2. Critical questions
• What is the purpose do grades
serve?
• What is the trouble with evaluation
of students?
• How to make grading more
effecient?
3. 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).
4. Philosophy of Grading
Base grades on student achievement, and achievement
only. Grades should represent the extent to which the
intended learning outcomes were achieved by students.
They should not be contaminated by student effort,
tardiness, misbehavior, and other extraneous factors. .
. . If they are permitted to become part of the grade,
the meaning of the grade as an indicator of achievement
is lost.
Gronlund (1998) (pp. 174-175)
5. Philosophy of Grading
• Guidelines for Selecting Grading Criteria
• Calculating Grades: Absolute and Relative
Grading
• Teachers’ Perception of Appropriate Grade
Distributions
6. Institutional Expectations and
Constraints
• Being cognizant of an istitutional philosophy of grading is
an important step toward a consistent and fair
evaluation of your student.
• Cross-Cultural Factors and the Question of Difficulty
• What do Letter Grades “Mean”?
7. Alternatives to Letter Grading
12 Alternatives to Letter Grades
1. Gamification
2. Live Feedback
3. Grade–>Iterate–>Replace
4. Always-on Proving Grounds (Continuous Climate of
Assessment)
5. Standards-Based Reporting
6. “So? So What? What Now?”
7. Curating the Highlights
8. Pass/Fail
9. P2P, S2S, or Mentor Celebration
10.Non-points-based Rubrics
11.Publishing
8. Some Principles and Guidelines for
Grading and Evaluation
• Principles
• Grading is not necessarily based on a universally
acceptedscale.
• Grading is sometimes subjective and context-dependant.
• Grades may not “mean” the same thing to all people.
• Alternatives to letter or numerical grades are highly
desirable as additionalindicators of achievement.
9. Some Principles and Guidelines for
Grading and Evaluation
• Guideline
• 1. Develop an informed, comprehensive personal philosophy of
grading that isconsistent with your philosophy of teaching and
evaluation.
• 2. Design tests that conform to appropriate institutional and
cultural expectations of the difficulty that students should
experience.
• 3. Select appropriate criteria for grading and their relative
weighting in calculatinggrades.
• 4. Communicate criteria for grading to students at the
beginning of the course and atsubsequent grading periods (mid-
term, final)
• 5.Triangulate formal graded evaluations with alternatives that
are more formativeand that give more washback.
11. What is the purpose do grades serve?
Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson identify the
multiple roles that grades serve:
• as an evaluation of student work;
• as a means of communicating to students, parents,
graduate schools, professional schools, and future
employers about a student’s performance in college and
potential for further success;
• as a source of motivation to students for continued
learning and improvement;
• as a means of organizing a lesson, a unit, or a semester
in that grades mark transitions in a course and bring
closure to it.
12. What is the trouble with
evaluation
of students?
13. What is the trouble with evaluation of
students?
Suskie identify some problems with student
evaluation :
• Evaluation is a highly inconsistent process.
Teachers give different numbers and types of
assessments and weight them differently.
• There is disagreement on issues like the role
and value of work. Some teachers assign
homework frequently and weight it heavily,
while some don’t assign it at all.
• Some teachers will allow retakes of tests and
quizzes, others do not.
14. What is the trouble with evaluation of
students?
• Different policies exist for work turned in late.
• Districts may or require different final grades as a
passing mark – 60 to 70 is a common but large
range.
• Districts may set a minimum score that teachers
can record – e.g., no grade lower than a 50 is
allowed.
• The validity and reliability of student assessments
vary.
• There are major philosophical differences regarding
evaluation. Some teachers view learning as primarily
a student responsibility, while some place the
responsibility for teaching mainly on themselves.
15. What is the trouble with evaluation of
students?
• There is little agreement on many
assessments and what kinds are needed
for evaluation.
• Even within the same school different
teachers teach differently and test
differently for the same course.
17. ♣ At the very beginning
Consider the course grading policies.
♣ Before you grade
Try creating a rubric, or grading scale, and test it out on a sampling
of papers.
♣ While you are grading
Grade while you are in a good mood.
♣ Commenting on Student Work
Identify common problems students had with an assignment and
prepare a handout addressing those problems.
♣ After You’ve Graded
If appropriate for your course or section, use a spreadsheet or the
Space Grading feature to calculate grades.
There are some strategies that we
can use to make the grading
process more efficient.
