Reply to Another change to the grading policy?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Another change to the grading policy?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]What are 90% grades and 10% grades?[/quote]

The overall weight of those graded assignments on the final grade.

For example, in my child's math class, all the homework grades count towards 10% of the overall grade.   Quizzes and test count toward 90% of the overall grade.

So if a child scored 100% average on all homework assignments, and 80% average on all quizzes/tests, then they end up with an 82 in the class because the homework grades can't really pull up bad quiz/test score.[/quote]

Another things is that all 10% category grades are for completion (or attempt really). A student can earn a 100%, a 90% for turning it in late, or 0% for not turning it in. It’s not a true assessment of understanding. Just grade inflation. And it confusing parents who see a string of As. This is one reason MCPS finally decided to limit the number of grades in the 10% category.[/quote]
But isn't the goal to provide small incentive to do the homework? By minimizing the reward for doing homework, kids will likely do less, undermining their test performance. People are focusing on whether homework is an appropriate measure of understanding and whether it inflates grades; this seems to ignore the benefit of encouraging kids to expend more effort which is what will ultimately boost understanding.  [/quote]
Actually, "grading" homework for so many years has created an extrinsic reward system where students have completely lost the idea that the purpose of practice is for them to learn and check their understanding of a topic. All they want is the "points" for completing a worksheet and don't understand why it's not helpful to them to just copy from a friend rather than try for themselves. Students are reporting that they are "stressed" because there is [i]sooo much work[/i], when in reality what they are stressed about is that they don't know how to pay attention and learn anymore. They have no skills to figure out how to complete a worksheet when they don't already know the answer, except googling and copying down something they hope is the answer.

I'm a high school teacher. I'm just as happy to NOT be collecting and grading all of the daily classwork. All class slides and handouts are available to students through Canvas. I post answer keys to worksheets. I don't care whether or not students are completing everything - it is up to them to monitor their own learning and understanding. What I do provide and grade for completion are practice quizzes in Canvas that cover concepts pulled directly from the worksheets and lessons in class. I build item banks that the quiz pulls from randomly. They can take the practice quiz as many times as they want and see the correct answers immediately after. It is essentially a tool for them to study exactly what they will see on the actual quiz (90% category, graded for correctness). My quizzes are 70% from the practice item banks, and then some additional short answer/application items. I have a built in retake ready to go (because the item bank questions are random.) My students that attend class regularly, make good effort to learn and complete activities, and then study with the practice quizzes all have As and Bs. The students that don't attend regularly, don't complete practice activities, and don't study then don't do well on the quizzes. I'm just fine with fewer things in the gradebook. It actually puts more responsibility on the students to learn the material.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics