Grading & Assessment

Key beliefs:
- Students respond more positively to the opportunity for success than to the threat of failure.
- Research-based grading and assessment practices should guide teacher practices in the recording and reporting of student progress under the supervision of the principal.
- The school principal must approve grading practices used by teachers.
- Teachers are responsible for assessing student understanding and issuing grades.
- Effective grading practices reflect:
  - - Collaboration and consistency around grading.
    - Communication of expectations and open dialog for improved professional practice ~ Essential Agreements!
    - Use of assessment to improve learning: assessment is not just a labeling event, it should be used to inform instruction & improve student understanding
      - AS learning; FOR learning, not just OF learning

Review definitions from Marzano (2006) including:
- Assessment: “Planned or serendipitous activities that provide information about students’ understanding and skill in a specific measurement topic”
- Evaluation: “The process of making judgments about the levels of students’ understanding or skill based on assessment”
- True Score: “A student might be proficient in the skills and knowledge being assessed but miss specific items because of other factors such as misreading the items or filling in the wrong response space on the answer sheet”.

Review Product, Process, and Progress criteria concepts

Product, Process, Progress (see Guskey & Bailey, 2010 and below from Muñoz and Guskey, 2015)

“Product criteria are favored by educators who believe grading’s primary purpose is communicating summative evaluations of students’ achievement and performance (O’Connor, 2002). They focus on what students know and are able to do at a particular point in time. Teachers who use product criteria typically base grades exclusively on final examination scores, final products (e.g., reports, projects, or exhibits), overall assessments, and other culminating demonstrations of learning.”

“Process criteria are emphasized by educators who believe product criteria don’t provide a complete picture of student learning. From this perspective, grades should reflect not only the final results but also how students got there. Teachers who consider responsibility, effort, or work habits when assigning grades use process criteria. The same happens when teachers count classroom quizzes, formative assessments, homework, punctuality of assignments, class participation, or attendance.”

“Progress criteria are used by educators who believe the most important aspect of grading is how much students gain from their learning experiences. Other names for progress criteria include learning gain, improvement scoring, value-added learning, and educational growth. Teachers who use progress criteria look at students’ improvement over a period of time, rather than just where they are at a given moment. Scoring criteria may be highly individualized among students. For example, grades might be based on the number of skills or standards in a learning continuum that students mastered and on the adequacy of that level of progress for each student.”

Grade Verification reminder checklist_draft sample

Failing student checklist_draft sample

Request for failing student data_draft sample

Honor Roll and Failure Data:

Longitudinal Tracking of HR and Failures

Articles re Grading and Assessment

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