All right . . . another dose of honesty here pertaining to grades. Are grades a true assessment of knowledge?
I have always held the opinion that most of my class is centered on work ethic and not so much on how smart a student proves to be. I am not sure if that is right or wrong . . . or even if it can be considered a right or wrong argument.
In the real world we often find that sometimes the "not-so-smart" person becomes very successful simply because of the fact that there is ingrained in that person the inability to give up. I mean look at our president . . . . or congressmen and women or senators or governors or mayors or chiefs-of-police or sherrifs or principals or administrators or teachers or . . . . .[did I leave anyone out???].
I guess my point is that people can become very successful regardless of knowledge. So is it absolutely necessary to ONLY grade students on what they can regurgitate on a content-based assessment? Can a teacher give grades based on amount of completion rather than level of accuracy?
Let me know what your thoughts are . . . . .
On some things yes completion should be what the grade is based on and the teacher should look in the direction that the student is coming from, but on tests and certain assignments that ask for precise things then it is more about the content.
ReplyDeleteCompletion on homework. Accuracy on tests.
ReplyDeleteI think it should be in the middle. Not all people learn the same way or the same speed. If a student actually tries and puts effort into an assignment i see no problem with grading them on completion rather then being right. On the other hand it is also very important to make sure they are getting the information they need, and comprehending it, test and quizzes should be graded on accuracy.
ReplyDeleteI fell as if I am on unstable ground saying this but I will say it anyways. I feel that school should be about how hard students work and completion, sometimes. On other occasions intelligence should be a determining factor in your high school career. For example, if a student was not very smart but passed all four years of high school all four years through hard work they deserve what they got but should not be given the hardest career too hard to that person to comprehend and finally realize that they have failed that late in life. It would be better to allow these individuals of what they are capable of fully even with hard work so they are not put through trama larer in life.
ReplyDeleteI believe that grades should be based on a balance of knowledge and work ethic. You shouldn't give a student a failing grade or a below average grade on a paper that he or she has clearly put a lot of effort into it. Some things should be graded on knowledge, of course, because then what would be the point of school or assignments. Teachers are expected to teach students things and students are expected to retain all that they can. This is how the system works. Tests and homework help gauge how mcuh the student has learned and retained. However, a grade should also be given considering the amount of work put into assignments.
ReplyDeleteI TOTALLY AGREE WITH TRAVIS. The effort should be a huge part of the grade. Its quite obvious when looking at a paper to see who has put effort into theirs and who hasnt.
ReplyDeleteThe size of the paper shouldnt matter. Some people are just better at summing things up in smaller papers than others.
-Kaley, seventh hour.
I'm completely spilt on this topic. I don't neccesairly think that it should strickly be homework is completion and tests are accuracy. In that setting how would you be able to understand if your students are really getting the work? For all you know they could get into your classroom and simply copy all thier best friends work down, however I'm not saying this is all about accuracy either. A certain teacher in our school, along with many others, has a way of grading that I really love. On tests this teacher will ask you to kind of over-explain your answer to each question, this way this teacher can try their best to understand where you are coming from, if you are on the right track, and if you understand but simply made a silly mistake. Based on those decisions the teacher will award ewhat point they feel neccesary. This way, you may get the problem wrong but you had the concept right. Now I know this can't be applied to every test out there. Some questions are simply wrong or right, and there is no way you can award point for how they got there. But most of the time this way can be worked out, like with vocabulary words, sometimes the student may know what the word means, but it may not be the direct definition given to them. A lot of teachers would completely count that wrong, but its not like the student doesn't have the knowledge, they simply don't have the memory. Homework however is completely different. Not every addignment needs to be nit-picked down to see what the student was trying to get at. Some assignments should simply be completion, but others should require a strict right or wrong grade. This way, you know that your students aren't just giving half of what they got knowing the teacher is just going to go over the answers in class and move on.
ReplyDeleteIn reality some kids simply won't try if they don't have to and fail, some kids will try their hardest and still fail since the answer was wrong, some will naturally pass with little to no effort, and some will pass with their whole heart poured into it. I think the ones that should be noticed and helped out more are the ones who have the desire to do good, have the method to do good, but simply struggle with actually acting out the neccessary steps to allow them to do good.
I agree with travis and kaley. I think that our grades should be base on how much effort we put into our papers or assignment. Some people learn different some people also learn faster than others so i really think that our grades should be base on our effort.
ReplyDeleteMB!!! 7th hour
Another agreement with Travis. If a student is truly trying his or her hardest on a homework assignment, but doesn't get the answers correct, it shouldn't necessarily count against them. Go over the papers in class, they see what they did wrong, they correct it, and learn from their mistakes. They then use this knowledge on tests and quizzes, which are graded for accuracy rather than completion.
ReplyDeleteI agree that grades should be based on work ethic, but a student must absorb the knowledge that a teachers gives. I will admit that I'm not the best writer or good at english at all. Even though I'm not, I will try my best to understand. When a person works hard on an assignment and they find and understand their mistakes, that is when a person truely learns. JCB
ReplyDeleteI agree with travis's statement, alot of times people put their all into a paper and get a grade they dont deserve, i have spent alot of time on papers in the past and got C's and D's, even when other teachers have told me that it should have been a higher grade. So i believe that grades should be made with as much effort as the paper is given.
ReplyDeleteCLN6
i think we should be graded on how hard we try. because not everyone can just write a perfect paper in a few days or hours. kdp 6th
ReplyDeletethis is a difficult subject. but i agree with travis and kaley for the most part. i dont think that it is fair that some people can just crank out a nearly perfect essay just becasue they are good at writing and another classmate may have spent hours on it and failed horribly. now, im not saying i believe that it should be all effort. because thatn would be pointless to kind of. but i think maybe there should be like a happy medium between the two. like a portion of every grade goes to how much effort we put into the assignment. als1
ReplyDeletei think that if a student puts forth effort they shoud be rewarded. like an A for effort kind of thing. like last year when we did animal farm(barf) i wish you would have done the effort thing for individuals, because a certain person in my gorup just happen to miss the days that all our assignment were due and becase of that one person my whole groupe got a c instead of the a , i thouhgt, we deserved.
ReplyDeleteI am confused a bit.. but personally i think that they should be graded on accuracy and completion or even on going beyond the fine lines. Your right.. people do only do the assignment but never put the thought into it and everyone can be smart and successful! They just need to put their minds to things! But how can we improve that? just wondering......
ReplyDeleteKEM 1!
I agree with Travis as well (isn't he special). But I also agree with jake. You shoud grade our homework mostly on completion but as you said on one of our first days with you...some of the best essays are the ones that are one paragraph long. Which is why I agree with Travis. But all tests should be accuracy and not completion...because if you grade those on completion then how will we ever know if we are learning or if we are just saying random words.
ReplyDeleteSS 1st hour
I think completion is a good idea on certain assignments. Especially on outrageously hard assignments that if it was graded on accuracy, people would fail the assignment. On outrageously easy assignments, you should grade on accuracy. If the student was paying attention they should do pretty well.
ReplyDeleteJL-1st Hour
I feel like completion grades are good on certain things. Like PRP's or wordsnapshots. But on tests it should be based on accuracy. some students may not give their whole effort if not graded on accuracy. They may just blow it off and just finish it.
ReplyDeleteOn papers that we have to write in a day or in a class period should be based on how hard we try. i dont feel like i can write a good paper in that short amount of time, while getting used to the new writing techniques you are showing us. Things like that i feel should be completion or participation.
JT1st
Many of us learn in separate ways at separate speeds. I believe grades should be based on wisdom, not knowledge. On willingness and capability to learn, not what has actually been learned.
ReplyDeleteYours truly
tjc1
Truthfully, I agree with you. Grades arent really a proper source to show if a student is smart or not. It really shows if they are doing their work or not. Cuz you could have a really smart person failing cuz they arent doing the work. Or you could have a person with an A doing all the work just copying off of people in the class.So...No I dont think its only neccessary
ReplyDeleteto grade students on content-based assessment.
WC6
I don't think that grades should totally be based on knowledge. I know that I am a person that is somewhat terrified of tests and I tend to make dumb mistakes. When I go over the questions I missed I realize I knew the material I just misread the question or something. I also agree that we all learn at different speeds and in different ways.
ReplyDeleteaeb1
I like the way you never tell us how long the paper should be. When other teachers would tell me how long a paper should be i would concentrate more on making sure the paper was long enough then making sure the paper was written the way it should have been.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of what we do in English is based on our opinion and previous experiences so it would be hard to grade on accuracy, in these cases grading on completion would be necessary. However,fill in the blank or short answer from the text should be graded for accuracy because there is only one right answer. ASC 7
ReplyDeleteI think that on worksheets and homework assignments the teachers should take a completion grade and accuracy grade. Completion grade for the ones that really tried but didn't quite understand it and an accuracy grade just to make sure they all know what their doing. On tests I believe it should all be accuracy.
ReplyDeletealr7
Mr. Kimble
ReplyDeleteI think grades should be half accuracy and half work ethic. I know a lot of students who try their best in certain subjects but just seem to not be able to get the grade they want in that class. For instance, one of my friends does brilliant on his math homework, but when it comes to tests he struggles. Does he just not understand the material or is he bad at taking tests? Maybe test shouldn't be weighed down so much. Maybe we should apply more real life situations to our schooling. The point is some students who struggle still give it their best shot. This makes it hard to decide how to grade them.
ARB 7th hour