What We Know About Grading
What We Know About Grading

Author: Thomas R. Guskey

Publisher: ASCD

Published: 2019-02-04

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1416627650

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Grading is one of the most hotly debated topics in education, and grading practices themselves are largely based on tradition, instinct, or personal history or philosophy. But to be effective, grading policies and practices must be based on trustworthy research evidence. Enter this book: a review of 100-plus years of grading research that presents the broadest and most comprehensive summary of research on grading and reporting available to date, with clear takeaways for learning and teaching. Edited by Thomas R. Guskey and Susan M. Brookhart, this indispensable guide features thoughtful, thorough dives into the research from a distinguished team of scholars, geared to a broad range of stakeholders, including teachers, school leaders, policymakers, and researchers. Each chapter addresses a different area of grading research and describes how the major findings in that area might be leveraged to improve grading policy and practice. Ultimately, Guskey and Brookhart identify four themes emerging from the research that can guide these efforts: - Start with clear learning goals, - Focus on the feedback function of grades, - Limit the number of grade categories, and - Provide multiple grades that reflect product, process, and progress criteria. By distilling the vast body of research evidence into meaningful, actionable findings and strategies, this book is the jump-start all stakeholders need to build a better understanding of what works—and where to go from here.

GRADES AND GRADING PRACTICES
GRADES AND GRADING PRACTICES

Author: Charles H. Hargis

Publisher: Charles C Thomas Publisher

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 0398084297

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This second edition of Grades and Grading Practices not only contains updated and refreshed material on the problems caused by our current grading system, it also provides two additional chapters dealing with the present issues on assessment, standards, and social promotion. Designed to assist teachers, instructors, curriculum persons, and administrators who desire to implement cooperative thinking and problem-solving skills into the existing grading practices, this book calls attention to the obstacles that have been created. While poor grades may nudge some students to better performance, there are other students-low achievers-who are demoralized by poor grades, bringing about a variety of behavioral difficulties that have a negative effect on future incentive to learn. Good grades are motivating, but the only students who are motivated are those already getting good grades. Success is fundamental to achievement. Lack of success means lack of achievement. The failing grades are indicative of our failure to provide success for most students who receive them. This book explores the problems caused by grades and offers suggestions to improve the quality of American education.

Grade Inflation
Grade Inflation

Author: Lester H. Hunt

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2008-07-22

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0791478009

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An authoritative and provocative discussion of the key issues surrounding grade inflation and its possible effects on academic excellence.

Failing Our Future
Failing Our Future

Author: Joshua R. Eyler

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2024-08-27

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 1421449943

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An indictment of the grading system in American schools and colleges—and a blueprint for how we can change it. One of the most urgent and long-standing issues in the US education system is its obsession with grades. In Failing Our Future, Joshua R. Eyler shines a spotlight on how grades inhibit learning, cause problems between parents and children, amplify inequities, and contribute to the youth mental health crisis. Eyler, who runs the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, illustrates how grades interfere with students' intrinsic motivation and perpetuate the idea that school is a place for competition rather than discovery. Grades force students to focus on rewards and distract them from exploring ideas or pursuing interests beyond what they'll be tested on. In fact, grades significantly impede the learning process. They are also significantly affecting children's physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation have spiked, and academic stress tied to grades is a leading cause of this escalation. Eyler shares success stories of grading reform efforts that are already under way as an antidote to the harms caused by the practices currently used in educational institutions. Equal parts scathing and hopeful, Failing Our Future aims to improve the lives of students by encouraging them to define success on their own terms. Parents, educators, policymakers, and students will find in these pages a rallying cry for change and a blueprint for how to implement reforms in our homes and classrooms.

Grading for Equity
Grading for Equity

Author: Joe Feldman

Publisher: Corwin Press

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1506391591

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Joe Feldman shows us how we can use grading to help students become the leaders of their own learning and lift the veil on how to succeed. . . . This must-have book will help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact." —Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain Crack open the grading conversation Here at last—and none too soon—is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today’s schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students. With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity provides A critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students’ academic potential—practices that are still in place a century later A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a "true north" orientation toward equitable grading practices Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding As Joe writes, "Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers." Each one of us should start by asking, "What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?" Then, let’s make the choice to do things differently . . . with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.

Standards-based Mathematics Assessment in Middle School
Standards-based Mathematics Assessment in Middle School

Author: Thomas A. Romberg

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780807744819

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume takes an in-depth look at the problems and practices involved in conducting formative assessments in middle school mathematics classrooms. In these chapters, researchers and teachers identify the challenges teachers faced as they attempted to implement new assessment procedures, moving from more traditional methods to an emphasis in the quality of student work. This authoritative book: Documents the shift from traditional ways of judging student performance (tests to measure what students know) to reform notions of mathematical literacy (documenting students' growth in understanding specific content domains); Discusses four key steps in the change process that helped teachers to accomplish the necessary shift in assessment practices. Includes two chapters written by teachers that describe their personal experiences with implementing these new practices in the classroom and outlines a professional development program that evolved as a consequence of the work done by the teachers and students discussed in this book.