Reply to “Equity Grading”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily  weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???[/quote]
Well, it depends on what you want to assess, but I think a real argument can be made that credit for kids who regularly put in the time and energy to complete homework, especially if they are doing so to a high standard, should be counted as worthy alongside the snapshot view you get of someone's knowledge (or, often, memory) as exhibited in a one-time exam where there's not access to external resources. I was a fantastic test-taker/essay writer and coasted happily along on that skill all the way through undergrad, and that reflected a certain skillset. But I know plenty of people who don't do well at all on tests or presentations but are extremely reliable and will really go nose to the grindstone over a long period of time to get things done. And I think schools should be recognizing and creating space for students to thrive in multiple ways, because our society needs multiple kinds of skills to also thrive.[/quote]

I think it's easy to debate the best approach to assessment.  I just find it odd that people are saying the move away from awarding marks for homework and participation is anti-merit whereas the argument would be the opposite in some countries which retain very traditional exam-based approaches.  As an aside, given all the talk about unreasonable workloads of teaches these days, I find it hard to imagine that they have the bandwidth to grade homework and participation with any rigour.  [/quote]

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