Quirky Grading Systems
Posted by drpezz on March 26, 2008
A recent article and a wonderful blog both focused on a middle school in Arlington where students receive some credit for not doing an assignment. Missing assignments are given a 50% instead of a zero grade.
The logic behind this is that in a GPA scale, an A averaged with an F (for a 2.0 GPA) is the equivalent of a C. With the standard classroom scale, a zero grade necessitates three full A grades to reach a C. Ultimately, the question is: how much should a single zero grade affect a student’s overall average. This was also combined with a lunch time study hall, but that is outside of my focus for this post.
I use a couple forms of adjusted grading in my own class including the 50% rule. Since I weight my grades with homework and classwork accounting for only 10% of student’s overall grade, I do give my students a bit of a break. Since 90% of a student’s grade is based on mastery of one sort or another, I have no problem giving a 50% for a missing assignment.
Of course, this is combined with another grading quirk of mine: I excuse any practice assignment (homework/classwork) which negatively affects a student’s grade if a B or better is earned on the mastery assignment for which the practice assignment was given.
With mini-quizzes leading to a larger exam, I also employ a similar strategy. If a student earns a C on each of the mini-quizzes leading to a B on the mastery exam, I will then change the mini-quizzes to a B (based on the sections mastered on the exam). This may mean only one or two mini-quizzes are changed, or this may mean all of them will be altered.
In my opinion, this allows students to take longer to show mastery and not be penalized for that extra time. While my system is not completely standards based, it is leaning more in that direction while using a grading system parents and students understand. Stress is reduced, obstacles removed, and initial errors rectified.
Since I started using this system last year, I have seen student achievement rise and have seen students take more risks through experimentation. They don’t fear exploring, using their innate curiosity, and employing new ideas. Plus, it’s quite hard to take advantage of the system since the students must show mastery regardless of their pathways to it.
Some teachers don’t like that I let students redo assignments multiple times, but I feel that mastery is my objective. I don’t want my grading system to be a punitive one; I don’t believe grading should be used to instill discipline, only to show knowledge. I admit it’s not perfect, but I do feel I’m moving in the right direction.
Anonymous said
The discussion about how to handle grading has been going on forever. When I took my education classes in the early 70s we were in the midst of a debate about them. I remember one of our text books was called WAD-JA-GET?
Right now our principal (and the district, evidently) are relooking at high school grading. One of the proposals is that we go to a primary-style grading report, like a kindergarten report card with evaluation of multiple areas of the student’s achievement. Fine in theory, nearly impossible in execution. My wife teaches kindergarten, and it takes her two full days to mark the report cards, and she only has 25 students.
Jim Van Pelt said
Sorry, that last post was mine.
drpezz said
I would loathe that type of system since I regularly have 150 students a semester. What a nightmare!
I just seem to be moving towards mastery for grades. Still, I want to use the scoring system parents and students understand. Thus, I have started to put homework and class work as the least impacting aspect of a student’s overall grade. This also allows me to be a bit flexible with teh scoring in this category.
Really, the homework and classwork grades only determine what type of letter grade a student receives (i.e. B-, B, or B+).
I’m still tweaking it, but I like this better than anything else I’ve used.