-One problem that I had faced with giving out grades, I’m a pretty easy and encouraging grader, is that students who did very well and produced good work had begun to slack in what they handed in to me.
I tended to give a lot of my writing grades on where students were and how they had progressed. At first, some students began to take this as a sign that I would give almost anything an A or B, so initially some of their work had begun to slide below what I felt their ability level was.
When students who were big achievers began to see that “low performing” students were getting the same grades they began to slack on the quality of their work for me. Everything seemed to kind of warp in the classroom for about a week or two, where I was getting crummy work from A students and pretty good work from D-F students. It was a strange ordeal. I’m a go with the flow kind-of guy so I just sat back to watch how this whole thing was going to unfold. I’m glad I did, because when I finally assigned their Unit Anchoring Project (UAP) everything seemed to settle. It seemed that students who were A-students as well as the D-F’ers handed in great work, because they had a sense of ownership in the assignment.
I feel that if you are able to give your kids ownership in their projects and an interest in the assignment you’ll probably get the best results all around.
I have a rubric that I assigned for this, but will probably do this with a checklist next time to allow my students more wiggle room.
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3 comments:
the philosophy of grades is a hard one to really grasp. I even find myself looking at them weirder than I ever have before, telling "B" students how they can improve their grades, when I myself never really ever got anything above that when I was their age.
I'm also an easy grader, and I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I think it is awesome that you motivated them enough to be proud of the work they were turning in, because in my mind I would trade the entire grading system and my beloved right arm to achieve something like that with my students.
What was the assignment anyway?
And what's a checklist?
Where do you get all this stuff, really? All this count down on your hands and checklists and card tricks and all this other fancy stuff. I'd be impressed if I wasn't one of the only people in the program that knows for sure that you are 100% full of crap all the time.
I had a similar problem: when I gave all students a high grade for "free-writes" (I gave them 10/10 jsut for completing it) I saw them get sloppy with other things they were handing in. I'm happy to hear that it all settled out positively for you. I expect they just need to know what I grade easily and what I grade more "judgementally." I find I can't give them a grade for a free write or it isn't a free write anymore!!
Interesting though that you are able to grade them for how much they progress. Teen-agers are so into what's "fair" and what's not. I guess as long as you are clear about how you grade, it works out. Yes?
whales,
how about a little more shut the f-up a hundred percent of the time.
Tac Fighter 3011
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