FIAE+B2+Chapter+8

toc

[|Synthesis-Marcy]
Teachers are busy people, not only do we have to design what we want to teach, teach it, but we also have to assess the learning of the students. That said this chapter addresses three important areas that teachers have and have not included in the grading of students. These are [|behavior], participation, (including attendance) and effort. The simplest way to end this hotly debated issue is to define what a grade means. This book defines a grade as an indication of mastery of the content material. So the chapter makes an argument that none of those characteristics should be included in the grade. School is a place to learn the important life lessons such as acceptable behavior, the imperativeness of attendance, and the expectation of effort. That is all well and good but if those are included in the students’ grades, does the grade reflect the students’ mastery of the content or can this just be an indication of whether Johnny could sit still in his seat? The purpose of grades is to report to the students’ parents and to the students the level of mastery accomplished by the student. If the grade does not do this then there is no purpose to have grades. It is important to give the students feedback on how they are doing, not just academically. The chapter suggests reporting this in a column separate from the grade.

Reflection-Marcy
As a whole the class did not agree on anything. Some agreed with everything the book said, others only bits and pieces, and one person did not agree with anything the book said about grading effort, participation, and [|behavior]. The argument made for grading participation is to coerce students to be involved in discussions. Discussion is an integral part of some classes so in order to motivate students to speak, participation in class will be graded. The argument against grading participation is that some students are naturally shy or are unsure of the answer and so do not speak out in class. Grading [|participation] does not accurately show the mastery of these students and punishes students for being shy. According to some teachers, forcing students to step outside their comfort zone is good for them. Everyone in the class except one person believes that grading [|behavior] should be avoided. The arguments range from students that have disorders and can’t behave should not be punished. Also, students have a life outside of school and that can affect how students behave in school. The one person that believes in grading behavior stated that students need to learn acceptable behavior and should be held to that standard of professionalism. The class definitely thinks that attendance is important. It is debated whether points should be taken off or the grade affected due to absence. The consensus is that excessive absences affect a student’s ability to properly learn the material. This raises the question though, if a student is absent for reasons beyond control, such as family matters or sickness, and makes up all the work, should all that work not count? If attendance is graded then the student would have to repeat the class whether or not all the work was completed and completed correctly. The last category is effort. I honestly do not know how something so ambiguous could possibly be graded in the first place, but not only do current teachers believe they can do this, but our fellow classmates have this amazing power. The argument is that teachers know their students well enough make an accurate assessment. Effort is important to provide feedback for, but the majority of the class believes that it should not be included in the grade. The example used as a reason is the real world application; the fact that it does not matter how much effort is exerted; all that matters is the final product. This chapter is a controversial chapter, in the real world of education, and in our own classroom.

Chapter 8 of FIAE is about including effort, attendance and behavior in the grade. Many teachers disagree about whether or not these should be included in the grade. The chapter gives many arguments for both sides. This means that as a teacher I will have to decide whether or not to include this, decide how to grade it and how much of the grade it will be worth. I’m not sure that I would include effort or behavior in my grades but I probably would include participation because it is difficult in an English class to teach students how to analyze without allowing them to pick each other’s brains.

Cam
Chapter 8; Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? This chapter goes on to define grading as being a tedious process, considering that teachers need to put aside twenty-plus hours to grade certain assignments. Grading is done to document teachers’ and students’ progress, provide feedback to all, and to inform instructional decision making. Teachers need to understand a student’s background, living conditions, depression, and so on before assigning them a grade. Grading participation is something teachers need to avoid, unless participation is the subject being taught. Effort is another difficult subject that teachers need to be careful with because in the real world it all matters about the final product. Behavior is a third factor that teachers need to avoid assessing because some students cannot help it. This chapter impacts me because my older brother underwent behavioral assessment troubles all through schooling, what the teachers did not understand was that he has extreme ADD. This had a huge impact on his life because he decided to not go into further schooling, where as all of his friends enrolled into college. This impacts my students because I will understand that some of them cannot help their behavior. Therefore, I will have to get my students up and moving in my class, giving them something to do in my science class to somewhat control it.

Jason
This chapter discusses ideas of what to grade and how to grade them. It conveys the message that the purpose of grading is to show that students have mastered the materials assigned to them; if that is the case, then participation, effort, and attendance, according to Wormeli, should not be graded unless it is a necessary part of the understanding. On a personal level, I can completely understand the notion of not grading students on participation; in high school, I took Latin and a small part of my grade had to deal with the amount I participated in class – I hardly ever participated, so my grade probably was not as high as it could have been. I often knew the information, I was just afraid to say it and run the risk of getting it wrong. I think that many students feel the same way, and therefore do the same thing that I did; I do not think students should be punished for that. As far as my classroom is concerned, I will avoid grading participation and behavior in class because it does not accurately depict mastery of the topic – I will instead follow the instruction of the MI book and work hard to get all my students involved during class. The one area I disagreed with came with the view on attendance. I think attendance should factor into grading because if you do not come to class then that will affected your ability to master the material. I liked Virginia’s idea about dropping grades based on attendance; it is professional to be on time and come to class – this is a skill that one must learn before going into the real world.
 * FIAE Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior? **

Marcy
This chapter focuses on what grades should be and what the purpose of grades should not be. Grades should represent the students’ mastery of the material and the purpose is to communicate that mastery to the students and their parents and for instructional changes for the teacher. Grading should not include participation. Participation is the route that leads to mastery and if mastery is what counts, it does not matter how the student arrived there. Feedback should be given for participation, but it will distort the grade if it is included and the grade will be an inaccurate account of the students’ mastery. Also including behavior or effort in the grade will distort the grade. Students’ behavior and effort are important, after all school is the place where students grow and find themselves, and teaching those skills is necessary. However, they should not be included in the grade. Those factors contribute to what grade the student earns but they should be recorded in a column separate from the grade. This will affect me as a teacher by convincing me not to grade participation. I have had a lot of teachers grade participation and it motivated me to speak during class. But a lot of the time I spent the entire class thinking of something to say so I could get my points and as soon as I said my piece, I did not bother to pay attention anymore. This affects my students by allowing them the free will to speak. It will not punish any students’ grade if they have a bad week and are just generally unpleasant and misbehave.

Nicholas
**Chapter 8:** This chapter discusses grading and how effort, attendance, and behavior relates. I really enjoyed reading about how to correctly and accurately grade effort. Teachers are afraid to grade students based on effort because there is no way to really measure it. However, teachers seem to have a pretty accurate read on the students who are really trying to succeed and those who are slacking off. To me effort is very important when assessing a student’s ability to learn. Their effort should not be reflected in their grade, but it should definitely be addressed when giving them feedback and being sure that they understand your expectations of them. If they are not exhibiting effort to you than you need to ask yourself what you can do to help the student. And it is also important to ask them what you can do to help them become more motivated in your classroom. It is frustrating to sit back and watch an intelligent person slack off and not be forced to exert the effort that you expect from that individual. All students have the potential to be highly effective learners and it is going to be my responsibility as a teacher to help my students reach their hopes and dreams.

**Andrew D**
This chapter is about why we grade and whether or not we should incorporate effort, attendance, and behavior in our grading. Most teachers are stressed about their jobs and having extra grading makes them even more stressed. This makes teachers wonder whether or not they should incorporate behavior, attendance, or effort in their grading. When it comes to participation, if it is the actual skill being taught, then it should be graded. Teachers should give feedback on participation, but not include it in the formal end of grading period grade. When it comes to behavior and effort, teachers know there is a very high correlation between academic success and behavior and effort. The bottom line is, incorporating these things in our grades could alter the object of grading, which is to see what students understand about the topic. This chapter impacted me because it made me remember about how much I disliked it when participation was graded heavily in a class. This will impact my classroom because I will not grade participation, behavior, and effort. Instead, I will only give feedback to each of my students.

Lizzie
This chapter allowed me to think a lot about what kind of teacher my students will believe me to be as well as what kind of teacher I will grow to be. This chapter also discussed grading and included the idea that effort, attendance and behavior should be measured or considered in the grading. Since grading serves so many purposes such as to document students’ progress, provide feedback to all as well as help in future decisions made in the class it is hard to include so many different aspects when creating rubrics or guidelines for grading. Being able to understand a student, as we have seen before, is crucial in order to understand how they learn and what is affecting their learning outside of the classroom. Grading attendance is important and relates to participation. How can one be actively involved in the class if they are unprofessional and always late or even worse not there? Grading participation is crucial for a student to become involved not just in the class but to become engrossed in the material. Many times students are too shy to answer questions, therefore participation being graded will help them step out of their comfort zone and work on public speaking. The effort put forth on any project, assignment or group work is hard to grade due to the fact that one may see his part as a crucial part to the whole while another may view it as insignificant. This is when communication between not just student and student but teacher and student can help when grading. Peer feedback can give the teach insights into why each person felt the way they did about another individual’s work. The behavior of a student is important and grading effort allows the student to step up to the plate and control themselves in a professional manner for the sake of others in the group and for the sake of the overall effectiveness of their work. I think that although the purpose of grading is to measure student’s understanding of the material, there are so many things that impact their learning that those should be considered and accounted for. If a teacher can get every student involved and interested in the topic then the shy or behavioral students may be more apt to speak up or control themselves in order to help and work with others in the class. I do not think that it is enough to just give peer feedback on different aspects such as effort, participation, behavior or even attendance. Just because a student receives a different view point of something does not mean that they will change their ways or “bad habits”. If they are given consequences they might be more likely to see what their true potential is and might be able to help other students along the way, earning a better grade and better yet, a real understanding of the material.

Jenna
Chapter eight of __Fair Isn't Always Equal__ describes why grades exist and how sometimes they are unnecessary. The idea that grades are unnecessary stems from the fact that grades should be derived from student mastery, as in, if the student understands the content, then they have to receive full credit. Therefore, there should be no grades, because knowledge should not be a race. However, the topic of attendance, effort, and participation comes into the picture. If we eliminate grading, then how do we gauge these things? Should we incorporate them into grades? Should we simply let students behave the way that they do and not have it reflect in their grade? Should we base content on attendance so that missing class sets you back with knowledge and not a grade? These are all questions that are posed in this chapter. The chapter finally concluded with the idea that no matter what feedback a teacher provides to a student, they need to tell the children how they are performing in their schoolwork. This is beneficial to me as a teacher because I want my grades to represent genuine student learning... but is learning something you can measure? Knowledge should not be a race. My students will be allowed to learn what they have to at their own pace and capacity, without worrying about being penalized for having learning differences in the classroom.

Ben
Grading is seen now as a contentious task. Grading has no real relation to the students overall mastery of the knowledge. If a student gets a bad grade on a test or project, does that really mean they do not understand the material that was taught? Or does this mean that they could not handle the pressure of having one task be the majority of their grade? Why do we even put such tasks on our students? Why do we have grades? Teachers that believe grading is a good thing have come to 6 final reasons: document student and teacher progress; provide feedback to the student and family, and the teacher; to inform instructional decisions; motivate students; punish students; sort students. After reading a little more I learned that the first three reason are legit reasons to have grades. Feedback, progress, and instructional decisions are key to making the students successful. This type of grading promotes the right message, students are learning. The last 3 were horrible reasons to use grades. Using grades as motivation is dumb, since in high school I could care less if I got an A or a B. There was no drive for the perfection that my fellow classmates had. I understood the material very in every class I was in, however I would not spend extra time going for that A because I felt I could spend my free time in better way. To think some teachers use grades as punishment. Most of the kids I knew that got low grades in school did exactly what the book said they would do, be pushed away from school even more. After seeing that low grade they did not care, and realized they would probably have to make the class up in summer school. Using this low grade to get them to turn their styles around is even worse than trying to motivate them to get that A. Finally sorting students by grades is ridiculous. Students learn different topics at different rates; consequently, just because a student does not do to hot on a certain topic, does not mean they are behind the curve. They might just be having a rough patch either with the material, or a rough patch at home preventing them from getting the proper study time. That does not mean they belong in a lower level class, they might just need to talk out there problems with someone so they can get back on track. However avoid grading on non-academic factors since they do not really measure how much of the material the student has learned. They might become an unfair grading point in which students will pass not knowing the material. These are all important factors I will be paying attention to as I enter the teaching field next week.

Lindsey
The next chapter focuses upon the actual grading of work and the time it takes to complete the process. Grading should be done in order to assess not only the student, but also the teacher in an effort to ensure that the teacher is working toward the student’s growth. In assessing, teachers must always take into account the struggles a student may be facing at home. It is advised that teachers avoid grading the behavior of students, but instead work to assess actual student work, and work directly through behavioral problems if they occur with a student.

Andrew F.
This chapter was something similar to what we discussed in Beth's class one of the first weeks in her class. We started to discuss why we as educators find it necessary to grade our students if most of the "ah-hah!" moments that occur in classrooms hardly tie into the percentage a student receives good marks on some worksheet that they completed for homework. When reading further into this chapter educators were asked why they felt it was important to grade student's work, which most responded it was a "necessary evil"

What is this process proving if the ones who are delivering the grade generally have a negative outlook on the topic and also what does this mean for those receiving the points? The best response this chapter gave to why educators grade were using these grades as a way to see progress over time and to use these grades as an indication of how effective a lesson is. To me I feel that the grades should demonstrate mastery of the content, and the scores students are receiving in classes within high schools are not an accurate picture of how much these students know, but how well they can spit information back, memorizing rather than learning the material.

I think the best way to gain information about progress is not to give students a grade, but a feedback sheet instead. If we are honest about what works and what does not work in a lesson with our students, we are able to get a better picture of what these students are really capable of as well as beginning to build better classrooms for that individual group of kids. All the reasons for grading could easily be replaced through these sheets without a need for "grade grubbing" and a higher emphasis on actually learning the material and making it more personal rather than a competition on who got the highest grade on a paper.

Ted
Chapter 8 focuses more on the purpose of grading and the values of grading things besides content like effort, attendance, and behavior. A part of this chapter that stuck out for me was the six reasons for grading that the chapter offered. The dividing line between the top three, which were all valuable information for a teacher who’s interested in staying on top of his game, and the last three, which were not as good reasons for grading, was something I agreed with a lot. The chapter said that the bottom three reasons for grading diluted the value and accuracy of the grade. I agree with the chapter that teachers must always be focused on why they are grading. I’m not sure if I agree with the author’s sentiments about grading participation or behavior. In a discussion-based class like I want mine to be, participation is more important than he makes it seem.