation
systems that are reliable, valid, and fair. Equally important, the process of
discussing and crafting evaluation systems focuses attention on the practice of
good teaching and helps to create a culture in which teaching is highly valued.
Some Principles of Teaching Evaluation
1. Multiple methods.
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13. The most important consideration in teaching evaluation, both for
improvement purposes and for personnel decisions, is the use of multiple
methods of teaching evaluation involving multiple sources of data.
2. Faculty, departmental and school responsibilities.
To ensure that the evaluation system adopted is credible and acceptable,
faculty members must have a strong hand in its development. Before
departments and schools adopt teaching evaluation systems, the faculty
members should determine their criteria for effective teaching.
Departments and schools can then take responsibility for developing their
own evaluation methods and evaluation criteria. Since different disciplines
require different methods and settings for instruction, they require
different methods and criteria for evaluation. This is also true for
interdisciplinary instruction. Teaching evaluation systems can be flexible
to accommodate diversity in instructional methods (e.g., lecture,
discussion, lab, case study, small group interaction, practicum, studio,
field work, clinical work, etc.). To promote compatibility within the
university, standards should be reviewed, understood, and accepted by all
groups involved in the promotion and tenure review process.
3. Individualizing teaching evaluation.
Effective teaching evaluation must be individualized. A uniform system
discriminates against some individuals, so a plan sensitive to individual
variation should be developed. A faculty member should provide
information about his/her contributions and accomplishments as a teacher
on a longitudinal basis over his/her teaching career. Consideration can
then be given to changes in emphasis and interest that will naturally occur
in an academic career.
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14. 4. What may be assessed.
Teaching evaluation has as its central element the assessment of the
quality of classroom instruction. Since teaching includes activities broader
than classroom instruction, evaluation of teaching must assess more than
classroom performance. While departments and schools may identify
additional items, among the teaching activities that may be assessed are
the following:
a. Quality, amount, and level of classroom instruction (including shared
instruction)
b. Development of curricula, new courses, and classroom materials;
c. Supervision and mentoring of graduate students, including chairing of
dissertations;
d. Service on graduate examination and dissertation committees;
e. One-on-one consultation with students, including supervision of
independent study and readings courses;
f. Supervision of teaching assistants in undergraduate courses;
g. Conduct and supervision of laboratory instruction;
h. Supervision of undergraduate and graduate research;
i. Advising students in the major;
j. Supervision of field work; and
k. Supervision of clinical and practicum experiences.
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15. CHAPTER III
DISCUSSIONS
2.5 What is the purpose do grades serve?
What is the purpose or function of grades in education? Measurement
experts such as Peter Airasian (1994) explain that educators use grades primarily
(1) for administrative purposes, (2) to give students feedback about their progress
and achievement, (3) to provide guidance to students about future course work,
(4) to provide guidance to teachers for instructional planning, and (5) to motivate
students.
1. Administrative Purposes
For at least several decades, grades have served a variety of administrative
functions (Wrinkle, 1947), most dealing with district-level decisions about
students, including
Student matriculation and retention.
Placement when students transfer from one school to another.
Student entrance into college.
Airasian (1994) further explains that "administratively, schools need
grades to determine such things as a pupil's rank in class, credits for
graduation, and suitability for promotion to the next level" (p. 283).
Research indicates that some districts explicitly make note of the
administrative function of grades. For example, in a study of school board
manuals, district guidelines, and handbooks for teaching, researchers Susan
Austin and Richard McCann (1992) found the explicit mention of
administration as a basic purpose for grades in 7 percent of school board
14
16. documents, 10 percent of district guidelines, and 4 percent of handbooks for
teachers. Finally, in a survey conducted by The College Board (1998), over
81 percent of the schools reported using grades for administrative purposes.
2. Feedback About Student Achievement
One of the more obvious purposes for grades is to provide feedback about
student achievement. Studies have consistently shown support for this
purpose. For example, in 1976, Simon and Bellanca reported that both
educators and noneducators perceived providing information about student
achievement as the primary purpose of grading. In a 1989 study of high
school teachers, Stiggins, Frisbie, and Griswold reported that this grading
function—which they refer to as the information function—was highly
valued by teachers. Finally, the study by Austin and McCann (1992) found
that 25 percent of school board documents, 45 percent of district documents,
and 65 percent of teacher documents mentioned reporting student
achievement as a basic purpose of grades.
3. Guidance
When used for guidance purposes, grades help counselors provide
direction for students (Wrinkle, 1947; Terwilliger, 1971). Specifically,
counselors use grades to recommend to individual students courses they
should or should not take and schools and occupations they might consider
(Airasian, 1994). Austin and McCann (1992) found that 82 percent of school
board documents, 40 percent of district documents, and 38 percent of teacher
documents identified guidance as an important purpose of grades.
4. Instructional Planning
Teachers also use grades to make initial decisions about student strengths
and weaknesses in order to group them for instruction. Grading as a tool for
instructional planning is not commonly mentioned by measurement experts.
However, the Austin and McCann (1992) study reported that 44 percent of
15
17. school board documents, 20 percent of district documents, and 10 percent of
teacher documents emphasized this purpose.
5. Motivation
Those who advocate using grades to motivate students assume that they
encourage students to try harder both from negative and positive perspectives.
On the negative side, receiving a low grade is believed to motivate students to
try harder. On the positive side, it is assumed that receiving a high grade will
motivate students to continue or renew their efforts.
As discussed later in this chapter, some educators object strongly to using
grades as motivators. Rightly or wrongly, however, this purpose is manifested
in some U.S. schools. For example, Austin and McCann (1992) found that 7
percent of school board documents, 15 percent of district-level documents,
and 10 percent of teacher documents emphasized motivation as a purpose for
grades.
Then, which is the most important purpose? According to the research cited
in the previous sections, each of the five purposes for grading has some support
from educators. A useful question is which of the five purposes is the most
important or, more generally stated, what is the relative importance of the five
purposes? depicts the results of the Austin and McCann (1992) study compared
with an informal survey we undertook in preparing this book. If one uses the
average rank (the last column) from the two studies as the criterion, indicates that
using grades to provide feedback about student achievement should be considered
the primary function of grades. Guidance is ranked second, instructional planning
and motivation are tied for third, and administration is last. However, to obtain the
most accurate picture of the opinions about the various purpose of grades, it is
important to notice the variation in responses.
In this section we've looked at the basic purpose of and the point of reference
for grades. Out of five potential purposes, feedback was identified as the most
16
18. important. Out of three possible points of reference, specific learning outcomes
was deemed the most compatible with feedback as a purpose.
2.6 What is the trouble with evaluation of students?
In the world of education, assessment and evaluation would have been
done in the learning process. Assessment and evaluation aimed to determine the
ability of the learner is to meet the Graduate Competence Standard (SKL) or not.
Graduate Competence Standard (SKL) is a classification of graduate capabilities
that include attitudes, knowledge and skills. Graduate Competence Standard
(SKL) is used as a guideline in determining the graduation of students from
psendidikan unit. Besides the evaluation aims to determine the extent of
absorption of the product discussion learners that educators apply. There are
several types of tool evaluation, namely: a test written and unwritten. If we look at
the world of education, we will know that any type or form of education at certain
times during the period of education is always an evaluation, which means that at
certain times during the period of education has always held an assessment of the
results achieved, either by the educated and the educators.
By examining the achievement of objectives of teaching, teachers can
determine if the learning process is done quite effectively give good results and
satisfactory or otherwise. So it is clear that teachers should be able to carry out
assessments and skillful, because the assessments teachers can find out the
achievements of his students after implementing the learning process.
Professionalism became teachers in their work demands. Moreover, the teaching
profession handle the day-to-day life objects such as children or students with the
characteristics of each are not the same. Teacher's job becomes more severe when
on increasing the ability of their students, while her abilities stagnant. And seen in
education today is the problem is the failure of teachers in teacher evaluation.
In its function as assessors of student learning outcomes, teachers should
continue to follow the learning outcomes achieved by students from time to time.
The information obtained through this evaluation is feedback (feed back) to the
17
19. teaching and learning process. This feedback will be used as a starting point to
improve and enhance the learning process further. Thus, the learning process will
continue to be improved to obtain optimal results.
In other subjects sometimes held at the end of the lesson, and there is also
during the process of teaching and learning takes place. When the time of the
evaluation is not a problem for teachers is most important in one session he has
conducted an assessment of the students in the class.
But there are also teachers who are reluctant to carry out an evaluation at
the end of the lesson, because of time constraints, they thought better explain all
of the subject matter to the bitter end to one meeting, and at the next meeting at
the beginning of the lesson students are given a task or questions related to the
material .
There are also teachers who say that assessment at the end of the lesson is
not absolutely the written test. It could also oral test or question and answer. Felt
more practical activities for teachers, because teachers do not have to take pains to
correct the results of the evaluation of children. But these activities have the
disadvantage that children who are nervous even though he knew the answer to
that question, he could not answer precisely because of her nervousness was. And
other weaknesses oral tests take too much time, and the teacher must have a lot of
inventory problems. But there are also teachers who represent some of the smart
kids, kids who are less and some children who were its ability to answer the few
questions or problems relating to that subject matter.
Every teacher in conducting the evaluation should be familiar with the
purpose and benefits of the evaluation or assessment. But there are also teachers
who do not bother about this activity, which is important he entered the
classroom, teaching, he would carry out an evaluation at the end of the lesson or
not is his business. What is clear at the end of the semester he had reached the
target curriculum. This is a problem in education today.
What causes this happen? There are some things that might cause this to happen,
such as:
18
20. 1. Teachers are less mastering the subject matter, so in presenting the
subject matter to children often disjointed sentence or convoluted that
cause the child to be confused and difficult to digest what was said by the
teacher.
Of course at the end of the lesson they are overwhelmed or unable to
answer questions given task. And finally, the value obtained is far from
what was expected.
2. Teachers did not master class. Teachers who are less able to control the
class challenged in delivering the subject matter, this is because the
atmosphere of a class that does not support the child who really want to
learn to be disturbed.
3. Teachers are reluctant to use visual aids in teaching. Habits of teachers
who do not use props to force children to think verbal thus making it
difficult to understand the child's learning and automatic evaluation at the
end of a lesson in the value of the child to fall.
4. Teachers are less able to motivate children to learn, so as to convey the
subject matter, children are less concerned about the material presented
by the teacher, so that the knowledge contained in the material presented
it slip away without any special attention from students.
5. Teachers menyamaratkan child's ability in absorbing the lessons.
Each of the students has a different ability to absorb the material.
Teachers are less caught not knowing that there are children didinya
absorbance below average have difficulty in learning.
6. Teachers' lack of discipline in managing time. Time is written in the
timetable, not in accordance with the practice of implementation,. Time
to start learning is always late, but the time off and hours of home is
always on or never late.
7. Teachers are reluctant to make preparations to teach or at least prepare
the teaching, which are accompanied by provisions lesson time to start,
time to process activities and the provision of time for the end of the
lesson.
19
21. 8. Teachers do not have any progress to add or gain knowledge, such as
reading a book or exchange ideas with fellow teachers more senior and
professional insights to add.
9. In the oral test at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked a question to the
less skilled students, so that students do not understand what is meant by
the teacher.
10. Teachers always put the achievement of the curriculum. Teachers rarely
notice or analyze what percentage absorption of children to the subject
matter
Another issue in the assessment and evaluation in education, especially in
Indonesia, is a matter of national examinations. National Examination is one of
the government's national assessment to measure student success. In recent years,
its presence into the public debate and controversy. On the one hand there who
agree because they can improve the quality of education.
With the national examinations, schools and teachers will be encouraged to
provide the best possible care so that the students can take the exam and get your
exam results are the best. Likewise, students are encouraged to study seriously so
that he can pass with the best possible outcome. Meanwhile, on the other hand is
also not a few who feel not agree because it assumes that the National
Examination as something very contradictory and counterproductive to the spirit
of reform that we are learning to develop.
However, the development of national examinations is often used for the
benefit of outside education, such as the political interests of the holders of
educational policy or economic interests of a few people. Therefore, no wonder its
implementation irregularities are found, such as the case of leakage problems, a
systemic and deliberate cheat, manipulate the results of student work and other
forms of cheating. This makes the problem of assessment and evaluation of
learning, because teachers assess and evaluate students' final grades based on the
results of the national examinations.
20
22. This is done by government policy to implement the system UNAS (National
Examination) and NEM (NilaiAkhir Pure) it. So the assessment of the results of
the tests can not show the ability or competence of each learner, whether they
have mastered the subject or not. The scoring system adopted affect the
implementation of the learning process in the classroom. Assessment is more
focused on the assessment of learning outcomes led to an assessment of the
learning process is neglected. The learning process should be ongoing no. Finally
learning activities in our schools many issues covered by the low level of
understanding of students, including in mathematics learning.
In the national exam, with more emphasis on the assessment of learning
outcomes (products) are likely to only assess the cognitive abilities, and
sometimes reduced in such a way through a test objective. Meanwhile, the
assessment of the affective and psychomotor aspects often overlooked. As a
result, a lot going on complaints from the public and the school itself about the
low quality courtesy and responsibility of our students because the assessment is
generally focused on activities related to academic achievement and less mnaruh
attention to activities related to the behavior and attitudes.
2.7 How to make grading more effecient?
Grading is tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating. Many of would teach
for free, but we must be paid to grade. A rubric clearly defines what a student
needs to do in order to receive a specific grade. A rubric will help you to grade
more quickly and painlessly while providing students with useful feedback on
their performance.
To create a rubric, you must first spell out an assignment's goals. Be
explicit. For example, when you ask your students to write an essay, what skills
do you want your students to be able to demonstrate? You might, for example,
want them to:
1. Construct an argument that is novel, plausible, and sophisticated.
2. Support their argument with compelling lines of reasoning and persuasive
examples.
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23. 3. Demonstrate an ability to analyze complex ideas and counter-arguments.
4. Structure a paper that is focused and logically organized.
5. Vary sentence structure and use words with precision.
There are some strategies that we can use to make the grading process
more efficient. Although all of the materials are designed to help you with
consistent, fair, and efficient grading, there are some additional tips on efficiency
as well as tips mentioned elsewhere that are worth emphasizing.
At the very beginning
Consider the course grading policies. You can save a lot of time by
discouraging superfluous regrade requests and late work.
Consider the assignment design. Clearly worded assignments and clear
learning objectives will greatly improve grading efficiency. Make sure that
exam questions are vetted thoroughly prior to the exam.
Before you grade
Spell out the criteria you will be using as specifically as possible, and
come to an agreement with your instructor or fellow GSIs about how
grades will be determined. Try creating a rubric, or grading scale, and test
it out on a sampling of papers. It may also be helpful to look at a
representative sampling of student work to get a sense of the common
errors prior to creating your rubric.
Always use the minimum number of gradations consistent with the
learning objectives. Why grade on a six-point scale when pass/not pass
would be sufficient (and significantly more efficient)?
Ask yourself: Is this rubric fair? Does it appropriately weight the
understanding the students exhibit? Does it reflect the assignment’s
learning objectives and the assignment prompt?
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24. Making your grading criteria more explicit both enhances student learning
and reduces the time you spend determining and justifying grades.
While you are grading
Grade while you are in a good mood.
Grade with company! In addition to being more fun, the other GSIs are a
resource for grading questions. Also, if you are grading a large lecture
course, it can streamline the grading consistency checks. To ensure
consistency, exchange a few papers in each score range with the other
GSIs, and grade them independently. Compare the scores and take
corrective action if necessary.
Time yourself. Try to limit how long you spend grading each assignment
(e.g., I want to grade on average 20 problems per hour). If you find
yourself puzzling over a particular paper, set the paper aside to grade last,
when your sense of all of the students’ work has been fully developed.
If you are blind grading, keep your grades in a file organized by student ID
number (SID), separate from the file that matches the SIDs to names. This
ensures objectivity. Or, less formally, you can just make it a practice not to
look at student names while grading.
If the assignment has disjoint parts, grade each part separately (e.g., if an
assignment consists of three problems, grade the first problem for the
entire class before you proceed to grading the second problem, etc.). This
will help you grade consistently as well as efficiently.
When you are finished grading, look again at the first few assignments you
graded to see if you still agree with yourself.
Commenting on Student Work
Identify common problems students had with an assignment and prepare a
handout addressing those problems. This helps you to avoid having to
write the same comments multiple times. It also enables you to address the
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25. problem in more detail and helps students realize that others share the
same problems.
Type your comments. This has a number of advantages. It allows you to
keep a computer record of each student’s progress over the semester;
comments can be more detailed; longer comments on common problems
can be cut and pasted from one assignment to another; and it is easier for
the students to read what you have written.
Do not comment on every problem or point. Focus on a couple of major
points. This not only helps you to grade more efficiently, it also avoids
overwhelming the students. It enables them to focus more effectively on
the areas of their work that most need improvement.
Consider asking students to turn in a cover page with their own evaluation
of their work’s strongest and weakest points as well as the students’
thoughts on how they could improve the work.
After You’ve Graded
If appropriate for your course or section, use a spreadsheet or the Space
Grading feature to calculate grades. It may take a little time to learn how
to use these if you are not familiar with them, but the savings in time can
be considerable if you are working with grade points or differently
weighted letter grades. Back up all electronic records!
If a student consistently turns in unsatisfactory work, meet with him or her
to figure out why and develop a plan of action. Often a student just needs a
more efficient study strategy.
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26. CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSIONS
4.1 Conclusions
Finally we can concluded that there the interconnection of assessment and
teaching was first highlighted, in contemplating grading and evaluating our
students, that co-dependency is underscored. When you assign a letter grade to a
student, that letter should be symbolic of your approach to teaching. If you believe
that a grade should recognize only objectively scored performance on a final
exam, it may indicate that your approach to teaching rewards end products only,
not process. If you base some portion of a final grade on improvement, behavior,
effort, motivation, and punctuality, it may say that your philosophy of teaching
values those affective elements.
As you develope your own philosophy of grading, make some attempt to
conform that philosophy to your approach to teachin. In communicative language
calssroom, that approach usualy implies meaningful learning, authenticity,
building of students autonomy, student-teachers collaboration, a community of
leraner, and the perception that your role is that of a facilitator or coach reader
than a director or dictator. Let your grading philosophy be consonant with your
teaching philosophy.
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27. REFERENCE
Brown, H. Douglas. Long man (2003). Language Assessment; Principles And
Classroom Practice. San Francisco : State University.
Walvoord, B. & V. Anderson (1998). Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and
Assessment . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.
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