Optionally Graded Assignments

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have the policy on this one? A teacher indicated select assignments will not count towards grades, which changed the grades for several students who did well on those assignments. This seemed capricious, since it represented a large number of points percentage-wise.

[Anonymous]

No, not unless she specifically said they would count when she assigned them.

[Anonymous]

Did the teacher explain why? This happened to my son, though it didn’t impact his grade much. The teacher explained that there was an error in the set. It may or may not have caused some students to make mistakes. It was most fair to drop it for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

Apparently I need more coffee.

[Anonymous]

Some assignments are for feedback. Some students play the game to do only the assignments they know count towards the grade. Some teachers give more assignments and only select certain ones (that may reflect a certain standard better perhaps). If they did well, then they are learning. Not everything in school is about grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some assignments are for feedback. Some students play the game to do only the assignments they know count towards the grade. Some teachers give more assignments and only select certain ones (that may reflect a certain standard better perhaps). If they did well, then they are learning. Not everything in school is about grades.

Very good point.

[Anonymous]

What kind of policy are you looking for?

These are the joys of teaching. I am always looking for evidence of learning. Everything a student does, I am looking at the results. Yes, it may not be 'graded' but I can use the information to determine whether or not a student demonstrates understanding of the concept/objective. It is not about the number of points a student collects. It is about the learning. But, we live in a world where a student can collect enough points to earn an A.

There are times when I need to work with some students to complete an assignment, so I assign an extension activity to those who have already finished. Students usually ask if it is graded and then choose not to do it. But that extension activity offers another opportunity to for the students to demonstrate understanding in another way. Student A chooses not to do the assignment, but Student B does and through that process demonstrates an exceeding understanding of the material. Maybe this is better than the original 'graded' assignment. Am I to ignore this new information because it is not graded? But, I guess you will probably tell me that is not fair and I shouldn't do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

Apparently I need more coffee.

Sorry was typing on my phone and clearly needed some coffee too!

Question was what the impact of the dropped grades was--did students go down a grade because of the dropped assignments? Like, they got a B in the class, but if the dropped assignments had been counted, they would have gotten an A? If so, have the students directly addressed it with the teacher? Maybe that assignment could be opted into for extra credit to bring the grade up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

Apparently I need more coffee.

Sorry was typing on my phone and clearly needed some coffee too!

Question was what the impact of the dropped grades was--did students go down a grade because of the dropped assignments? Like, they got a B in the class, but if the dropped assignments had been counted, they would have gotten an A? If so, have the students directly addressed it with the teacher? Maybe that assignment could be opted into for extra credit to bring the grade up.

No extra credit allowed in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

Apparently I need more coffee.

Sorry was typing on my phone and clearly needed some coffee too!

Question was what the impact of the dropped grades was--did students go down a grade because of the dropped assignments? Like, they got a B in the class, but if the dropped assignments had been counted, they would have gotten an A? If so, have the students directly addressed it with the teacher? Maybe that assignment could be opted into for extra credit to bring the grade up.

No extra credit allowed in MCPS.

Really? Our MS science teacher emailed kids and parents and told us that kids earning Cs and Ds should get in touch with him to do work for extra credit. Maybe he meant makeup work? He specifically said “extra credit.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have the affected students talked by I the teacher, presuming that not including the assignments has resulted in a lower class grad (or could).

Apparently I need more coffee.

Sorry was typing on my phone and clearly needed some coffee too!

Question was what the impact of the dropped grades was--did students go down a grade because of the dropped assignments? Like, they got a B in the class, but if the dropped assignments had been counted, they would have gotten an A? If so, have the students directly addressed it with the teacher? Maybe that assignment could be opted into for extra credit to bring the grade up.

No extra credit allowed in MCPS.

Really? Our MS science teacher emailed kids and parents and told us that kids earning Cs and Ds should get in touch with him to do work for extra credit. Maybe he meant makeup work? He specifically said “extra credit.”

NP here. Per policy, there is no "extra credit" allowed. By historical practice, this was an extra assignment or task, not necessarily related to mastery of an objective, offered to only some kids to get some "extra points" to boost their % of points earned. The intent of the policy is that opportunities to improve grades should be offered to everyone and that they should be related to demonstrating mastery by redoing tasks or replacing a poor score by completing an equivalent task. In practice, you can't just add random points into the earned point total. The score for an assignment has to be changed.

Some legitimate ways to improve grades include retaking quizzes, redoing assignments, making corrections to an assignment/test for 1/2 points back, completing an optional graded assignment offered to all (those not completing are excused). The MS science teacher needs to offer the opportunity to all students, including the ones with As and Bs.