Page 60 - EdViewptsSpring2019-web

Adventures in Grading

By Kim Tucker, Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction, Somers Point

School District

In 2013, I was working as the supervisor overruled the recom- Next, we look at the student’s tests
a supervisor of special mendations of the student’s sixth grade and projects:
teachers, and placed the student in
education for the junior honors classes at the mother’s request. Test 1 94
Test 2
65
high school in a district Now, it was one year later, and again Test 3 100
teachers were not recommending the
for grades seven through student for honors classes despite the Test 4 77
mother’s request.
twelve. At the end of the school Together, the other supervisor and Project 1 100
year, one seventh grade student I decided to take a deeper look into Project 2 105
was being considered for retention. I each student’s grades. What we found Project 3 100
was aware of John Hattie’s research surprised us. This led us to create Project 4 100
published in Visible Learning (2008) some grading case studies for teach-
and knew that retention does not have a ers to examine during their Profes- We ask: According to this student’s
positive effect on student achievement, sional Learning Community time. test and project grades, did she dem-
but rather a very negative effect. Howev- onstrate mastery of content? Why or
er, the student had failed English, math, The first case study we titled, The Par- why not?
science, and social studies, which made ticipator. The student finished Honors
it hard for me to argue on his behalf. English in grade seven with a 93, A. Subsequently, we look at the quiz
At the same time, I had a conversation For this case study, we looked at the grades: 43, 75, 60. We ask: According
final marking period grades. The first
to quiz grades, did this student dem-
with a content supervisor about another question in the case study is: Would onstrate mastery of the content? Why
student finishing seventh grade. She you recommend this student for eighth or why not?
shared that the student was not recom- grade honors English? Why? In work-
mended for honors classes a year ing through the case study with numer- Then, we look at the homework
ago when she entered the district, but ous groups of educators, the answer is grades. Twelve grades were entered
her mother had requested that she be usually yes based on this final grade. in the gradebook. Eleven homework
placed in honors classes. At the time, assignments were scored as 100%
Educational Viewpoints -58- Spring 2019