Repair Kit For Grading 2. This is the second part of a review of Ken O’Connor‘s, “A Repair Kit For Grading, 15 Fixes for Broken Grades“. My last post covered “fixes 1 – 3“. Today I’ll be looking at “fixes 4 – 6”.
Fix #4
Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement.
Cheating is rampant in education. It’s not a new phenomenon. Times and methods change, but cheating continues. O’Connor is suggesting that we find other ways of penalizing cheating that don’t effect a student’s grade.
Now is a good time to remember that O’Connor’s “fixes” work in conjunction with standards based teaching and assessing. If a student cheats in class and receives a zero, we’ve punished their behavior, but we haven’t measured their grasp of the standard.
Should cheating be punished? YES! But, it should be punished without effecting the student’s grade.
When a student cheats on an assessment, they should retake the assessment at a later time with no negative marks on their grade.
Fix 5
Don’t consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately.
Truancy, like cheating is a big problem in education. Many believe that attendance in school is optional.
Schools must have a process that families and students go through in order to rectify truancy issues. This should be separate from a student’s grade.
If a student has missed numerous days of school but still shows mastery of a standard, they should receive top marks.
This is tough pill for educators to swallow. But grades should measure achievement, not attendance.
Fix 6
Don’t include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence.
Group projects. Students in group projects are not all achieving at the same level. All you need to do is recall your own experience as a student. Did everyone in your group project do the same amount of work?
Why would we give the same achievement mark for a group of students that are all achieving at different levels?
We must find a way to give “credit” for these projects without using that “credit” to affect a student’s overall grade.
Recap
O’Connor is advocating standards based assessment. If you keep that in mind, these three “fixes” will make sense.
Cheating means that the student has to be reassessed.
Frequent absences aren’t an indication of high or low achievement. Focus on the standard and assess that separate of attendence.
Group projects may be necessary, but you can’t give one grade that covers all of the students in a group. Rarely does an entire group achieve at the same level.
Check back next week for part 3.