MS Sunday Funday--Grading Policies

Before I get into all of the policies, this is the system that I came into at my new school. We have been trying to figure out a better system all year, but as I am sure we all know, it is hard to do when you have certain restrictions set in place already. So here we go...

Categories

• 90% assessments
• 10% daily/homework

Assessments

Our assessments are called "quizzes" not tests. I am not 100% sure why we do use the word test, but out of habit, I still say tests and so do my kiddos. The are usually 10-25 questions depending on what learning targets we have covered during the week.  We have 45 minute classes, so we can't really put much more than that on the quizzes of the kids would never finish. They have trouble finishing the quizzes each week, so I usually have a bunch of kids coming in before/after school to finish.  I really don't like the system that we have because I feel like the kids really are not required to retain the information and don't really pay attention to what learning targets they have mastered and the ones they still need work on. We do not do mid-terms or finals at the end of the semester/year. 

Re-do's

Our district requires that we allow re-takes of assessments. Our 7th grade math department built in re-do's of assessments into class time.  They are usually a couple of weeks after the initial quiz, but in some cases, it is a couple days after depending on where we are in the six weeks.  We started the year having our retakes mandatory for all students no matter what they scored on the initial quiz.  This was how they were held accountable for retaining information. We would completely replace their initial quiz grade with the final quiz grade if they did better on the retake. (I have never felt comfortable completely replacing the initial grade.  I don't disagree that students should have the opportunity to do better, but I think they should still be displayed in their grades, even if it does not "count".) If they did worse, their initial quiz grade stayed and the retake was also put into the grade book. The students are expected to come into tutorials to get more help/practice on the quizzes if they did bad, which rarely happened. So, we started making the retake quizzes optional if they scored an 80 or higher. I don't like this because of how short our quizzes are. I we only put one question over a certain learning target and they miss it, but still score an 80 or higher, they really are not required to go back and learn how to correct their mistakes, because they don't have to take the final quiz. 

In Conclusion

A student's grade should show mastery of subject matter, but I really don't think that the grades in this system do at all.  The kids know how to manipulate it because they know that they will can totally slack off initially and replace the grade later. It works for the kids that really do need the extra time to learn and come in for help, but that is a small percentage of kids. I know that my team would be willing for change if there was something presented to them that could work, so that is what I have been working on over the past semester. I really want to move to the grading by objective and point system rather than a total percentage grade on each assessment. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody's systems and gathering ideas to bring to my team!! Any suggestions?!!

Check out my Think Through Math post that stems off of this topic: Grading Policies w/ Think Through Math