FIAE+B1+Chapter+8




 * Abstract and Synthesis: by Erika Tingley**

For most teachers grading is a necessary evil, and not something that they want to do or enjoy doing. There can be many detrimental affects to students based on both high and low grades and grading is never an exact science. Whether to include participation, effort, or behavior in the grading of students is an ongoing debate between teachers. Teachers need to make a decision about what they will include in their grading and how they will fairly grade them.
 * Abstract**

In the 8th chapter to Fair Isn't Always Equal the debate is presented as to why teachers grade students. The reasons that are given can be beneficial or detrimental to students depending on the attitude and purpose that the teacher has. Regardless, the book gives clear reasons why giving grades as a motivation to students is not helpful to the students and often leads to students settling for the grades they already get. The chapter also addresses whether participation, effort, and behavior should be included in students grades. Teachers are encouraged not to include these subjective indicators in grades as they don't have anything to do with the students' mastery of the information. However, many of the responses that have been given to this chapter have been to the effect that [|participation], [|effort], and [|behavior] are important components in a classroom and should have a place in grading. Most of us have said that it should be a separate grade from the academic grade, but it should be there in some form nonetheless. It is agreed that these are subjective and that grading them in the academic grade might indicate something other than what they are trying to accomplish with this information, however, they are considered a critical part of the students growth nonetheless. Some do not think that participation, effort, or behavior should be graded at all, but most felt that these were important things to discuss and encourage among the students that we teach. toc
 * Synthesis**

Erika Tingley
This chapter focuses on one intrinsic and two extrinsic qualities of students that should not be graded. The author does not believe attendance, effort, or behavior should be graded because they are not objective and they do not indicate mastery. One of the points that was made that I found useful was the idea that students should be given the tools needed to meet the expectations teachers set for them. The chapter emphasizes that just clearly presenting what is required of students will be of no benefit to them if they don’t have the appropriate processing time and are not given effective feedback. As a teacher, it will be important for me to make sure that I am regularly checking up on my students and ensuring they understand what I am teaching them.

Tim Grivois
As someone who disagrees with many of the aspects in the grading process, this chapter was helpful in understanding the evolution of the process into an institution, but did not completely alleviate my concerns. It did however offer good perspective and insight. Grading should always come from a place of good intentions; if ever I find myself grading to sort between students, or to punish and motivate, I should take a step back and look at why I am running my classroom the way I am. Having witnessed techniques like that in my past, I am wary of accidentally going down a similar path, because it is unfair to students. The concept of participation is difficult as well; where can the line be drawn with students who participate heavily in active learning but do not engage in other types of work, or with students who are very bright and complete outside tasks but do not participate in class? Using a system wherein participation can be the small push over a grade barrier can be effective, but I do not know if it is necessarily the moral choice. As far as late work is concerned, I am so much a proponent of tries and retries; grades to me should show mastery, and will reflect it if it has been earned, regardless of how many times it took.

Josh
This chapter looks into other areas that could impact a student’s grade. The idea behind the grading system is to rate the mastery of the material, not to include things like participation, attendance or behavior. That is where I think the school system is starting to fail society. Students are becoming less and less responsible for their actions. No one is holding the children to any standards, other than those on a standardized test or a letter grade in class. In my class there will be an “Act like an Adult” grade. I think coming to class prepared, not disrupting your classmates, and being willing to try are small things to ask of students that should contribute to an overall grade. With so many students not finishing high school and of the ones that do finish few are continuing on to college, it is important to expect the students to act like adults in high school. I do not believe you have to go to college to be successful in life, but I feel strongly that you must be able to act like a functioning member of society. Teachers can be key players in shaping the students into adults.

Olivia Wandelear
My high school had one of those “five absences and you’re out and automatically receive an F” policies. I never agreed with this, because so many students were failing for absolutely no reason. Many students had issues and home and wouldn’t show up to school because they were taking care of their siblings, or their parents refused to give them a ride, and they would’ve had to walk a little over a mile to school. Hardly anyone ever bothered to ask these kids //why// they were absent; they just gave them the F and moved on. It didn’t matter if the student mastered the content while they were actually in the classroom, and understood the material really well; they would still receive an F as their overall grade. I find this very wrong, and although I most certainly agree that students need to learn responsibility and maturity, especially in high school, I agree with this chapter in saying that behavior and attendance should be a completely separate “grades” on the report card, complete with detailed feedback on how these issues can be resolved or worked around in order for the student to be successful. It’s no mystery or injustice that people who do not show up to work will get fired. It is also very true that if we just completely threw attendance and behavior out the window in the school years, that we would be teaching kids that it’s excusable not to show up to work, because there is no consequence. However, if we address these issues in the classroom, through discussions, meetings, and feedback, we can figure out a way to ensure student success both in and out of the classroom, and success in their futures.

Kasey Darnell
In this chapter, the author discussed why behavior, attendance, and effort should not be included in a student's grade. This was somewhat surprising to me, because these areas have been assessed throughout my entire school career. There was always a section on our report cards for effort, attendance,and behavior, so this seemed like a normal thing to me until I read this chapter.The author makes a point that it is difficult to quantify these types of things, they are not objective, and it does not indicate a students' mastery of the content. I do think there is a place for this type of assessment though. Students should be held responsible for their behavior,attendance,and recognized for their effort. I agree that these qualities are not indicative of mastery, so I am not sure how I will incorporate that into my classroom. I wouldn't want to completely ignore behavior, attendance,and effort, because I think they are important even though there are not a state/national standards for it.

Andy Shorey
Chapter eight of fair isn't always equal discusses more grading issues that come up in the classroom. The things that it specifically brings up is how to grade things like effort and participation. It is important for students to feel as though they need to work hard but it is not beneficial for teachers to raise their grade just because they work hard. However it should be taken into account that behavior and participation ultimately do help the student to earn a final grade. It is really hard as a teacher to objectively grade participation behavior and effort and translate that into a grade. However I think it would be beneficial to talk to the students if you as the teacher feel like they could give more effort and earn a better grade. I like the point that the book makes about how if you try your hardest and fail you should not give them a higher grade because if you were in a place of work you might put in your best effort and fail and get fired. I think however it would help the student if you allowed a student who put in a lot of effort to give whatever they did poorly on another shot.

Courtney Burns
This chapter begins by discussing reasons that teachers grade. Many believe it serves to document progress, to provide feedback, to inform instructional decisions, to motivate, punish and sort students. The top three may be perfectly acceptable reasons for they lend themselves to getting students to achieve mastery in the subject, the bottom three reasons, while commonly used by teachers, are not acceptable and should be avoided. As a teacher it is important to remember that low grades do not motivate students to strive for excellence, in fact it does quite the opposite. The same can be said for high grades, where a student who receives a high score is only motivated until they receive their next grade which if lower is put down and if higher, is viewed as a common occurrence and no big deal. Finally the chapter brings to light a decision I will have to make as a teacher, should participation, effort and behavior be included in students grades? The author believes there are both benefits and disadvantages to this inclusion and mentions that if teachers do decide to include these criteria into the grade it should be worth no more than 10 percent of the total grade. Limiting these criteria to 10 percent a distortion of student’s grade is prevented.

Heath
Grades should be used to document and measure the progress of both the learning and the teaching. When teachers use other factors such as attendance or participation they cloud the feedback they are providing of mastery. A common trap for teachers is to see grades as tool for motivation. Students are often pushed away from the student/teacher bond making success even more difficult. All through our schooling, including our current education classes, there has always been a section for attendance or participation. I think that teachers are tasked with so many lessons outside of just the curriculum it is difficult not to tally it all together. A good teacher who has build the bonds necessary to reach their students should be able to grade the mastery and have strategies ready to provide the feedback necessary to address the lessons that extend beyond the curriculum.

Dylan Stefani
When teachers say that they grade because the school asks them to, how does this show much knowledge about the point of grading in the first place. I personally don’t want someone grading me who just does it because they are asked. Grading is a long and “tedious” task that teachers have to do. Why is a teacher not able to say that a student has passed the class because they demonstrate mastery of the subjects talked about in class? Grades confuse students to the point that the student worries about the grade more then the assignments or class itself. They are looking for an A on something rather then more knowledge coming out of a class. When this happens, how to teachers go about fixing the problem? They grade that too! Chapter eight says that participation, effort, and behavior can benefit a class because they are valued ethics, but can in retrospect hurt a class because you grade to much on these three aspects. Finally, I think that grading will be easier when pigs start to fly, but that’s my opinion. = =

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Caitlin Alexander
This chapter deals with grading participation and behavior in the classroom. These two subjects seem the most difficult to grade in some ways to me, because they are subjective matters. Do you just give a student a grade for showing up to class and call it participation? Do you give them an “A” for simply offering up a one word answer once every class? Or does participation include a thought provoking question, or conversation with the class. It is difficult to say, and often times a specific level of participation might not be achieveable by some students in the classroom, because of shyness or other issues. Standards must be set, but will those standards include all of the students, or will they exclude some of them? To me, behavior is just as bad. Do we simply grade our students by marking how many times they were “disruptive” in class? Do we give them good behavior marks because they didn’t swear or get into conflicts with other students? It all seems too opinion based to be graded as though it were a test.

Shila Cook
This chapter was about how teachers feel about grading which are: document student and teacher progress, provide feedback, inform instructional decisions, motivate students, punish students, sort students. It also goes over how to grade participation. It is suggested that it should be given feedback on, but to not include it in the final formal grade. The problem with this they explain is the fact that some student express themselves better verbally, so maybe one students participation grade is really high, they answer every question, always have their hands raised everything. The same student fails every written quiz, but if his teacher asks him the same questions verbally he gets them all correct. If we don't include participation in the final grade then this student is not being represented correctly. I intent to include participation into my final grade.

Ben Villeneuve
Chapter eight of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// continues to talk about grading, and gets a bit more specific about it. It makes the excellent point that grades can sometimes be detrimental to a student’s learning. I can think of quite a few students I went to school with who saw a bad grade as an indicator that they themselves were subpar. It can be difficult for a student to see the grade as an assessment of the work, rather than an assessment of them as a person. In addition, the chapter talks about grading participation, attendance, and behavior. It seems to suggest that there is a balance to be struck there, and that (as with so many other things in education) the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.”

Kay Sue Collins
===In this chapter I was struck mostly by the debate about how much emphasis participation should be given in assigning grades. It seems that there are no easy answers. There are good arguments for both sides of the issue. One thing that the book didn’t mention was the fact that for many students school is a mandatory experience and they are just trying to get through without getting an F so the can get out of there faster. Learning for its own sake is not in the equation. Regardless of how prepared a dynamic a teacher is, if a student doesn’t want to participate, they won’t listen. I think that a participation grade recorded separately from the academic grade may provide the impetus a student needs to become more engaged in the learning process this make it possible to teach them more and more accurately assess their mastery. I also propose breaking it down into specific categories, rather than just assigning a 1, 2, or 3 to the effort or participation category. This would provide more specific information to parents and the students to understand the causes for the grade. These categories could include: homework completion, engaged learning, and organization.

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Tyler Brookings
This chapter carried over from chapter 7 in keeping with the grades. However, this chapter goes into grading students participation, and behavior. It also suggests that teachers should always grade students for hard work and a good outcome of the assignment, but it also suggests that teachers should not grade students on working hard. I can tell this will definitely be an issue when I am in the field, however, I will encourage each of my students that hard work and good work will result from working hard. working hard and coming up with a complete project does not however show mastery of subject.

Kyle Rines
I was interviewed for a coaching position once upon a time, and one of the questions that still sticks with me today is "How will you evaluate your players?" (based on if they will make the team or not). This was one of the hardest questions to answer, but I still believe in the answer I gave them back then. I said that I will evaluate my players by effort, willingness to learn and be there, and love for the game. I believe that these translate perfectly right back to the classroom. If students give a great effort, but maybe don't get the best grades in assessment, they should be given high marks for effort. If a student wants to learn and puts forth great effort to see that they do understand material, albeit at a lower pace, then they should receive high marks. Lastly, if a student loves to come to class and is good while in class and is attentive, they should receive high marks. These three things are slowly drifting away from education and society today. Everything is tests and assessments.. what happened to heart and effort?

Dan Horne
This chapter is a carry over from chapter 7 in that it talks about grading but in a different concept, student participation. This chapter talks about how you have to grade your students on how hard they work and the quality of the work they create. I believe it is pretty easy to see if students are trying hard and want to be there, and care about their work and grades. The end product is also not the only thing that counts, if one of my students if working very hard and I can see that and if when they turn in their assignment I will use that as a weight on the overall grade. The process is just as important for learning as the final product.