8.++Grading+&+Record+Keeping


 * Update Grading and Record Keeping Practices**

The purpose of grades is to communicate student achievement of specific learning goals over a period of time to students, parents, school administrators, post secondary institutions and possibly employers. “Why would anyone want to change current grading practices? The answer is quite simple: grades are so imprecise that they are almost meaningless” (Marzano, 2000, p.1).

“If you want to make just one change that would immediately reduce student failure rates, then the most effective place to start would be challenging prevailing grading practices” (Reeves, 2008, p.85).

It is important to ensure that the assessment tool used provides information that matches the intended purpose. Grades should provide teachers with information to inform instructional planning. It is very important then that grades need to be consistent, accurate, and meaningful and support learning by providing specific timely feedback (Marzano 2000, 2007; O’Conor, 2007). In most schools this is not the case. Grades and the interpretations they convey may differ significantly from classroom to classroom. It is important at this point to distinguish between the terms mark and grade. O’Connor (2007) defines a mark as “the number (or letter) given to any student test or performance that may contribute to the later determination of a grade” (p. 7). He defines a grade as “the symbol (number or letter) reported at the end of a period of time as a summary statement of student performance” (O’Konnor, 2007, p. 7). Grades are most often indicated on student report cards.

Consistency of grades may vary significantly from teacher to teacher. Students could be assigned very different grades for similar achievement levels. Grades become inaccurate if they reflect student behaviours rather than student achievement of targeted learning outcomes. Behaviours such as attendance, attitude, effort and participation should be reported separately from student achievement level. In order to be meaningful the content of grades needs to be identified specifically. This is accomplished by reporting student performance of the learning outcome rather than combining the scores on all assignments, quizzes and tests to determine the grade. In order for grades to support learning we have to begin to take the emphasis away from the grade itself and focus on the accomplishments and needs of the learner. (O,Connor, 2007).

O’Connor (2007) provides descriptive detail of fifteen suggested fixes for broken grades. These fifteen fixes are outlined in Table 2 (O’Connor, 2007, p.14-15). Table 2. The 15 Fixes

1. Don’t include student behaviors (effort, participation, adherence to class rules etc.) in grades; include only achievement. 2. Don’t reduce marks on “work” submitted late; provide support for the learner. 3. Don’t give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in higher level of achievement. 4. Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply the consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement. 5. Don’t consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately. 6. Don’t include group scores in grades, use only individual achievement evidence.
 * Fixes for Practices that Distort Achievement**

7. Don’t organize information for grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goals. 8. Don’t assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations. 9. Don’t assign grades based on student’s achievement compared to other students; compare each student’s performance to preset standards. 10. Don’t rely on evidence gathered using assessments that fail to meet standards of quality; rely only on quality assessments.
 * Fixes for Low-Quality or Poorly Organized Evidence**

11. Don’t rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment. 12. Don’t include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement or use “I” for Incomplete or Insufficient evidence.
 * Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculation**

13. Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence. 14. Don’t summarize evidence accumulated over time when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities; in those instances, emphasize more recent achievement. 15. Don’t leave students out of the grading process. Involve students; they can – and should- play key roles in assessment and grading that promote achievement.
 * Fixes to Support Learning**

Most of these fixes are straightforward while others require further exploration for understanding. The practice of not including zeros in calculating grades requires further explanation. There are some major problems associated with assigning zeros to student work that is missing or as a punishment for late work. A zero should indicate that a student has learned or is able to do nothing. This is seldom the case and therefore does not reflect accurately students’ level of achievement. A zero can cause students to give up or feel like they are no longer responsible for acquiring that knowledge or skill. The zero gives them permission to forget the learning goal that was targeted in the assignment. The use of zero in a grade further distorts the accuracy of the grade especially if scores are averaged to determine students’ final grades (Guskey, 2004; O’Connor, 2007). O’Connor (2007) indicated in his twelfth grading fix that zeros should not be used to determine grades when work is missing or as punishment. The alternative suggestion to assigning zeros is to indicate that the work is incomplete or students have shown insufficient evidence of learning to be assigned a grade. Then the school must ensure that they provide appropriate supports to the students to assist them in completing the work. Students cannot take the easy out and accept a zero. They must take responsibility and get the work finished.

“…the appropriate consequence for failing to complete an assignment is to require the student to complete the assignment….The price of freedom is proficiency, and students are motivated not by threats of failure but by the opportunity to earn greater freedom and discretion by completing work accurately and on time” ( Reeves, 2004).


 * Record Keeping**

Our gradebooks need to accurately report on the strategies that we are implementing in the assessment for learning classroom. This means we need to distinguish between formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments are those used to provide feedback to students and to inform instruction. They take place during the learning process and represent practice activities. It is therefore not valid to include these results as part of the summative grade unless they reflect student success on a regular basis. We need to reorganize our grade books to separate formative from summative assessments (O’Connor, 2007).

Traditionally we have reported student progress as a combination of scores on assignments, quizzes and tests. We listed these titles across the top of our grade books with students’ names along the side and corresponding scores in the appropriate columns. As we strive to clarify learning goals and report students achievement of these goals it makes sense that we need to reorganize our grade books by learning outcome rather than by assignments, quizzes and tests. Thus when we structure our assessments we must clarify the learning goal and ensure that the assessment matches our goal and that we can effectively record the results of the assessments.