This is the ninth 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.
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| Categories in this year were based on California State Standards for the course. For the most part, the first six categories contained all the assignments--homework, tests, writing assignments, etc.--that related to the content in that standard. Notice in the left column that #24 is "Unit 1 m/c E7." That was the multiple choice portion of the unit exam on Standard #3 E7-Earth Science. |
My first experience with “computer grades” was in the mid-1980s. I’ve described my first computer in an earlier blog,
allotted
- I used it for word-processing and keeping track of student scores. There were no grading programs for the CP/M operating system. There weren’t many programs at all. I used the spreadsheet that came with the machine. It was Perfect.
Really.
- The word processor was PerfectWriter. The spreadsheet was PerfectCalc.
I learned two things within hours of posting my first grade printout on the wall.
- I needed to come up with some form of anonymous code to use for public posts.
- Students thought that computer grades had to be correct—after all, they were from a computer.
I was still “keeper of all the points in the universe,” so my theory on grading didn’t change. It was sooo much quicker and easier to calculate grades when they were in a spreadsheet. Life was good.
At that time the Grossmont Union High School District required teachers to submit “Blue Cards” with each student’s grade handwritten in the proper column on a blue-colored cardstock form.
It was in my second or third year of using the spreadsheet for grades that I managed to find the spacing between lines required to fit the lines on the Blue Card. I printed my grades, carefully aligned the page to fit the spaces on the Blue Card, glued each printout onto the card, signed the “Teacher Signature” line, and handed the card to the Attendance Clerk. She was the collector of the grades.
The next day, I had a note in my mailbox to see one of the Vice Principals.
“We can't send your Blue Card to the district,” he said.
“Why not?”
“It’s not handwritten.”
“The grades are accurate and every grade is lined up with the correct space on each card.”
“They want handwritten Blue Cards.” He handed me my cards.
I recopied my grades that one time only.
At the end of the year, I told the VP that there was less chance of me posting an incorrect with my system than when I hand wrote them. I handed him my glued on printout, hand-signed Blue Cards.
I don’t know if someone in the office pulled off the printout and handwrote the grades above my signature that semester. I hope not. But, I turned in my glued/hand-signed Blue Cards for the next 10-years or so, until I left the district.
The biggest change in my grading procedure over my career occurred while I was teaching my last high school courses at Great Oak High in Temecula, California.
I was the last science teacher, figuratively dragged kicking and screaming, into grouping like content or like assignment-type scores into categories. Regardless of the number of assignments or points in a category, it was worth a fixed percentage of the final grade. The image below is a grade printout with categories listed.
The most important thing I learned about using categories in grading is this:
Neither students nor parents understand how grades are calculated.
That is a gross generalization. It’s also not far from the truth.
The worst “innovation” in grading is allowing students and parents to “real time grades.” This phenomenon reared its ugly head when grades went online. Students and teachers could check their current grade—real time—by logging in to the grading program.
At first, teachers could “hold” a set of grades in one category until other grades were recorded. Releasing four or five grades in a category is a much more realistic description than the grade after a single entry in that category.
Once teachers lost the control to put a set of grades on hold, every grade input into the grade program was immediately accessible to parents and students. I’ve received emails from parents who were online while I was posting grades during my preparation period demanding to know “why <student name>’s grade dropped from an A to a C.”
Ultimately, no grade is real until the final semester grade turned in for the student’s permanent record. Most parents, and many students, are not satisfied with that reality.
What follows is an attempt that my co-teacher and I made to explain how our categorical grading system worked. We took class time to go through the letter with our students. We sent the letter home with the students.
Hello, Parents.
While we don't believe personally that it is necessary for anyone to have 24-hour access to student grades, it is district policy. For that reason grades in our class will appear in real time.
Because pre-AP biology uses categories, no one assignment can make or break any student’s grade. For example, the entire first unit your student completed, Scientific Method, is worth a total of 2% of their final grade. The next unit, Chemistry, is worth 13%. Please ask your student for the complete listing of categories and their values. Another way to put this idea of weighted categories is:
Each point in the Scientific Method category is worth 2 points in the final semester grade calculation, however, each point in the chemistry Unit is worth 13 points in the final semester grade calculation
All assignments whether lab, in class activities, homework, projects, or tests, are recorded within the category for the unit in which they occur. Since each category has a unique percentage value, individual grades on assignments have slightly different weights in different units/categories.
Because of the waiting of categories, the first assignment recorded in any category has a disproportionate value. For example, the first assignment in the chemistry unit will be worth 17% of the student’s final grade at that moment in time. However, when the unit is completed, that assignment will have a significantly less impact on your student’s grade, than it did when it was entered. Not only does the first assignment in a category account for the total percentage value of that category, it also is weighted temporarily at more than the value percentage of the category.
To continue our example from above:
If a student received 55/66 (83%) for the Scientific Method unit, and the first grade recorded in Chemistry was 4/10 (40%) on a quiz, because of the weighting, the quiz grade is 100% of the Chemistry unit weight at that moment in time. The student’s grade plummets to failing AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME ONLY.
Grades currently posted are for the Scientific Method unit that is worth 2% of the ultimate grade in this class. However, at this moment in time, that grade appears as the course grade. This is an aberration. When the Chemistry unit is completed, 15% of the total ultimate class grade will have been earned. But, when you look at the grades at the end of the chemistry unit, the chemistry unit itself is worth six times the scientific method grade. In other words even if a student did very well in the Scientific Method unit, if they did not do as well in chemistry, the lesser (Chemistry) grade would be six times the value of the good (Scientific Method) grade.
Hopefully this letter will help ease your mind when you look at grades from time to time. If you look at the grade and it's a C+ and the next time you look at it it's a C-, that's probably not a cause for concern. If however, the first time you look at a grade it is an A and the next time it is a B and the next time it is a C, then that may be cause for concern.
Typically what happens when a new category is opened is that student grades go either up or down very quickly for the reason explained above. As more grades are added to the category, the overall grade tends to stabilize around the true value.
Please don't assume that your student is doing poorly in the class based on any one look you take at the grades from pre-AP biology.
Thank you.
Dr. Chuck Downing & Ms. Rachel Larson
Great Oak PreAP Biology Teachers
In subsequent years, we added the highlighted bullet to our class syllabus shown below. This is an edited version of the document to show the general layout and the categories we used. We sent the above letter home before we posted our first grades online.
The categories are
· 3-ring binder with divider tabs labeled: Agenda, Study Guide, To Be Completed, Vocabulary, Notes, Activities, Labs, and Cal/Syl/Safety (CSS). All work done for this class, before and after grading, should be kept in the appropriate tab section.
Next #Teaching Tip #10 – Miscellaneous Musings
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