Reply to AP world history and skills-based grading

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Take the grading out of it. This is an AP class...college level. That's how we grade in college. I don't count homework, just major assessments.

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I have a kid in college and SBG does not resemble college grading at all. DC said college was a shock after SBG and kids have to catch up to higher expectations in college.

Nice try admin [/quote]

Not admin. College professor. How exactly was it such a big shock...and assuming your kid went to JMHS.

The problem so many of you have with SBG is that you don't get to fluff grades with busy work. Which is exactly how I assess my students.

My students know if they don't do the readings or homework, they are screwed. They adjust pretty fast. [/quote]

My problem with how skills-based grading has been implemented at my school is that my child had a B+ in the gradebook until it closed for the reports cards and, when it came back up, they had a D.  It is not clear which assignments listed in the gradebook will end up being pushed to "not for grading" and which will be counted for the grade.  The teacher's gradebook has 30 grades in it for the quarter, and they are not marked "homework" or "reading" or whatever, just named for the topic.  All were calculated into the B+.  The gradebook goes dark, and it comes back up with only 6-7 grades NOT marked "not for grading", and three of those are the things my kid scored the lowest on back at the very beginning of the quarter in late October.  Their grades from November on are all As and Bs, but their overall quarter grade is a D.

In college, I could easily calculate my grade for the class - most teachers put their grading on the syllabus the first day of class.  If I had a class that counted the paper 25%, the mid-term 25%, and the final 50%, I could plan accordingly.  It made sense that the routine readings and practice essays were not for grading, just for learning the material.  The "fluff" work did not count, but I knew it did not count from Day 1, not from my end-of-semester report card.  I also cannot tell if my child needs help in class until it is far too late for me to do anything about it.[/quote]

I completely agree with you. Since I had a kid go through this last year, I got my other kid a tutor for a class I don’t feel qualified to teach and they started working in the summer. For most of the other classes, I do all the class assignments too, so I can stay on top of everything and make sure DC does everything every day. It takes an enormous amount of time, but if you don’t do this, the kids, particularly freshman will not try hard on non-graded assignments. 14 year olds don’t have that skill yet. There is also the problem of teachers never giving back graded practice so kids never/rarely get that feedback. Some teachers do and some don’t. Our world history teacher counts verbal corrections in class as her feedback with no individual graded practice. Many parents at Madison are clueless this is even going on so looks like we are stuck with this awful system.[/quote]

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