i find myself inspired by a fellow MACer's blog post (yes, again) to write a related post of my own... when reading michael bindon's thoughts on grading student effort versus student ability (http://mbindon.blogspot.com/2009/12/for-effort.html), i tried to offer a new perspective on this discussion, but quickly felt myself heading for a tangent and stopped short of what i wanted to say. the main point of my comment:
"in our mac courses (and essentially every university class i've taken in the past five years), somewhere between 10 and 15% of a student's grade is determined by "participation"- attendance at course meetings, active listening during lecture, and efforts in class discussions. if an elite university is comfortable rewarding students for effort, is it that peculiar to ask middle and high schools to do the same?"
this is not to say that those students who hand in completed homework riddled with wrong answers will get their assignments back with an A and no corrections, nor am i suggesting that a student who half-asses her/his way through the same homework with every answer correct will be penalized for not trying hard enough; instead, i want to meet that struggling student halfway and ask more of my skilled student, in hopes of inspiring both to achieve at their highest levels. with each new day in my placement, i watch those struggling students neglect their assignments and quizzes. when they turn in their work, they're often thanked for this effort with the same F they would have gotten if they'd done nothing at all. if we took away the stigma of failure and guarantee, say, a 60% minimum for doing the work, maybe students would complete assignments. and if we create assignments to help students make sense of the material, wouldn't inspiring their completion of these tasks instill more knowledge than doing nothing at all? conversely, when we award A's to those above-average students who do only the bare minimum, are we not discouraging more meaningful achievement? I have a student in my class whose photographic memory helps him ace the weekly vocabulary assignments and quizzes with ease, essentially guaranteeing him a C in the course if he completes nothing more than the vocab each week (a flaw in my mentor teacher's system, i'm well-aware). his skills allow him to neglect more meaningful learning, but my mentor teacher has no leverage to keep his efforts towards the rest of class in check. if our goal as educators is both to help students master material and to hold "high standards" (as we talked about at length in field instruction some months ago) for these young people to inspire their greatness, then meeting struggling students halfway and asking more skilled students to meet us in the middle seems like a plausible means of reaching that objective.
I agree with you Caitlin. I think that what we expect out of students should, in an ideal world, be tailored for each student. Right now I am struggling with a student who knows the content really well and has taken to correcting my insignificant mistakes and then not participating in the class at all (he will even read a book). I am frustrated with this student because his effort has diminished. Today though he gave me a book on the Crusades. One the other hand there are quiet a few students who began the class as non-participators (no homework or class participation)but are regular participators. I guess what I am saying is that even though I have essential "lost" one student I gained about three. I really like your point about skilled students meeting us in the middle. I'm not exactly sure how to approach this one student who has "checked out"...
ReplyDeleteCaitlin,
ReplyDeleteYour post is really interesting especially after looking at the first trimester grades for our students. When we looked at the breakdown, it seemed as if their grade for the marking period reflected their effort, while their exam grade reflected what they really knew about the content. This is not to say that if you try really hard in my mentor's class but have low skills you will get an A, but it will help your grade out significantly. LIke you said, this does not mean that if they got all the answers wrong on an assignment they would get an A, but some of her assignments go in as "participation" instead of "english" which plays a significant portion in their grade. I'm not sure if this comment is making much sense but I definitely see where your head is at with this post and can relate to it in a lot of ways.
This is a really interesting set of issues, Caitlin (and Megan and Zina)...
ReplyDeleteFor me, another way of interpreting your idea of meeting the students in the middle (and addressing the "fear of failure") is a recognition that at least some of our struggling students have had very little success upon which to build. They need something to build upon (perhaps more from a psychological perspective than any other) and a reason to press forward. Of course, if you want anything you do in this regard to have meaning, and not be an empty gesture, you've got to build upon your relationship with the student, and your knowledge of that student's work, potential, effort, etc.
Reading your post, I'm reminded of the myriad complexities of grading, but also the potential for thinking about grading as a more nuanced tool than we sometimes think of it as being.
Hi Caitlin: First, thanks for your comments about high school Chemistry. A great point to consider. I will keep this in mind for my students who do prefer Biology and "no/minimal Math."
ReplyDeleteI think your blog is very relevant to our teaching. We need to meet students at their level and elevate them if we can. We need to learn to address these multiple layers of students and keep them all "with us". It may be just the connection they need.