Dear Educators,
As we all know,
grades are here to serve a variety of purposes. The problem
with this is that the way they are being reported, not everyone is getting the
whole story. When a parent opens their child’s report card
and sees a B in math (on a traditional-based report card), they are more than
likely pleased. However, “if a student’s mastery is inconsistent,
then a summary grade is difficult to determine and will lack the detail needed
to understand the student’s real achievement; that is, their strengths and
weaknesses” (O’Connor, 2011, p.62). As a result, the parents will not know this
and therefore will not work on that specific skill with their child, leaving
the student even more behind the following year.
The solution to
this problem is standards-based grades. This is when a teacher
will “base grades on published school/district/state standards, and report them
for each standard to create a more complete profile of individual students’
strengths and weaknesses” (O’Connor, 2011, p.58). This allows not only the parents to see what
exact skill their child may be lacking in/excelling in, but also the following years’
teacher as well as administrators. It is a clear measurement
of progress made/not made by each student.
In this blog, I will examine the pros and cons of standards-based
grading.
Thank
you
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