Grading

It can be very confusing with terms flying around about grades, scores, marks and assessments. What does it all mean?  I want to be clear on what the terms mean in my classroom. It is important for students and their families to understand what I feel the purpose of grades serve. 

• As a means of evaluating students work;
• As a means of communicating to students and parents, about a student’s performance;
• As a source of motivation to students for continued learning and improvement;
• As a means of providing students with focused feedback on their own learning, clarifying for them what they understand, what they don’t understand, and where they can improve.

Grading Criteria

Students will be graded on a system based on levels of Mastery.  There will be 4 levels of performance evaluation: exemplary, proficient, developing, and beginning.  Levels will be clearly defined through rubrics with clear example for each level.  Work that will be graded might include: quizzes, examinations, lab reports, essays, and oral presentations.

Providing Meaningful Feedback to Students

Learning should be student driven. My desire is for all students to begin to take responsibility for their learning and behavior helping student on their journey to independent.  I feel that students can learn without grades, but they can't learn without timely, descriptive, feedback. Experiencing descriptive feedback is an overt act of direct learning. Effective grading and reporting systems are mindful of this powerful element, and they are set up to facilitate timely, descriptive feedback to students within the learning cycle, keeping judgment and evaluation only for the end of that cycle.

• Comments on work is to teach rather than to justify your grade, focusing on what I would like students to address in future work.
• Comments and feedback will be linked to the goals for an assignment.
• Comment will be primarily on patterns — representative strengths and weaknesses.
• Final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students rather than provide answers for them.

http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/grading-student-work/#purposes