Grading Advice for Grading Practices
A teacher’s world is full of tasks.
Many tasks!
Grading is one of those tasks that occupies quite a lot of their time.
So, to start, what is the purpose of grades?
Grading is a necessity in that it
- provides a framework around which students can judge how well they are understanding, mastering, and completing tasks the teacher has deemed important
- communicates information to parents
- provides a record of progress from year to year
Make grading relevant by keeping these 2 bits of advice in mind:
- make grades meaningful
- make grades consistent
Different grading policies and practices
Grading policies differ from school to school, district to district, state to state, and country to country. Oh, they vary from class to class too. Likely, you have your own grading policy. It is created within set grading guidelines outlined by your school; what makes up passing or failing, and the degree of skill.
Many teachers use the A-F letter rating. For example, an A may range from 90 to 100 on a point system. You may even change letter grades to points.
The past two posts covered the pros and cons of grading practices. Check them out here part 1 / part 2.
In the classroom, a grading policy will refer to
- your grading practice
- how you deal with late work, make-up work, retesting, and other classroom organization.
For instance, you may employ the A-F, Excellent-Good-Fair-Needs Improvement, or meeting-exceeding-not meeting class requirements policy.
You might discourage late work by saying “any work turned in after the due date is subject to a lower grade.”
Or, you may include a dual grading system giving one grade for academic competency and another to indicate how well a student met due the date.
Example: Jane may turn in an essay on time and receive B/A (meaning good for academic competency and handed in on time). Whereas, Jack turns his in late and receives a B/C dual grade (academic competency is good/ meeting deadline is fair).
Work Smarter… NOT harder!
Advice to assist you in lessening the mounds of grading:
- Use students for grading (like everything this has its pros & cons)
- Use a grading rubric (pros-it makes grading easy on you & students know where they stand/ cons- you have to devise one to match an assignment…front end heavy because it takes time to devise) [links for rubric creation]
- set aside the best time for you to grade (In my case, I graded after students left for the day & during planning time. I rarely graded work at home.)
- Use self-grading software/apps (Google Forms, LMS’ have these too like Canva, Schoology, Moodle. EdPuzzle, Kahoot, also have self-grading features built into the application.)
- Give yourself breaks during grading (like students, your brain and body, can only take so much…give it a break)
Final Word
Most of my grading practices have focused on converting numerical grades into letter grades. Each graded assignment was given a point or percentage value (typically based on 100), and, depending on the assignment, was factored into a grading program. I set up the program each year to reflect how much each graded area would count.
For example, my syllabus may show that tests/quizzes count 40% of the final grade. Where labs may count 30%, and classwork the remaining 30%. Other teachers include homework, class participation, and other factors in their grading practice.
Myself, I never received college training on grading practices and strategies. Like many others, it was a learn-as-you-go experience.
