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Education Dive
No zeroes, accepting late work among recent
shifts in teachers' grading practices
Linda Jacobson
April 22, 2019
A new study of a professional development effort in two high schools
shows teachers are reluctant to change some of their long-held beliefs
about evaluating student work.
Allowing teachers to try new grading procedures in a low-stakes setting
and taking a whole-school approach are among the lessons highlighted in
a new paper on efforts to change how teachers assess student work.
Focusing on the year-long implementation of a model that the
researchers call Elevate, the study provides a window into teachers’
beliefs about grading, as well as the lack of formal preparation they
have in this area, the authors write.
“Many teacher educators expect that the schools that hire their
students will teach the novices how to grade, or they say they do not
have time to cover that topic,” write Brad Olsen of the University of
California Santa Cruz and Rebecca Buchanan of the University of Maine.
“But public secondary schools rarely have standardized, articulable
philosophies of grading or provide induction on the topic.”
The paper also delves into teachers’ reactions when someone challenges
practices that have been firmly in place since they went to school —
such as reducing a student’s grade for cheating or copying someone
else’s work.
“I’m not willing to bend on that one,” a teacher at one of the two high
schools in the study said. “Academic dishonesty is worthy of
punishment.”
Elevate’s overarching principle is that the sole purpose of grading is
to communicate a student’s mastery of academic skills. That meant
giving up other traditional approaches, such as lowering a grade for
late work, adding points for extra credit, and giving zeroes for
missing assignments.
These principles reflect many of the policy shifts related to grading
that schools and districts are already implementing. These changes,
however, can be difficult adjustments for teachers and often don’t make
sense to parents.
In the Park City School District in Utah, for example, parents and
school board members are both voicing frustration over a new
standards-based grading policy, which assesses students’ mastery of
specific knowledge and skills, often using a one-to-four scale. And in
a Florida district last year, a teacher said she was fired for not
complying with a no-zeroes policy.
Back and forth over testing, grading
Based on interviews with a sample of 15 teachers, two principals and a
professional development (PD) provider — Olsen’s and Buchanan’s study
comes as other researchers are taking a closer look at the role of
class assignments, homework and grading policies in creating more
equitable learning experiences for students.
In addition, there are increasing calls among researchers to measure
student success through much more than just test scores, but Olsen said
in an email that “the back and forth among standardized testing,
holistic classroom assessment and teachers' grading practices is
nothing new."
Joe Feldman, an education consultant and former school and district
administrator, added in an email that most teachers have not had
opportunities to examine or improve their grading practices.
Read the article here
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