Grading student work can be risky business for teachers!

When teachers are given the responsibility to set curriculums and exams and the issuance of student grades, they are vulnerable to challenges of their being too subjective in how they award grades.

In subjects like Math and Science where there is a plethora of factual answers or information it is a lot simpler; an answer is either right or wrong! Therefore, the number of correct answers in a quiz or test cannot really be challenged, the task of teachers is creating understanding of a topic. In language arts where a student’s creativity is involved, the assessment can be far more subjective.

However, irrespective of the subject being taught students can rightly be expected to know what is expected of them to attain the highest grade.

An almost daily request made of teachers is from students asking, “What’s my grade?” So, keeping current on grading students’ progress is an essential part of a teacher’s weekly routine!

When such requests come from administrators and parents there is often an inquisitorial edge to the question demanding why a particular grade was given. Teachers who are unable to give a satisfactory answer inevitably are subject to far more administrative scrutiny and pressure from parents to increase their child’s grade.

Teachers can find themselves in very difficult situations if they are unable to show that the grades given are by objective criteria and can find themselves wading through the Grading Swamp!

Of course, the challenge for many teachers with many students in a classroom is having enough time 1:1 to ensure that all students understand the learning task before them.

The learning styles of children fall into the following categories:

· Kinesthetic (hands on)

· Visual

· Reading / Writing

· Auditory

However, while students can and do learn in several different modes, the majority learn best through a combination of kinesthetic / visual material while less than 30% learn best through simply reading and writing.

By issuing the instruction ” Do this chapter and answer the questions at the end” the teacher does ensure that the students in class understand the task, and occasionally, this is quite a legitimate teaching strategy. It is probably the most tedious and boring for students to accomplish!

Such strategies, when over used can give rise to the following. I recall overhearing a student sharing with his friend in the corridor of a high school where i was working “I am getting a B- in his class, I don’t know why ‘cos I don’t understand anything he teaches.”

I was appalled to hear that and contrasted it with a comment I received directly from a high school student who told me “I don’t like your classes, but I sure learned a lot…” What I did as often as I could in my class was to set projects, harmonizing with the preponderancy of students’ ability to learn through kinesthetic and visual activities.

Giving out work that has a clearly defined grading system means that any teacher should be able to give to the students in their classroom a clear pathway to the highest grade. However not all work that is gradable is instructional!

However, I believe there’s a better way for all concerned and that is, whenever possible, to use Rubrics.

Remember: Meaningful grades come from meaningful tasks!

Choose to Run on the Rubric Road!

Giving students projects to complete in a class with rubrics to define inherent achievement goals embedded in the work facilitates SO many good things for students!

These include developing cooperation skills with classmates, encouraging time management, while also allowing for student creativity. When small groups of students are working on a joint project it also frees up the teacher to engage with the students as they are working to give directions as needed

Those incessant requests for “What’s my grade?” from students, can then be easily answered by directing a student to how they fulfilled the stages listed in a rubric!

This also avoids the challenges of not giving them a higher grade than the student wants when completing a project and when more inquisitorial requests from parents and administrators as to why a child has been given a particular grade. Grades can be justified as being objective assessments of a student’s performance.

The overall grading profile of students can then be ‘weighted’ to give more significance to more meaning learning tasks as befits good teaching practice.