UbDDI+B2+Chapter+8



T.J. Hebert Abstract/Synthesis

This chapter is all about grading. How do the grades demonstrate differentiation in the classroom, what is the best method of grading, what should teachers focus on while grading, averages or mastery over the content? These are just a few of the dilemmas teachers face when grading. Another important aspect of grading is how do we justify or explain the grade to the student and the student's parents? The chapter uses six principles that lay out what effective and fair grading should look like: grades should be clear and precise based on learning goals and standards, they should be valid and not based on averages, and focus should be on acievement. There should also be some things (such as testing) left out of the final grade.

Nearly the entire class agreed that it is important to grade based on mastery and understanding. Some of the other things that some of us thought should be graded are effort, class

participation, and attendance. One person thought it is important to reward students for their progress and hard work and several others thought that pre-assessments were important

but should not be graded.

toc

Megan Millette
In chapter 8 of UbD and DI, Tomlinson and McTighe discuss about inaccurate and proper grading. They believe that grading by a single number based off calculations is not an accurate way to grade students. They also believe that it is hard to base grades off what students haven’t fully grasped an understanding for. They believe that grading someone before they start to show progress is incorrect. Their ideas seemed like modifications to help better show students’ progress and act as an encouragement for students. They described an idea where there were two steps, grading and reporting. In this section they discussed the crucial points to show effective grading and reporting. One aspect of this was that grading and reporting should be based on clear and precise learning goals and performance standards. I believe this is important to me as a future educator because I should always give grades that have real meaning. Students’ grades should be based off of the students’ performances, work qualities, successes, etc. It discussed more methods for grading, but soon went into the idea of reporting grades. When reporting grades it is important to give positive and encouraging reports to students and parents. I do not want to discourage my students, so discussing the students’ achievement and progress to the parents is an excellent way to tell them about their student. If a student is progressing, their grades should be motivating and exciting. Students who don’t make an effort to learn deserve the grade they get that shows they have no effort, but for those students that make an effort and it just takes them longer, they should not be penalized for it.

Lauren Breton
Grading and reporting the achievement of students were the focus of this chapter. One of the largest hindrances to teachers when implementing understanding by design and differentiated instruction into their classrooms is how to go about grading their students. Many school districts require one letter or numerical grade per student per academic grading period. This chapter begs the question of whether or not we are truly implementing differentiated instruction if we grade based upon the average of one student’s work in comparison to others. This chapter advocates that instead of the more typical way of assigning grades, teachers should evaluate students based on their achievement of goals, their progress toward goals, and their work habits. These criteria seem to be not only fair, but also effective. Students will be able to work toward their individual goals, and their own goals would take into account their special needs as students, whether they are English language learners, students with IEPs, students with learning disabilities, etc. Also, even if students are unable to meet their goals, they should be given ample credit for the growth that they have shown throughout the academic grading period. Just because students aren’t able to fully meet their goals does not mean we should ignore their attempts and effort. Another important aspect of education is developing effective work habits that can carry over into other aspects of life. The idea of rewarding students’ development of strong work habits (making revisions, completing work on-time, persevering, etc.) sends the message to students that these skills are important to develop. I would love to be able to incorporate this kind of grading into my future classrooms. I believe that while students need to master and comprehend the content, it is also important to reward them for the progress that they make and for their hard work. By differentiating grading in this way, we give students a more equal chance for success and reward them for putting the effort in as well as for learning the content.

Lauren Scheidegger
Chapter eight of __Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design__ by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe is filled with information about grading and gauging achievement. The chapter was split up into principles of grading. All of the principles seemed fair and like they should be followed in my opinion. They consisted of guidelines such as; when grading make sure your grades are based on the results of specified goals and performance tasks, and evidence that is used when creating a grade should be valid. There are a lot of little details within each principle, not all of which I completely agree with as of this moment. Under one principle it was said that if a student does not turn in work or finish assignments, a teacher should not give them a zero. Depending on the circumstances this can be a reasonable request. However it seems unfair to the students who put forth so much effort in completing the assignments and projects on time, to just “let it slide” or give a student one “inside recess” for not even attempting the same task (or one that may be slightly different according to his/her readiness level and learning profile). I am not sure how I would handle this kind of situation just yet but I don’t think I will let unfinished or undone work always go by without affecting the student’s grades. Effort a very important piece not only in education but also once obtaining a job, I realize that there are always certain circumstances where unfinished work is acceptable and I plan to take each case as it comes and deal with it on an individual basis while still being fair to the whole class.

T.J. Hebert
Grading is a two part process, assigning letters or numbers at the end of a specified time as a summary of evaluations of a students’ performance during a learning cycle or assignment and reporting the evaluation of the student to the parents. Along with this, there are six principles of grading and reporting: grades and reports should be based on learning goals and performance standards, evidence used for grading should be valid, grading should be based on established criteria, not everything should be included in grades, do not grade based on averages, focus on achievement and report other factors separately. These six principles were developed by a group of experts on assessment, grading, and reporting and support backward design and standards based curriculum. It is essential to grade and report in ways that support backward design and differentiation. It is very clear by now after reading several chapters from several books that design and differentiation must be part of and included into every part of teaching. Everything a teacher does should be based on and revolve around those two things and it seems as though it would be foolish for a teacher not to consider them. When it comes to grading, the six principles make a great deal of sense. I do not feel that all grades should be based on test scores and like the fact that principle one states that they should be based on learning goals and standards. I also like that it mentions that not everything should be included in grading, such as tests. If testing is going to be included in grading, I feel that it should be a very small percentage of the overall grade.

Kevin Lind
The main point of this chapter is to show the most effective ways of grading students. The chapter makes a good argument against the use of averages. As the chapter points out, it is important for students to have mastery over the content, it doesn’t matter when they achieve that mastery. This is an interesting idea since it allows students to learn at their own pace. The connection between grading and differentiated instruction is clear and I will use this idea when I am educating young minds.

Backward design also fits into this idea. Backward design essentially has to do with the overall understanding of the content, and differentiated instruction deals with treating students as individuals. The point is that students need different amounts of time to fully understand what they are learning. We can’t use one uniform plan for teaching and assessing every student. I plan on giving each and every one of my students the attention and time the each need to know what is required of them.

The idea of using assignments that aren’t graded is another idea that really sticks out in my mind. This is important because assignments like pre-assessments probably won’t show mastery of the content yet. Teachers need to keep this in mind when they are assigning homework at the beginning of the year. If something wasn’t covered in previous years, how can educators expect students to know the information? I will keep this in mind when I am coming up with assessments for my future students.

**Samy Tracy **
This chapter’s main focus was on how to grade properly and efficiently. I was surprised to learn that the way many teachers grade students is actually hurting them more than actually trying to aid them in their learning process. I did find it believable that many students who drop out or just quit trying are the ones who try and do not get good grades so they just start thinking they are stupid or school in general is. The authors both emphasize greatly that grading students should not be based solely on averages. There should be no grading on a curve because that just makes sure many students are competitive with one another, and nothing more. I also agree that students’ grades should not be assessed before they have even started to understand the material. Pre-assessments and formative assessments should not be graded, but merely a tool for figuring out where students are and as soon as they show improvement that is when the grades jump in. Another idea that really showed me how I could be a better teacher is reporting systems. Using reporting systems instead of just report cards can help parents and students know how their kids/they are doing before their final grade is reported. Especially when a student who has been struggling throughout the semester and then suddenly that light bulb moment happens and they finally get that. It should be rewarded and be made aware. It helps make students want to learn more and feel like they can actually do something rather than thinking they are stupid or the school system is stupid

Emily McGee
Tomlinson and McTighe describe the difficulties of grading in the differentiated classroom. They elaborate on the importance of grades being used to communicate feedback for students and parents that support the learning process and encourage success, rather than cause students to loose motivation. All grading should be based on clear learning goals and performance standards, thus a grade should show the degree of proficiency a student has acquired. All factors that interfere with the ability to grade students with fairness and validity should be eliminated, including averaging all grades and giving zeros on incomplete work. The authors accentuate the value of using a reporting system rather than a single number grade to evaluate student learning.

I really like the idea of assigning an “I” (for incomplete or insufficient evidence) to homework assignments that are not completed or turned in. I think it is a very good idea because just a couple zeros on assignments can be majorly detrimental to a student’s grade, and does not accurately evaluate their skills. I think incomplete work should be graded with work habits or class participation, but not as an evaluation of what a student knows or can do. I like the idea of grading for achievement of goals, progress toward goals, and work habits. I think it is a very fair and accurate way to evaluate student’s knowledge validly. I believe that a grade should be based purely on students learning of concepts and skills, and that incomplete work should fall under skills (ability to complete work in a deadline, etc) and not understanding of a concept.

Alyssa Amari
Chapter eight discusses the fact that grading is a difficult exercise for most teachers. Grading is especially difficult when teachers have to grade students in a differentiated classroom. To address this, Tomlinson MicTighe discuss the guiding principles of effective grading and reporting. The first guiding principle is that grades should be based on clearly specified learning goals and performance standards; if you establish a goal for your students to work towards, their grades should reflect their progress toward that goal. The next principle is that evidence used for grading should be valid; it is only valid if in relates to progress towards the desired results. Principle number three is that grading should not be based on established criteria, not the norms. Next, not everything should be included in grades, only the things that document student achievement and progress. Then, avoid grading based on mean averages, focus on achievement, and report other factors separately. The authors believe that there are three essential separate factors that should be reported; things like grades for achievement of goals, progress toward goals, and work habits.

This really spelt it out for me; I had always wondered if I was going to have to grade individually and differently for each person. This explained to me that I may have to look at different pieces of work when grading but I will be looking for achievement and evidence towards my desired unit goals. I think that this will help my students because it will allow them to perform and work in their own ways, but be graded equally.

Rachel Joiner
After reading this chapter I seemed to have gained more knowledge on how to grade, and the types of assessments I should use for my grades. This chapter provided me with a lot of information about grading that I was unaware of. I thought the book brought up an important point, when they said the primary goal of grading is to communicate with students and parents. I think this is very true and is something I would like to implement in my classroom. I would give periodic progress reports that must be sent home to the parents, so the student and parent can know how the child is doing throughout the semester. I really liked how the book mentions that students should not receive bad grades because they cannot speak English, or read the directions well. I think this is important to mention, because it is something that we would not think about as a teachers. This would have never occurred to me until I read it here. I somewhat disagree with the book when it says that grades reflect a mixture of factors. They say that grades should be only for measuring understanding. I understand this, but I believe that things such as effort, class participation, and attendance are important skills that students need to develop. By grading students on this, you are forcing them to do these things well for them to earn a good grade. I think that it is important to grade students on these things, because they are important skills to have. I however do agree when the book suggests grading these categories, but doing them separately. I think this could be an option that I could use in my classroom.

Mike Kahler
Chapter 8 is all about grading and reporting. The two steps to this are giving a student a letter grade, and also reporting this letter grade to both the student and their parents. This is a very important mater in the academic process. Giving a grade is a matter of meeting the standards that are set to constitute learning. A grade needs to be more than a letter though. It must represent a degree of proficiency. Grading needs to be dialed in to the standards that students are trying to meet. Other factors like putting a name on a paper should not affect a grade. It should e a measure of the best that a student can do, and their ability to reach a certain goal outlined at the beginning of a unit. A grade should not be measured against other students in a class. It should be a measure of a student’s personal proficiency in a subject. Although assessments give teachers data from which they derive a grade not all assessments should be included in a grade. For example pre assessments should never count. Grades should not be based on early week in a grading cycle either. They should be based on the overall achievement in that cycle. As a teacher I find this to be very important. Students should be graded on what they have learned at the end of a unit, not where they are in the middle of a unit. This is the ideal way to grade. Unfortunately one high stakes assignment is ineffective too. In my classroom all earlier assignments will have an opportunity for a rewrite later in the grading cycle so that students can show what they have truly learned and have a chance to sho off their growth over a period of time.

Morgan Ware
Chapter 8 talks about grading and different ways to record achievement. Teachers feel like they want to encourage students but feel the need to evaluate how well they do and act as judges. Grading can be viewed as a two part process, one is assigning symbolic letters or numbers at the end of a unit or quarter and two is reporting evaluation to students and parents. Teachers need to give their students ungraded formative assessments and pre-assessments before we grade them on their understanding of the material. A grade should represent a goal set by the teacher and students that had been accomplished. Grades should not be influenced by if the assignment looks pretty or if their name is on the paper. Teachers need to be working towards a J curve instead of a ball-shaped curve. This chapter also talks about the difference between assessment and grading. Assessment is gathering information about a student’s learning and achievement. Grading is the end evaluation of a student’s achievement. I was very surprised to see that the way we grade actually hinders students. I still agree with number and letter grades but maybe the process should change.

Patrick Hurley
Chapter 8 is all the ways to effectively grade your students. The book describes grading this way, “the primary goal of grading and reporting is to communicate to important audiences, such as students and parents, high-quality feedback to support the learning process and encourage learner success (129)” I like this explanation because I think it really hits the nail on the head, I agree with the statement wholeheartedly. The 6 Principles deal with proper evaluation and student evidence. The book says you shouldn’t grade all of the work. I agree with this because early in the semester the students are still trying to grasp the main ideas. Giving them bad grades discourages them from further investigating the content, so they never get a full understanding of the material. One other thing mentioned in the chapter was not lowering the grading level for struggling g students, you should adjust the assignment instead, that way it doesn’t affect everyone else’s grades. Grading is a big part of the teaching and I am going to be doing it constantly. I will have to be sure I grade things quickly and fairly. I also won’t grade a lot of the smaller assignments earlier in the lessons, to make sure everyone understands the material, then I will start to grade.

Matt Roy
Chapter 8 of Understanding by Design focuses primarily on effective grading. McTighe and Tomlinson argue that there are six principles to effective grading and describe them in detail. First, they apply the backwards design model that was discussed earlier in the book stating that effective grading should be based on clearly specified learning goals and standards, which would come naturally if stage one was followed correctly. Next, the second principle stated that what we base our grades off of needs to be pertinent to the material. For instance, the authors state that we should not deduct points for forgetting to put their name on the top or having poor penmanship as these factors have nothing to do with the material and thus give an inaccurate indicator of understanding. The third principle had to do with grading based on standards as opposed to grading against overall class achievement, thereby eliminating the idea of grading on a curve. The fourth principle focused on what should be included in grades, primarily establishing the fine line between assessment and grading (stating that assessments should rarely be included in grades). Principle five focused on avoiding averaging all assignments to reach a final grade. Finally, principle six stresses the need to focus grading on achievement and leave out the external issues such as participation and attitude that can become confusing and skew the actual grade. The idea of not grading on a curve was really interesting to me. Naturally, as a student, it has been nice to know that if the class as a whole doesn’t do well then we will most likely get a boost. The need to grade on a curve however, should be a red light to the teacher to re-evaluate their strategies as it is most likely them that needs to change something and not the students who just missed the mark.

Simone Thiry
The concepts of grading and reporting achievement are controversial within the educational community. The part of this chapter that stuck out at me the most was the principle of not grading based on (mean) averages. It makes sense that we would want to give students opportunities to make up work, and to redo it in order to demonstrate mastery. Despite believing wholeheartedly in those opportunities, I still had an idea of grading based on averages in my head. I doubt that I have ever had a class in which the teacher did not grade based on averages. Mathematically, it also makes sense to eliminate the process of recording zeroes, because (as anyone who has ever received a zero on an assignment knows) the zero averages in, dropping the overall average significantly. I hope to employ some method of standards-based grading in my future classroom that accurately assesses comprehension of the material without unfairly targeting students who performed poorly at the beginning of a unit. Another aspect of this chapter that directly relates to my future as an educator is reporting systems. While it is ideal to communicate understandings in terms of checklists, portfolios and rubrics, I acknowledge that I will probably spend some of my years teaching in a system that has it’s own system of grading based on letter/number grades with little space for feedback. My immediate instinct is to try to provide both: letter grades for the administration as well as a more comprehensive analysis for students and parents. I will continue to explore methods for marrying the two types of reporting systems, and as a teacher will advocate for amending the bureaucratic grading systems.