The Grading Game

I have memorized all of my students’ grades. That’s right. I didn’t need to copy them from the school system on to my spreadsheet. I knew them. I double-checked, of course, but I was correct.

I know my students’ grades because I worked on them for hours. I reviewed each student’s progress for the last five months. I went back to their assignments and my notes. My family thinks I perseverate over these grades. They may be correct.

I am struggling with grades and grading – again. This year I have fully committed to grading by standards. My students’ grades are determined by their proficiency in eleven specific targets. Each assignment focuses on one or more targets and is recorded in my grade book, not by assignment, but by the skill.

So what should be so difficult about assigning an end of the semester grade? A student is proficient in some skills, inconsistently proficient in some, and still developing in others. Great. We know which skills this student needs to focus on next semester.

But is that a B? Is it an A? What is it?

Then there are things that are not easily measurable: passion, engagement, or even growth. Grades must be justified, so most teachers base them solely on things we count, and then we only see those things and something important silently slips away.

Did I mention that I hate grades? I think grades shift focus away from real learning and redirect it to a game of collecting a kind of college currency. Grades plant poison in the teacher-student relationship. I wish we could just look at students’ skill levels and leave it at that. But that is not my world.

I hate grading so much that I’ll write a blog post to avoid doing it. I really should be finishing those grades right now.

I translated my scores into numbers that reflect their degrees of mastery. A 4 is a student who could teach the skill, a 3 is a student who is proficient, a 2 is a student who is developing proficiency, and a 1 is a student who doesn’t demonstrate the skill adequately.

We work on these skills in class. We practice, and they get feedback. We look at models and respond to each other’s work. We conference and revise and review and discuss and do all sorts of activities.

So why can’t I just give them a grade?

I made a chart: a student getting an A should have primarily 4s, 3s and 2.5s. A student getting a B should have 2.5s and an occasional 3 or 2. My son looked at the chart and detected its flaw: “you are weighting all the targets the same,” he said.

We have spent more time on reading. Should it count for more? How much more? We only had one unit using research skills. Some skills are interrelated: writing a paragraph claim is a step toward writing a thesis. And how much should “work completion,” “class participation,” and the other “effort” skills weigh?

I played math games, and tried to add the numbers together. I came up weighted and unweighted scores. I gave some targets a multiplier.

I ended up using everything. I looked at all the systems and scrutinized each student’s grade individually. I stayed up late several nights in a row checking and rechecking.

There has to be a better way. I have resolved to ask my students to help me find it. If you have it, please share. Yes, simply averaging their grades and coming up with an 88% would be easier –but it would be wrong (look here, here, and here if you want to know my thoughts on averaged grades).

I want my students’ grades to accurately and honestly reflect their skills and learning. I want their grades to be fair. And I want to get some sleep!