FIAE+B2+Chapter+8


 * 1) Click on edit this page.
 * 2) Use the down arrow on your keyboard to get the cursor underneath the horizontal bar.
 * 3) Type your name, highlight your name and then select Heading 3 at the top.
 * 4) Copy and paste your reflection underneath your name.
 * 5) Insert a horizontal bar under your reflection.
 * 6) Click save

toc

Lauren Breton
Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? This chapter discussed, in great detail, different approaches to grading and the how those different approaches effect students and standards. While some teachers believe that it is necessary to only grade based upon student work and achievement towards mastering the content, while others believe that students should get credit for showing up to class everyday, participating, trying their best, and having a positive attitude. This chapter listed the pros and cons of both types of grading and offered some insight to help teachers make their decisions.

The text advocated limiting the impact that participation has on grades because participation does not necessarily mean that students have mastered the material. However, if students are given some input as to how to improve their participation or how they are doing and are acknowledged for their in-class contribution, participation can become more motivating. This seems like a practical and helpful solution to me, and it is something that I hope to incorporate into my classroom because I feel that all students can benefit from it. As far as grading effort and behavior, the text advises against doing so. Although I agree with the idea of affirming students work ethic publicly, I have am against not factoring effort and behavior into the grading equation. I agree that it should not be the main factor of a grade, because a hard work ethic says nothing about mastery of curriculum. However, I still think that students should be rewarded for trying their best and doing so with a positive attitude, since those skills will be important in the real world. The text also advocates not counting attendance as a factor in the grading equation, which I agree with. However, in my classes I think that attendance and participation will be linked and will make up a small percentage (10-15%) of the final grade. Since it is impossible to participate without attending, this makes sense to me and seems fair.

Alyssa Amari
In chapter eight of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal, Wormeli// discusses the conflict of what should be included in student grades/ assessments. Wormeli believes that things such as effort, attendance, participation, and behavior have high correlation with student success, but these things should not be included in the overall grades for a student. Participation is definitely helpful in assessing student achievement and understanding, but it is almost impossible to include it as part of a grade. Participation is almost never a part of the standards, except for subjects like drama. So it should not be graded because it is not directly linked to the standard. Some students complete an assignment five minutes before class, and others spend hours trying to complete it. However, if the information is accurate, and the student demonstrates an understanding of the subject matter then it is a perfectly legitimate grade. Also, it is extremely difficult to judge effort. Behavior is difficult to include in grades because if a student misbehaves but still demonstrates achievement and understanding toward the standard then they deserve a grade. I have had each of these aspects included in my all of my grades through out high school and college. If teachers truly understood effective and legitimate grading, would they leave these things out? I think that recognizing this will help me to better focus on my student’s achievement and progress rather then other non-standard based criteria. I think that my students will benefit from this because they will know that it is not the way the act or do not act, it is the way they show me their understandings and achievement.

Rachel Joiner
This chapter was all about how attendance, behavior, and effort should fit into grading. The book mentions that by giving students low grades, it pushes them from everything we are trying to accomplish. Low grades do not motivate students. I thought this was interesting, because I think it is defiantly true. If a student sees a low grade, they feel as if they failed and have no desire to keep working. As a teacher, I would like to be more conscientious of this, and maybe offer feedback to my students and allow them to improve their grade. I also thought it was helpful when the book explained that laziness in a student is not simply being lazy, there is usually something else going on in their lives. This is important information for me as a teacher to realize, because if I see this in my students then I need to work with them to figure out what is going on, and how we can deal with the situation. The book says that it may be a good idea for teachers to give feedback on participation, but not to include it in the final grade. I somewhat agree with this, because I think participation is an important skill students should learn, and I think it should it be counted towards the final grade in a small way. I agree with the idea of giving feedback about participation. I think this would be helpful to give feedback about a student’s participation along the way during a unit so students will have time to improve before the final grade. I think student’s grades should contain a small percentage for participation. As a teacher, participation to me does not always mean speaking out and voicing opinions, it can mean just simply being mentally present and thinking about the material. I found this chapter to be helpful on incorporating participation in grades.

Lauren Scheidegger
Chapter 8 of __Fair Isn’t Always Equal__ by Rick Wormeli is all about why teachers grade and how to grade effort, attendance, and behavior. As for why we grade Wormeli has it boiled down to six reasons. The reasons were listed as: keeping track of student and teacher progress, providing feedback, help with instructional decisions, and to motivate, punish, and sort students. The latter three clearly seem less helpful or commendable. Wormeli goes into saying how grading for the latter three reasons can dilute the grades as well as the grading process.

When talking about grading participation teachers need to be careful. Participation should only be graded if the participation shows the students mastery. If not, then grading based on participation does not make sense. Effort seems like something that is even more difficult to grade. How can one gauge how hard a student’s works? It becomes a very slippery slope. This chapter opened my eyes to the difficult world of grading. If a student works hard yet does not master the skills should they get a good grade? Is the fault in the teacher if the student really did try their best? There are a lot of concerns that come up when talking about grading and while the chapter made me aware and eased some of my worries I am still a bit unsure of how exactly grading should be done. I feel as though my time in the field watching my mentor teacher may help me feel a bit more prepared.

Megan Millette
In Chapter 8 of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//, Wormeli goes into a discussion about grading and the other aspects teachers need to consider when figuring out grades such as effort, attendance, and behavior. When grading students it is important to grade students based on mastery as well as academics; however, it is also important to incorporate grading on effort, attendance, and behavior. Most classrooms today look towards these aspects when grading, which can be motivating to students but then it takes away from the understanding of the basics and total mastery. As teachers, it would behoove us to give feedback to our students when it comes to participation, effort, and behavior. Yet it is important to have your students participating in class to help ensure their mastery. Therefore, it would be beneficial to make participations graded to encourage students to participate; however, it would be best if participation were only about 10% of grades because this way will not take away from academics. It is hard to do this for effort and behavior but if needed this could be added into the participation grade for students to encourage students to also do both of these as well. As a teacher, I have found that it is important to make sure that when grading my students I should keep work and academic grading on a different level and scale in comparison to behavior and participation. It would be beneficial to me to find a way to make sure it is added into the grading system because it is important to students as well as make sure it does not override actual academic grading.

Kevin Lind
This chapter summarizes the significance of grading on the education system and the effects of things other than academia on that system. Personally, I love the idea of using participation as part of the grade for students. It lets them know that even if they are attempting to understand the content, then they will get something in return. Also, participation is important for students to eventually master the content. If they don’t participate, it becomes that much harder to properly assess them.

The chapter also brings up a valid point in saying that attendance has an effect on the students’ grades. The more classes students miss, the less information they are able to learn from their instructors. This is why every teacher should continually stress the importance of attending class. In my syllabus, I made this point by subtracting 10% from the grade of an assignment for every day it is late. Things like this show students that it is harmful to their grades for them to continually miss class and ignore their teachers.

I find it interesting that some teachers only grade because it is required. I don’t think this is a fair statement to make. First, grades can be seen as important to some students as a way of receiving feedback. Teachers can’t honestly expect students to create ideal work without understanding what they have done wrong in the past. Also, grades can be used as motivation for students to improve on their work. Even though I probably won’t be shoving they significance of grades down the throats of my students, I still understand why they are necessary.

Mike Kahler
Chapter 8 discusses behavior, effort, and participation as a part of grading. The position taken in the book is against including these factors in grades because they do not actually show mastery of the material. When it comes down to it I have to agree with the author on this because we should be grading understanding f material instead of other factors like how hard a student is working on their assignments. It is unfair to grade students on these factors because it takes away from the meaning of the grade. A student with a complete mastery of a subject should not be marked down because they appear to be exhibiting very little effort. It is after all possible that the material is really easy for them and they don’t need to work hard on it. Sure these factors effect student success because they all lead to mastery, but for different students vary. Grading based on these factors is therefore unfair. This effects my classroom because I would never grade based on these factors. Not working hard enough will take away from a student’s grade because they will never fully master the material. It does not need to be an additional portion of the grade. That is not fair. I also do not believe that behavior is fair to grade because acting out from students means that you are not engaging your students. It is more your fault than theirs if you cannot teach well enough to engage your students. You cannot penalize them for that.

**Samy Tracy**
This chapter explains the reasons why teachers grade and how it can sometimes be useful, or hinder students. I completely agree that grades have gotten so generalized and so competitive that they have really lost their meaning of truly showing student progress and providing valuable feedback. Grades are just one letter, that does not give any sort of feedback whatsoever, it just shows that the teacher has assigned a grade (mostly on biased opinion really). Another factor that seems prevalent in many classrooms I have been in, is grading on participation. This always meant to me that you grade a student because they gave their opinion in class or showed up every day. But is that not what students are supposed to do? You should not have to grade them for doing what is already expected of them. It does not show their full mastery of content. If a student asks a question almost every two minutes in a math class, which is surely participating in my eyes, but it seems that they do not understand the content which is why they are asking so many questions. The participation grading is fuzzy and do not think I would use it in my classroom.

Another big topic is grading based on effort. That is hard because I remember if I put a lot of effort into a project but got a bad grade I would be really frustrated. A lot of the times though, students effort bypasses the fact if they had actually shown they fully understood the subject. It seems unfair to not grade based on effort, but it also seems logical. The chapter explains that in the real world, you might try your hardest to do something right, but it just does not work out for you and that is a tough lesson to learn, but it will happen. Having students accept it early might lead them on a better path later down the road.

Emily McGee
Wormeli describes how grades can either hinder or motivate a student. I think it is a very valid point. If a student works really hard on something just to receive a low grade on it, they may really lose motivation for the subject because they feel like a failure. Wormeli describes how our system has put so much emphasis and weight on a single number or letter, when really a students learning is so much greater than that and should be graded as such. He notes the injustice of averaging zeros because of how it negatively impacts the grade, but does not show level of mastery.

Morgan Ware
Chapter 8 talks about what the bigger picture is on grading and other methods we can use to grade students on their achievement through how much effort they put into their work, if they show up to class, and how they act during class. Grading can seem overwhelming and tedious but I think that it is a necessary part of the learning process. As suggested in many chapter of this book, not everything needs or should be graded. Formative assessments and homework are examples of forms of assessment that should not be graded. Instead teachers should possibly count it as part of the participation grade and give feedback on how the students are mastering the content. Teachers grade students to document their progress as well as the teacher’s progress, to provide feedback to the student, parents, and teacher, and to inform instructional decisions. (Page 102) Also teachers grade students to motivate, to punish, and to sort them. (Page 102) The topic that most stood out to me as a future teacher is grading participation. I believe that homework grades should be part of participation, not a separate grade because homework is an attempt to master the material. A student should not be penalized for not fully understanding material that was just given to them.

T.J. Hebert
Most teachers say they grade students because they are required to and view it as a negative function. Sifting through stacks and stacks of paper is rarely enjoyable, especially when they must grade in a strictly consistent matter and always be fair. When teachers sit back and truly think about why they grade, six primary reasons were developed: to document student and teacher progress, to provide feedback to the student, family, and the teacher, to inform instructional decisions, to motivate, punish, and sort students. The first three reasons have been deemed as the most useful as they best fit the promises of schooling. The chapter makes a very strong point when it says that giving a low grade to a student, such as on a paper, does not motivate that student to study harder and do a better job next time, it actually pushes them away from the curriculum and makes it very difficult to get them back. Giving high grades are also not motivating to a student, if a student receives an “A” on an assignment, it provides extrinsic value and only lasts for a short period of time. I like the idea of incorporating effort and class participation into the overall grade, however; dislike using attendance and behavior as part of the grade. Attendance and behavior does not show any level of mastery of a topic. Class participation and effort does not tell much about mastery either, however; I feel that if a student is actively participating and putting forth strong effort and still not doing well, the instruction or curriculum needs to be evaluated. This is where a teacher can start to tier for students in order to better suit their learning abilities. It will have a much greater benefit to the student then giving them a poor grade and sending them on their way.

Patrick Hurley
This chapter is all about non-student product grading, meaning attendance, participation, etc. The author believes these grades have nothing to do with the mastery of the subject. They believe these grades skew the overall grade, diluting the real significance of the grade. Using this kind of grading needs to be watched, kept in order. You can’t solely grade someone on their behavior in class. The use of these types of grades is really frowned upon by the author. They don’t even think a slight amount of this type of grade should be included because it skews the grade. I agree with this chapter to an extent. These grades do dilute the students grade, it is like saying good job you were a nice kid here are some points. Students should have to show a mastery of the subject to earn their grades. That’s what school is for right? I do think there should be a slight portion of the overall grade (5% or so) that is for attendance and behavior, otherwise students won’t care about attendance or how they behave because there is no reason to pay attention to either of those things.

Simone Thiry
The majority of my courses, this course included, utilize attendance and/or participation as a component of the course grade. This chapter argues that while there is a place for addressing those issues in the classroom, it should not come from the gradebook. According to the text, grades should reflect mastery of material, after all, it would not be fair to hold a student who had mastered material back because they did not attend classes; they would still be prepared for the subsequent course. I had honestly never thought much about the inclusion of attendance, effort, and participation in grades, though I did find my high school’s attendance policy of dropping grades after a set number of unexcused absences to be absurd. As a result of reading this chapter, I am convinced that attendance and effort (because it is nearly impossible to measure, and gets in the way of measuring mastery) should not and will not make an appearance in my gradebook. Participation is more difficult, and I am inclined to agree with the author of the sidebar on page 105… there are many cases where it is necessary to grade participation, what is important is making sure that the participation grade is not weighted heavily enough that students who have demonstrated mastery would be held back because of lacking participation, or that students with active participation would be advanced due primarily to participation regardless of mastery. I suppose that for my future gradebook I will include some measure of participation, though content and mastery will be the primary focus.

Matt Roy
In chapter 8 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, Wormelli focuses on the always important issue of grading. Similar to chapter 8 of Understanding by Design, Wormelli spends this chapter developing arguments for what should be included in grading. As established in Understanding by Design, there is an extremely fine line between what should and should not be graded and it is often left up to the teacher to determine where that fine line falls. Most teachers are in agreement as to the large items that should and should not be graded. For instance, exams and quizzes are among thing that must be graded, while pre-assessments are more of a tool for our understanding and should be left ungraded. Enter the issues of classroom participation and effort. As Wormelli explains, some teachers find that students should be graded on these aspects as they are important parts of the overall experience. On the other hand, some teachers feel that these things should remain ungraded as they ultimately do not provide an accurate indicator of understanding. This argument is one that will continue to rage for the foreseeable future as there is no simple answer (right or wrong). The issue ultimately becomes one of personal belief. I feel that classroom participation and effort are all very important to the overall learning experience but I am more inclined to side with the views presented in Understanding by Design in that these things have nothing to do with indicating overall understanding. And, because grades are supposed to be an indicator of overall understanding of the given material, it should not be influenced by factors that do not indicate understanding.