FIAE+B2+Chapter+8

Chapter 8 Synthesis by Jenn Baum
Why do we grade and should grades be excluded to assessments, or should participation and effort also be included? This is the question that was assessed in chapter 8 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal. Grading should be used to provide feedback and document a student’s progress and achievement of mastery, not to sort, punish, or motivate students. The authors of this book chose the approach of not including and effort in the final grade, but using it as a way to provide students with feedback and time for reflection. When educators include these other factors into a student’s final grade, it skews the information sent home to students and their families because it does not accurately reflect a student’s mastery of the material. Some educators, however, use grading participation, attendance, behavior, and effort as a tool to motivate, sort, or punish students. Negatively impacting a student’s grade like this actually pushes students further away from achieving the skills and mastery that is expected. If these extra factors are included in the final grade, it is recommended that the amount not exceed 10% of the final grade. When figuring out ways to assess your own students, consider how you will [|include participation] and effort and in what ways you can encourage intrinsic motivation for success that will translate into success later in a student’s life.
 * Abstract: **

After reading all of the reactions to this chapter, there were several of us who were split about whether or not to include participation into grading our classes. Some of us had experiences in school where we did not verbally participate, but still did fine, so it would have been unfair to mark us down. Others of us believe that [|participation] should definitely be included because it would actually benefit us with both our learning and grades. We all seemed to agree that grading and participation should not be used to punish, sort, or motivate students. Most of us also agreed that in order to accurately reflect our student’s level of mastery, we should not weigh participation heavily into the final grade. We actually hurt students by letting them slide through classes without actually learning the material, so it is important for us as educators to make sure that they master the material in order to be successful later on. It is also important to us that students learn to recognize and accept responsibilities and be able to cooperate with others, so we all feel like it would be beneficial to provide feedback and/or to grade to some small percentage on participation.
 *  Synthesis: **

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Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? When we grade students in order to motivate, punish or to sort them we are no longer solely looking at mastery when giving a grade. If grades include effort, attendance and behavior then it may not be accurate when discussing academics. It may be more appropriate, as a teacher, to give feedback on participation and not necessarily grade it. We want students to mater concepts and by facilitating participation and letting students try out their skills we can achieve this but it may not be very effective to grade students when they are testing these skills. There comes times though when participation has to be included in grades, perhaps it is because the district requires it to be, but as teachers we can limit participation to 10% of the over all grade. This will give us a chance to incorporate it into the grade while not distorting the academics. It is not to say that effort and behavior should not be graded or expected of our students, it is just hard to find a way to objectively grade such parameters. As a teacher, it is crucial that I try to keep behaviors from actual academics. Instead of putting it into my grade I should take advantage of the comment sections of report cards or advocate for a system where the grading and reflection of academics and work behaviors are separated.

Bri Douglass
This chapter is very similar to the one we read in __Multiple Intelligence__ it talks about how not grading participation, effort or other factors. Grades should only be a reflection of the mastery of the material. At first I couldn’t imagine such a thing, I had never experienced a class like that in high school. As I read about it some of the information made sense but I also think that this is teaching students that participation, effort, coming to class on time, etc is important which I most certainly think it is. In life just knowing the right answer isn’t always helpful, working with others and be able to be responsible are important qualities. But I also understand what they are trying to say. I believe I am on the fence about this. I am not totally sure I want to use this in my classroom but I also get the importance of some of the points they make in the book.

Charli Sayward
Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? This chapter discusses more in depth what exactly grades are and what their purpose should be. Grades are meant to show a student’s mastery; however, there are certain factors that can muddle an accurate representation of this. Three factors include effort, attendance, and behavior. Although many subjects are heavily based on participation, grading on participation does not reflect mastery. Instead, teachers should be evaluating what understandings a student shows while participating. Although I believe effort, attendance, and behavior are important and greatly affect a student’s success, they should not be a direct factor in a grade. As a student myself, I have always been good about attending class and asking plenty of questions if I didn’t understand something. My work habits have shown through my good grades. If students put forth effort, show up to class, and show good behavior, they will be better off than if they didn’t do these things. Their grade will reflect these good work habits, but the grade shouldn’t be based on these habits. As a math teacher, I probably wouldn’t grade participation because students will be graded on projects instead. If they participate with their groups and collaborate well together, their grade will be able to reflect that. If they choose not to put forth any effort their grade will reflect this too.

Jenn Baum
Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? This chapter discussed some of the problems that arise when teachers assess students based on participation, attendance, and behavior. When educators include these other factors into a student’s final grade, it skews the information sent home to students and their families because it does not accurately reflect a student’s mastery of the material. If extra participation is necessary for gaining skills needed to achieve mastery, then it only makes sense to include it in assessment. Some educators, however, use grading participation, attendance, behavior, and effort as a tool to motivate, sort, or punish students. Negatively impacting a student’s grade actually pushes students further away from achieving the skills and mastery that is expected. As a teacher, I hope to use participation as a way to encourage students to gain a deeper understanding, but not to ever grade them down. As a student, I am an observant learner so I don’t always talk a lot in class, but it is not because I am not thinking and coming prepared, so it would not be fair to give me a lower participation grade even if I master the desired skills and understandings. As a teacher, I will aim to include participation in assessment, but keep it separate from the actual grade and will use it only to help a student, but never to punish them.

Justin Stewart
Chapter eight was very similar to one of the chapters in Multiple Intelligences, which talked about grading participation, attendance and behavior. When teachers grade students on these tools, it tends to skew a student’s grades and may cause students to turn away from the material that is being taught. I remember when I was in school; I had my days where I didn’t talk at all because I simply didn’t feel like talking. There were classes that I felt uncomfortable in because I knew that if I didn’t contribute to the class, and then my grade would go down. I feel this unfair and students may not learn by demonstrating their knowledge to the class. In order to portray a clear demonstration of a students mastery of a subject, I will not grade students on their participation, attendance or behavior unless directed so by the school or the school district.

Ryan Pelletier
This chapter goes more in depth with grading. Should a student be graded on participation, attendance, and effort? This chapter talks about how they should not be graded. Instead, you should grade your students on their mastery of the material as they are working. I believe that we should grade students on their mastery. If they were able to master the material, they would have had to participate and apply effort no matter what, as long as you are teaching your students correctly. If I notice that a student is not participating or trying I will self assess my teaching, and provide them with feedback that would help improve their own grade.

Kelly Steinhagen
This chapter taught me ways to assess attendance, effort and behavior without necessarily having to grade them. Those three aspects do not necessarily reflect academics which can make grades inaccurate. Instead, these should be documented and discussed with the student to show how they act towards class. I personally really like this concept because I always got the worst participation grades in school except for when teachers counted attending class and accomplishing work on time. This chapter gave me ideas as to how to avoid this which I want to do for my future students. I want students to be graded solely on their academics and understandings so that school does not seem like a complicated mess of tasks, motivation, and punishments.

Megan Wallace
I learned about the difficulty in grading things not based on mastery. When on starts to grade for attendance and behavior, the grade no longer objectively shows how the student is doing academically. I not thought about that in this light. I always thought it was important to give a student credit for showing up and participating in the class. I can see where some bias might come into play. As a teacher I don’t think that I can give up giving point for participation and things of that nature. I may try and keep those points a small part of the overall grade but I think I will still give grades for them. In life having the right answer isn’t enough if you don’t show up and/or share the answer with others.

Taylor Kemp
This chapter talks about what to grade while grading. A grade should be a measure of how much they know from what was taught. Also this chapter discusses and whether grades are always necessary. Sometimes they are not. When teachers are using grades, the book stated that the main reasons for grading were 1) Show progress, 2) Give feedback, and 3) "To inform instructional decision" as well as motivate, punish, and sort students. The first three are reasons why grading should take place. Where the last three are not. Grading for those three reasons are essentially pointless and should not be done. This will impact my classroom because i will make sure that when i am grading something, I will know the reasons and make sure they are the right ones.

Alyssa Wadsworth
“…most teachers see grading as a ‘necessary evil’ rather than a positive function” (page 102). It is not just students who see grading as an in the way part of school. The first real epiphany I had while reading this chapter was while reading the part about how receiving a poor grade distances students from the subject, how getting poor grades does not motivate the student to do better. I realized that it is so true. This impacts me so profoundly because I will better be able to help my students relate to the subject if I can build an “emotional bridge” between them and the subject before I truly have to. This will help my students to be more motivated to get good grades.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Eight: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior?// What I really got out of this chapter was about how to grade effort, behavior, and attendance. I think the quote from a chemistry teacher really puts it into perspective, "One of life's tough lessons is trying hard and failing. It does no kid anywhere any good to give grades based on trying hard or behaving nicely because sooner or later they hit the wall of not having the knowledge the grade implied." (p. 109). Grades should reflect mastery, and participation should not take away from the overall grade. Grades should be accurate. It is possible to incorporate participation into the overall class grade by limiting it to 10% and this way it won't distort the academic part of the grade. This impacted me because I've always had teachers who put a lot of emphasis on the idea that if you participate in class and do it well, you'll be fine and receive a good grade. So you don't necessarily have to understand what's going on. In my classroom, participation and effort will be given some small grade, because I do think it's important for students to be active in the classroom. However, the participation and effort should reflect a student's mastery of the material.

Kaitlyn Haase
“Most teachers say that they grade students because they are required to do so” (pg. 102). In this chapter I learned about six reasons for grading: 1. To develop student and teacher progress, 2. To provide feedback to the student and family, and the teacher, 3. To inform instructional decisions, 4. To motivate students, 5. To punish students, 6. To sort students. I agree with the author in saying that 1-3 are the most useful and worthy. I also learned in this chapter about grading participation and effort. Both are not quantifiable on any particular scale so it is hard to determine those grades for students. For participation grades in my classroom, I will be sure to give students opportunities to participate without having to talk aloud in class (some students are introverted and shouldn’t be punished for that).

Darcie Simmons
This chapter discusses just why it is that we grade, and the other factors that always seem to be put into final grades, which are essentially really hard to justifiably put into a final grade. Grading is there to be able to gauge the student’s mastery. Therefore, it is hard to be able to incorporate behavior, attendance, and effort into an academic grade. What I learned from this chapter was that participation should never really be involved in an academic grade, unless you know of a special situation where the student is unable to provide the outside work, but they really excel in the classroom to make up for it. Effort and behavior are really tricky when it comes to putting them into the final academic grade. In the book it says, “if we incorporate behavior into the grade, we run afoul of our intent to keep grades as accurate indicators of mastery” (104). This goes to show that if we stay true to grading based on mastery, behavior is not something that involves mastering the content.

Matt Towle
This chapter talked about different ways in which grading should be used in the classroom. The main point the author's were making is that grades should represent mastery and understanding of the essential ideas, not participation, effort or behavior. This is very different from how many of my high school teachers used grading. Although participation, effort and behavior should be taken into account when grading, they should only count as a small percentage of the overall mastery grade. This will affect me in my classroom because I will want to make grades (a "necessary evil" as some refer to them) as representative of students' understanding as possible. Although I do believe that participation, effort and behavior should be taken into account in some way, I will have to find a way to ensure that mastery will be weighted a great degree more than the rest.

Lyzz Stevenson
Chapter 8: This chapter continues to talk about grading. Not necessarily the actually letter or number grade but what is being graded. In the book, grading a student’s participation, attendance and effort is not supported. Students should be grades should focus on the mastery of the subject. I think that this is important because mastery of the subject is the goal of teaching a student. If a student has mastered the material then they have put some effort into the subject.

Erin
Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade? goes into a deeper explanation as to why we grade, and how exactly does effort, attendance, and behavior factor into the grading process. I learned that the number one reason as to why most teachers grade assignments and assessments is because they say that it is required of them to provide evidence of learning. Those teachers think that this may be the only way to achieve that task. I learned that grading should not be used to motivate, punish, or categories students. What really impacted me in this chapter was the topic of grading participation. Throughout my high school schooling, I was always graded on participation no matter which subject. However in this chapter it was discussed that participation may not be graded all the time. When student are asked to participate in order to arrive at the final product then it should not be graded, however, if participating in an activity is the way to show mastery then it should be graded. I want students to participate because they are interested in the topic, not because they want to receive points on their grade.

Olivia
Chapter eight discussed the importance of grading on mastery, but also being aware of the importance of a students effort, attendance and behavior in the classroom. When I was in high school, I remember in my Latin class my teacher standing in front of us after a vocab quiz saying that our class cared too much about grades. It was true, we just memorized the words and by the next quiz, we didn't remember the definitions. I remember in Latin we had a split class (we would leave to get lunch half way through) and there were some students who would show up late and it would disrupt our teacher. I wish that we had been graded on our effort, attendance and behavior because I worked hard in that class and I know others did not, and Latin did not come easy to me. When I become a teacher, I will make sure that my students understand the material that I teach, but also I want my students to be responsible for how they behave in my classroom.