View these video interview segments: Plagiarism | meeting needs of students | letting go of traditional
Read this Effective Grading Practices Article
View the video Grades and Class Rankings
The video is a summary of why change in the way we grade is necessary. This article is a hefty one: 37 pages., but the key findings are on pages 3-6. Regardless of whether your school uses letter grades, percentages, number scales, or standards-based reporting, these practices need to come into question.
For example, Grading for Behavioral Issues and Using Zeroes as a Punishment both incorporate behaviors into the grade, essentially making the grade meaningless. Using grades as a motivator to change behavior denigrates the purpose of the grade. Some have claimed zeroes are consequences for real world circumstands, but as the article points out
In the real world, failure to complete a task rarely results in not needing to complete the task.
Grading Homework and Other Formative Assignments is another technique used to incentivize compliance for completing work.
This practice has been criticized for rewarding students for being compliant, hard workers while not necessarily communicating anything meaningful about students’ mastery over course material.
Using a Points System and Averages and Grading Homework and Other Formative Assignments punish learners who don’t have prior knowledge or experience on new content or skills. Research suggests that failure can be an important aspect of learning, but these grading practices possibility of learning from failure and inhibit educational risk taking.