Selecting an Appropriate Grading System
| Autor: | Jon J. Denton |
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| Rok vydání: | 1989 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas. 63:107-110 |
| ISSN: | 1939-912X 0009-8655 |
| Popis: | Although grades and grading practices are very important to all concerned (students, teachers, parents, and school administrators), it is worth remembering that grades serve primarily as an accountability device (i.e., a vehicle to communicate student progress to interested parties and a record of that progress). When teachers forget that grades serve a particular function of classroom management, grades and grading may become "ends" rather than "means" regarding their effectiveness in the classroom. The following case illustrates the potential for misplaced emphasis on grades by one firstyear teacher. During his initial week of teaching seventh-grade science, this first-year teacher established classroom management ground rules and spelled out the topics and kinds of activities the classes would be experiencing during the school year. Then he immediately got to the business of teaching the students. His classes seemed to proceed quite smoothly through the first three weeks, until he administered the first major examination. Collectively, the grades across all five classes of life science were very low. Clearly he had not taught them much, since over 70 percent of his students failed the first test! This first-year teacher became aware through a painful experience that something was wrong with his instructional program-management system. One hopes that this teacher used his grades as a basis for diagnosing limitations in his system. Certainly grades may be used in assessing the instructional system as well as communicating the quality of student performances. The following sections discuss two approaches for determining grades. As you proceed through these descriptions, consider whether the approach offers information to assess the instructional system as well as to communicate clearly the quality of a student's performance. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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