This is the eighth of a series of 10 posts.
All 10 posts ran on consecutive weeks.
As of Labor Day, 2018, all ten of these #Teaching Tip posts are searchable on my blog.
If you're not a teacher and you're reading this,
let a teacher know they are available.
let a teacher know they are available.
I've been in enough in-service/professional-development sessions to guarantee that the information in this series is better than most of the information you’ll get while sitting through all your teacher workshops this coming school year.
You might be asking yourself,
What gives this guy the nerve to offer ideas about teaching AND commentary on professional development to anyone?
That's a legitimate question.
I invite you to follow this link and check my credentials.
When I started teaching in 1973, there were no computers on high school campuses. There were few computers anywhere.
Grades were kept in a notebook. I hand wrote the title of every assignment and the score received by every student. At the end of a grading period, I took a mechanical adding machine and added up each student’s scores.
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| Handwritten Grades. I did not record these grades. They are part of the gradebook for my high school biology class. I'm #6. Since my first teaching job was teaching with John Burak, whose grades these are, my gradebook was very similar. |
A student’s score divided by the total possible points for that session yielded a percentage. The percentage determined the grade for that session.
A
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100-88
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C
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77-63
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F
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less than 50
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B
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87-78
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D
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62-50
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Those were the outer limits of each grade category. There were subdivisions like B+/B/B-.
As Keeper of All the Points in the Universe, it made no difference how many assignments or what kind of assignments I had in the session. An assignment’s “weight” in the student grade was based on the number of points. More points, higher value. The last blog will discuss grading using categories.
It was not uncommon for my students to have access to 3,500 points or more in a semester.
Once grades were determined, students hand-carried grade cards with carbon paper between the two copies. During class on “Grade Day,” I sat at my desk. Students came up one at a time with their grade cards. I hand wrote an academic grade, and effort grade, and a conduct grade on the card. There was room for a short comment and my signature.
The teacher of whatever was a student’s last class of the day had all students remove the carbon from between the grade cards. The teacher saved the carbon paper sheets since carbon paper was reusable at least one time. Students pulled the original grade card and the “carbon copy” of the grade card apart.
Teachers collected the original grade cards. The carbon copies went home with the students. Teachers turned the originals into the office at the end of the day.
It took a LOT of time to do grades by hand. And, carbon copies were not had to alter. All a student needed was a piece of carbon paper—another reason to collect the carbons from student grade cards, place the carbon paper over the desired grade, and write on the top side of the carbon. I learned how to reduce alteration of grades on the carbon copies from my Master Teacher while student teaching.
The two most common grade changes were “+ to –“ and “D to B.”
To prevent + convert to - (one small vertical line with carbon paper), all a teacher had to do was write m instead of -. So D- became Dm.
Preventing D convert to B was more difficult. I know we had a strategy, but I cannot remember it for the life of me.
The actual grade scale was determined to the first decimal point. So an A was 100-88.0. The range for a B grade was 87.9-78, etc.
I seldom rounded grades up and never grades that weren’t the semester grades. My most common "rounded up" grade was 62.9% to 63%. By the fourth year I taught, we’d changed the lowest “C-“ to 65%. I felt better about rounding 64.9% to 65%.
I never “gave/gifted” a student an A. Ever.
Few students complained. Of those who did complain, all but one student accepted the explanation of not rounding up because of the number of points possible. The single student who stormed out of my room after receiving his grade of B+ never came by my room again. It was the final second-semester grade and did not take second-year biology.
I’m tempted to write about the difference in attitude about getting what you earned between “then” and “now.” I’ll limit my comment about that to this:
At some point in the 1990s, the number of students who were willing to work hard and earn a B grade diminished. If the workload was more than they wanted to do without getting an A, they stopped working so hard. “After all, a C is a passing grade.”
You can ask any of my students about the rigor of my courses. The word “easy” will seldom be heard. “Hard,” “tough,” and “demanding” are three that will predominate.
You have taught me that hard work truly pays off. Also, you have given me the tools to be successful. O.M. – Great Oak High School
There are those select people one encounters in life that make you want to look, act and think as though you are far beyond your actual years... [The methods used in class] made me want to try hard not only in your class (which is the furthest thing from my actual life career goal) but try hard at all I did in high school. You instilled a drive and a passion for me to pursue thoughts and ideas I would have never dreamt possible, and I almost always accomplished them… Students were accountable and responsible for doing our work... J.E. – University of Southern California
There are reasons for the overall lack of complaining about grades.
Students did the work because it was engaging. See the previous blogs in the series for examples.
I held to my expectations.
Below is one page of grades from my last year of full-time teaching.
I held to my expectations.
Below is one page of grades from my last year of full-time teaching.
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| The handwritten 11-12 indicates the school year. Grey shaded headings have to do with categories, a topic for the next blog. |
The students were a group that had failed a science class and needed the science credit. It was not a highly motivated group. By this time, I’d lost all control over my grading scale. Grade ranges were district-wide. It shouldn’t shock you that the percentages were 90/80/70 for A/B/C. There was no "D" grade. More on that next time.
What might at least surprise you is the grade distribution for this “class of past failures.”
A – 2; B – 11; C – 7
No failures. Two students hovered at 70%, but none were below that. I think that speaks to what students can/will do if they are engaged in the coursework.
Lest you think that this group was ultra-motivated because of their past failure, here's a shot of a 9th grade class. Same course, but this is from 2009.
Lest you think that this group was ultra-motivated because of their past failure, here's a shot of a 9th grade class. Same course, but this is from 2009.
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| Out of a possible 660 scores on this page, 36 were zero without explanation. 17 were excused for some reason. 5% if the assigned work was not turned in without excuse. 95% of all work assigned in this class of 9th graders was completed and turned in. With very few exceptions, my classes had turn in rates of 90% or higher. |
#Teaching Tip #9. Semester or Final Grades Part 2 is next.
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