What about When the ABCs Fail?

image from: http://dconrad3.wordpress.com/

         Most of the articles I have encountered in my search to improve my knowledge of grading systems have stressed why traditional grades do not work.  So, I looked for an article that suggested a solution and found “A Simple Alternative to Grading” by Glenda Potts. 

        She said she was inspired to research and write the article because she felt that she put more effort into grading her student’s composition papers than they put into writing them.  Potts notes that in recent years educators have looked for other ways to assess students because the letter grades merely rank students instead of fostering learning. 

      Potts says she switched to contract grading—a system where each assignment is accompanied by a description of behaviors and tasks and the corresponding grade for each level of effort.  The idea behind contract grading is that instead of trying to rank quality of writing, the contract will inspire students to perform tasks that will result in learning (31). 

            I really liked this article and the contract system that it suggests.  I was at first skeptical, thinking that if a student turns in ninety percent of assignments they receive an A, even if they are not quality work.  However, what I found useful was that each assignment has minimum criterion; this means that if each student completes every assignment at the satisfactory level they will earn a C and not an A. 

           I also liked that assignments are returned to the students marked “Accepted,” for work that meets standards; “Revise,” for work that needs improved content or clarity; and “Edit,” for work with grammatical or formatting issues.  Finally, students who want an A or a B are required to complete an extra paper or project to separate themselves from the average students.

            I was still a little skeptical about this method, until I read the note that said that the National Council of Teachers of English endorses the contract system over traditional systems.  Also, Potts revealed that she recorded traditional grades for assignments and found that contract grades were overwhelmingly the same as the traditional grades.  The students who would have earned Bs but opted out of the additional assignment and earned Cs were the only exceptions to the accurate grades. 

        Finally, what sold this method to me was the fact that Potts said she spent less time grading and more time helping her students learn and improve their writing skills.

Work Cited:

Potts, Glenda. “A Simple Alternative to Grading.” Inquiry 15.1 (2010): 29-42.
          ERIC. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.

Avoiding the Goose Egg and Motivating Students

     The article I read this week addressed the issues of social promotion and minimum grading practices before college.  Prior to reading this article I had no idea what the term social promotion meant.  During my reading, I discovered that in America, around the 1830s, students were taken out of the one large classroom and divided by age into separate grades.  Until the Cold War, the main point of students attending school was socialization, and students were “socially” promoted into the age appropriate grade despite academic performance (Carifio, Carey 222).  After Russia’s launch of Sputnik, American educational priorities demanded academic achievement, especially in mathematics.  By 1998, President Clinton announced the end of social promotion and the beginning of standards based promotion (222-23).  While I see the reason behind ending social promotion, I do not think it should have been ended without extensive funding to support the children who do fail grades.

            So, what does social promotion have to do with grading practices?  Well, recently funding has been cut from many programs which helped failing students.  Teachers have attempted to replace these programs by offering “alternative” grading practices.  Minimum grading is a policy that prevents assigning a student less than a predetermined percentage (usually fifty to seventy percent).  Zeros aren’t permitted, or ZAP, requires students to make up low or incomplete work until a achieving a passing grade.  Critics have said that these strategies reward lazy students and essentially reinstate social promotion, while promoters of these practices say that they encourage students who have one bad grade to not feel overwhelmed and dropout (225).  I think these programs are superior to social promotion because to succeed a student must at least make an effort after the initial failure.  Also, because these practices take extra effort from the teachers to motivate the students I believe that, as long as they are applied consistently, they are a sufficient substitute to the programs that have lost funding.  Really though it seems that the answer is to provide more funding to help failing students or perhaps pay teachers more if they work after school with failing students.

            These practices are interesting because they could also be applied by a college professor to motivate a student who did not turn in a major assignment.  An incomplete work policy similar to the ZAP program could be worked into a college syllabus.  However, I do not think this is fair to students who turn in their work on time.  The minimum grade practice does not seem transferrable to the college level and in this scenario actually would reward minimal effort.  Another factor to consider is that in America eighteen-year-old college freshmen are adults and therefore responsible for their own academic performance. 

            In general, it seems that designing a college syllabus with minimum grading practices is not plausible.  However, providing the option to drop the lowest of a series of grades is certainly viable in college and offers flexibility for students facing difficult learning, work, or home situations.    

Work Cited:  

Carifio, James, and Theodore Carey. “Do Minimum Grading
             Practices Lower Academic Standards and Produce
             Social Promotions?” Educational Horizons 88.4
            (2010): 219. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.

Advice for Grading Blogs and Hopefully Discussion Posts:

This week I discovered an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education with advice about grading classroom blog posts.  This topic interested me because currently, as a Graduate Assistant Grader, twenty hours of my week are consumed with grading and commenting on online discussion posts, which often elicits similar grading issues as blogs.  The online component of higher education does not seem to be disappearing any time soon; this blog is actually another testament to increasing presence of the classroom space moving into the internet.  Therefore, it would make sense that practices and strategies for grading in this new universe should further develop and even become standardized.  However, from personal experience, the expectations and grading in the online environment parallel the nation trend of in-class grading, which means that techniques differs greatly according to professors.

I wonder to myself, “How do I find a solid set of online grading practices for discussion posts?”  the Chronicle article, “‘How are You Going to Grade This?’: Evaluating Classroom Blogs,” by Jeff McClurken and Julie Meloni offered advice for grading blogs based on their personal experiences.  I was relieved to find out that it is normal for students to repeatedly ask how online blogs will be graded.  I find there are also many questions about online discussions and how they will be evaluated.  I believe this is because the online class experience is relatively new to education.  It seems that students are unsure about its seriousness as an assignment, or they simply have not encountered it before and want to clarify expectations.  I have already spent at least two hours this semester answering e-mails and composing clarifying e-mails about the instructions for my discussions posts.  It is comforting to know that I am not alone, this is a common issue, and my syllabus, rubric and instructions are not directly at fault. 

McClurken suggests that teachers first establish their goals for the online assignment and then establish their grading method.  These goals range from creating an online research project to a simple reading journal, but the basic grounds for assessment include: “thoughtful responses, good writing, original ideas,” use of various media, and timeliness.  Suggestions for grading class blogs also vary from grading a student prepared final portfolio of selected entries or each post graded individually ( McClurken and Meleoni n.p.).

  I have already established my online discussion post grading criteria by assigning a numerical grade to each individual post.  However, I liked the suggestion of giving an overall grade for participation and a second grade for posts that are expanded and used to build a portfolio.  I think the portfolio idea would transfer nicely to the discussion post environment, especially because some of my students have written brilliant discussion posts and it would be a shame if they never explored their ideas any further.              

Other general suggestions for successful student blogging that I found in this Chronicle article include: discussing what students think is a good blog, showing examples of excellent student blogs, giving feedback in the beginning of the blogging process, and having students read each others’ blogs ( McClurken and Meleoni n.p.).  As far as discussion posts are concerned, I can certainly graft the suggestion to give feedback early into my process.  Actually, last week I spent five more hours than I was supposed to commenting on student discussions.  This resonates with McClurken’s and Meleoni’s caution to teachers to not become consumed with grading blogs.

Blogs in general when compared to class discussion posts are certainly more versatile.  They are excellent for showcasing research and for expressive student writing and discovery (My own research blog: http://fightinglikeaman.blogspot.com/2010_09_08_archive.html ).  However, as far as grading blogs in comparison to their less creative counter parts, the online discussion, I feel that there are infinite ways to assess blogs.  However, after reading this article, I would most likely assign one grade to a blog as a portfolio in its entirety.  I am also glad that I was able to garner form this article a few creative suggestions for grading online discussion in the future.

Work Cited

McClurkin, Jeff, and Julie Meloni.  Editorial. “‘How are You

        Going to Grade This?’: Evaluating Classroom Blogs.”

        The Chronicle of Higher Education. 21 June 2010.

        Web. 19 Jan. 2011.

Link to article: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-are-you-going-to-grade-this-evaluating-classroom-blogs/24935

Issue One: Grade Inflation

I need to begin this blog by admitting that I am not well-informed on the issue of grade inflation but that my goal is to learn through this experience.  As an undergraduate, I heard rumors that our “As” were not truly ours and that our professors were too lax in their grading of our performance.  One night, I did come across an article on grade inflation on the internet; after spending seven hours working a paper on the evolution of Beat poetry, I certainly did not agree that college students are increasingly lazy and handed their grades.    

In Mark King’s scholarly journal article, “Voluntary Conscription: Enlisting the Children of Lake Wobegone in the Battle against Grade Inflation,” he covers the history of  the debate about grade inflation, concludes that the negative tone of administrators, professors and journalists is less than productive, and proposes a concrete solution (129-130). 

  It seems that the solution would be for universities to honestly assess the impact of grade inflation on their campuses instead of denying it (131).  Unfortunately, grade inflation is a slippery thing to assess and a university admitting grade inflation might injure its reputation.  Some academics even suggest that higher grades encourage students to perform better and that grade inflation is good for student self-esteem. 

In this blame game student evaluations, plummeting education standards, a society too quick to hand out praise to children, and even the humanities are examples of the vast array of explanations for grade inflation (King 131-134).   I find it horrific that Harvey C. Mansfield believes that African-Americans attending college created grade inflation (132).  Personally, I do not believe that a student’s race should have any influence on academic performance.  I think a combination of the other aforementioned factors is most likely to blame. 

King shows that educators, academics, and journalists all believe that grade inflation is certainly a problem in America; however, these same people tend to overlook the students who also feel this is a problem (135). I agreed with this point that contrary to popular assumption, students do not want everyone to automatically receive good grades.  Easy “As” show students that they do not have to stretch themselves and that a medium effort is worth an excellent grade.  This is especially harmful to graduating collage seniors; if they all have perfect G.P.A.’s, then how do employers know who the worthy future employees are? 

King suggests that once educated about the grading process and the “scarcity of human excellence” students will welcome less-inflated grades (129).  King says that because universities generally deny that grade inflation occurs on their campuses, the problem needs to be addressed at the classroom level (131). A professor’s fear of poor student evaluations seems a reasonable explanation for grade inflation, but it does not justify the practice.  Though student evaluations should not be used as the only means to evaluate a professor, they sometimes are the only assessment they will receive. 

King’s believes that fostering mutual understanding about the grading process will keep students from rating teachers poorly on evaluations solely on the fact that they distribute lower grades than other professors.  I completely agree with him, especially because he speaks from personal experience.  I find that Mark King’s classroom exercise, where he puts excellence in context and gives students the chance to distribute grades on a class assignment, is definitely one of the many ways professors can enlighten students about grade inflation and teach the valuable life lesson that poor work is not rewarded favorably (137-142).  When I have the honor of teaching a class, I will certainly work with my class to explain the grading process and directly combat grade inflation.  I want my students to succeed but I also want them to be assessed fairly.

  

Work Cited

King, Mark. “Voluntary Conscription: Enlisting the Children of Lake

Wobegone in the Battle against Grade Inflation.” College

Literature 32.1 (2005): 127-145. MLA

International Bibliography. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.