Wednesday, April 9, 2014

#NJED Chat - Grading and Grading Practices

This week's #njed chat was a lively discussion of grading. In this post I've included some of the thoughts of the participants as well as the resources that were shared during the chat. If you haven't participated in #njed chat, be sure to check it out at 8:30pm EST every Tuesday on Twitter. The seven questions asked were:
Q1: What do you believe is the purpose of grades? #njed
Q2: How do you grade students'  - individual Work? #njed
Q3: How do you grade students' work when it is done collaboratively? #njed
Q4: How do you grade late work? Why? #njed
Q5: Do you have experience with Standards Based Grading? If so, your thoughts? #njed
Q6: What is your favorite formative assessment tool and why? #njed
Q7: (How) Does effort/homework/behavior fit into your grading #njed 

These led to some great discussions about why we grade students. It is interesting to see that many educators are grading students based upon district practices that pre-date their employment and don't necessarily jive with their educational beliefs or philosophy. Another salient point that was raised is the idea of Standards Based Grading as a best practice as opposed to traditional grading.  Following are some thought-provoking tweets from the chat:

These 12 tweets only give you a taste of the wonderful conversation that took place. I encourage you to check out the archive of the entire chat!

Here are some resources that were shared during the chat:

Ed. Leadership - Starting the Conversation About Grades - 

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/Starting-the-Conversation-About-Grading.aspx

Best Practices in Grading - 

http://www.shaker.k12.nh.us/files/ResearchBriefGradingPractices%20(1).pdf

Grading Practices: The 3rd Rail -

http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/1003-pl-grading-practices-the-third-rail.pdf

ASCD - 7 Reasons for Standards Based Grading - http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Seven_Reasons_for_Standards-Based_Grading.aspx


TOOLKIT for Evaluating Alignment of Instructional and Assessment Materials to the Common Core State Standards
http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2013/Toolkit%20for%20Evaluating%20Alignment%20of%20Instructional%20and%20Assessment%20Materials.pdf


PARCC Condensed Scoring Rubric for Prose Constructed Response Items (DRAFT)

http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade6-11-ELACondensedRubricFORANALYTICANDNARRATIVEWRITING.pdf

Grades That Show What Students Know (Marzano) https://www.ocps.net/lc/southwest/mso/parents/Documents/Grades%20That%20Show%20What%20Students%20Know.pdf


Standards Based Grading - @RickWormeli YouTube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QF9Q4gxVM

Joe Bower posts on Grading/Abolishing Grading 

http://www.joebower.org/p/abolishing-grading.html

Why Schools are Ditching Traditional Grading 

http://us.cnn.com/2014/04/07/living/report-card-changes-standards-based-grading-schools/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

Doug Reeves on Toxic Grading Practices (YouTube) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jduiAnm-O3w

Doug Reeves - The Case Against Zero http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/caseagainstzero.pdf



If you feel moved to do so, please provide your thoughts on grading and grading practices in the comments. Also, please join us each Tuesday at 8:30pm EST on Twitter using the hashtag "#njed" as we discuss topics that are important to New Jersey educators and educators from around the world. We enjoy and welcome participants from near and far. Join us!
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