Reply by Callie Grubb
Before this class, I never really thought about "hodgepodge" grading. I was okay with the fact that each teacher came up with their own grading criteria. However, after many class discussions and several articles, I am beginning to feel that achievement should be the only determining factor.
Far too often, the assigning of grades is arbitrary and subjective. How does one categorize effort or attitude into letter grades or better yet number grades? Maybe a "little effort" is considered an "A" for one student (because the teacher knows the student is doing their best) but that same effort is a "B" for another student. How would one defend this to parents? The Cross and Frary article discusses that teachers may use "nonacheivement factors" to avoid negative social consequences. Parents may expect teachers to grade attitude, participation, homework, etc. and teachers may want to live up to those expectations. I also think that teachers want all students to do well so it may be difficult to give only achievement grades. It may be especially hard to only give achievement grades to exceptional children.
Teachers don’t have to rely on traditional tests as the only means of assessing achievement. They can development rubrics or incorporate self and peer assessment. The article, Using Rubrics to Promote Thinking and Learning, is an excellent tool. Self and peer assessment may make students more accountable, thereby increasing achievement levels.
Student discipline is another issue when assigning grades. The Bartlett article (assigned earlier in the semester) made me really think about the legality of grades. Is it fair to mark a student down because they have too many absences? If a student earns an “A” based on achievement, shouldn’t they be given an “A” regardless of days missed?
Clearly, there is a lot to think about when assigning grades. While not wanting to sound overdramatic, grades can impact a student’s life. Just last year, UNC-Chapel Hill refused to accept a student because they had a “B” on their transcript. The high school counselor called on behalf of the student and the person in admissions said, “Chapel Hill students don’t make Bs”. Whether one agrees with that statement, it is evident that grades can make a difference. That is why it is so important to have a defensible grading policy. It may be beneficial to have a district-wide grading policy. Whatever the policy, take out judgment calls and focus on student achievement. As stated in the Cross and Frary article, “If grades are to represent current levels of achievement, then poor conduct and attitudes ought to be dealt with separately and not be considered when determining grades.”
Reply by Sandra Peterson
This class has really made me stop and think about what constitutes a valid grade. Are we grading attitude, attendance, effort, homework, achievement? What has become clear, throughout the class and while reading the Cross and Frary article, is that many teachers use grades based on factors such as conduct, attitude, and even attendance to assess student performance. Because teachers are concerned with student motivation, self-esteem, and the social consequences of giving grades, they rarely use product criteria solely in determining grades. Instead, teachers routinely base their grading procedures on some combination of achievement, effort and improvement, and the result is a “hodgepodge grade.”
Interpreting this kind of grade can become difficult not only for parents but often for the students themselves. The students may not be sure if he earned the grade because he knew the material before the instruction began, did not learn the material as well as expected but tried very hard, or that he simply showed great improvement. This class had made me realize that the more criteria that come into play, the more subjective and biased the grades are likely to be.
I agree with Callie about the use of rubrics instead of using traditional test as the only means of assessing students. I feel that the use of rubrics allow teachers to establish clear indicators of the product, process, and progress criteria. Using a rubric, grades for learning skills, effort, work habits, or learning progress could be separated from assessments of achievement and performance. Teachers would have to clearly describe the criteria used to evaluate students’ achievement, effort and progress and communicate that to the student. According to the article, Using Rubrics to Promote Thinking and Learning, rubrics makes teachers expectations very clear. Rubrics provide students with more informative feedback about their strengths and areas in need of improvement than traditional forms of assessment. I think that most teachers are reluctant to let go of hodgepodge grading because they believe that work ethic behaviors are important. Using a rubric, they could report this separately. Students will have a better understanding if their grade reflects specific achievement or level of performance, class behavior or work habits, or progress toward the intended goals and objectives.
Reply by Laura
This article, to me, reflects the beliefs of those who work in theory versus those who work each day with students in real classrooms.
Other than using conduct or attitude to determine a student’s grade, I completely agree with “hodgepodge” grading to determine grades on a report card in elementary school. I do not agree with using conduct or attitude in determining a student’s grade since neither have any real bearing on academics. These should be graded or scored separately on a report card. Low effort, in my experience, is usually reflected in the grade the student earns because the student is not doing her best which causes her to earn a lower score than she would otherwise.
It would be almost impossible for a classroom teacher to go through an entire grading period with a group of 20+ students and only assign them grades based on scores recorded in a grade book. As teachers progress through a school year or term with a group of students, they learn about the students academically as well as personally. Teachers begin to understand students on a personal level and can take into account why they score high on some assessments/activities and low on others. As McMillan (2003) states, there are teachers who “pull” for their students by doing what is needed to help them succeed. For these teachers, student learning is the main goal, grades are secondary. These teachers also recognize individual student differences and adapt their teaching and assessments to help these students feel successful. The hodgepodge grading that I used as a 5th grade teacher involved using achievement, growth, ability and effort to help boost a student’s grade. I also gave students a check if they completed their homework and a minus if they didn’t. I used this information to boost a student’s grade if needed. However, I rarely used a combination of these factors to drop a student’s grade. I needed to use “hodgepodge” grading so that students like Buster and Kayla would feel successful. If Buster went home with a C on his report card, his grandmother would make his life miserable. However, because I knew Buster completed all his homework and often participated in class (although his grades averaged a high C), I had no problem giving him a B. I also knew that Kayla, who worked hard each and every day in my classroom, completed all her homework, and always did her best, deserved to move from a low B to a B+.
As a classroom teacher, I also became less focused on Assessment OF Learning (students’ grades on tests) and more focused on Assessment FOR Learning (actual student mastery). Therefore, the grades students earned in my class ended up being most important for recording on a report card for parents to see. As Marshall and Drummond (2006) stated, teachers need to become facilitators of learning which will move students toward becoming independent learners. I found that the more I became a facilitator of learning, in which I focused on divergent thinking with no right or wrong answers, it was more difficult to put grades on papers. Therefore, when report cards were due, I found it necessary to use hodgepodge grading to help me determine what grades my students deserved.
Reply by Anna Lankford
According to the article by Cross & Fray, most measurement specialists agree that hodgepodge grading that includes achievement, ability, effort, conduct, and other non-achievement factors should not be considered. I agree in part with this conclusion because hodgepodge grading is difficult for students, parents, administrators, and other teachers to understand what the grade really means for that particular student. For example, if I am a teacher using hodgepodge grading and include conduct as part of my grade, future teachers the child may have will not understand that the D the child received was not due to his lack of knowledge of the content but due to the conduct he had in my classroom. The child may have mastered the content but due to his behavior and effort in my class his grade is something very different from his true knowledge.
On the other hand, I have used hodgepodge grading on report cards in the past. I agree with Laura that conduct and attitude should not be included. I have used effort and ability in my decisions for grades. There have been many times that a child’s actual achievement grade was a border line grade and I considered the child’s ability and effort in my class to determine to bump the grade up some. I also considered the child’s future motivation and self-esteem as I gave them the benefit of the doubt for the higher grade. If I had given the lower grade, the next grading period would not have improved where motivation and self-esteem were concerned. If anything the child’s grades may have gone down more. Cross and Fray discuss in the article, that it is difficult for teachers to separate their knowledge and perceptions of students from their grading judgments. I would agree with this based on my experiences in the classroom.
The article also mentioned Thomas Guskey and his recommendation of three criteria for basing grades upon. I found a 2005 article by Guskey and it further explained the three categories. The first category is “product” which relates to students’ specific achievement or level of performance. The second category is “process” which is how the students got to the final product. In this category teachers may consider effort, class behavior, or work habits. The last category is “progress” which relates to how much the students actually gain from their learning experiences. Of course the measurement experts recommend using only the product criteria to determine grades. The more process and progress criteria come into play the more biased the grades are likely to be. It would be nice if report cards could change from the one grade per subject to breaking it down into the product, process, and progress categories. This would give parents much more valuable information on how their child is performing.
Reply by Mickey Morehead
This particular article made some valid points, but I also feel there were some points made that if we are all being honest we can see some of ourselves. While I certainly agree with the principles discussed, I also have to admit to being guilty of using some of the hodgepodge grading practices being examined.
This class has made me reflect on the way I determine grades in my class and the more I research assessment the more I see the thngs I am doing may not always be what the researchers believe to be "best practices." I also believe there are certain situations that are not black and white and the use of some sort of hodgepodge grading practices are warranted. I do agree that conduct and attendance should not be used to determine a students grade. However I also feel effort can sometimes be used to help determine the final grade for a student. We have discussed in class the reason for using this as a factor. If you have a student that is borderline between two grades, I feel it is appropriate to look at effort (or lack of) and if needed, "help" the student make the higher grade. You should never use any sort of hodgepodge grading to punish a student, I believe. If a student is able to show mastery of a subject, our opinions should not have an effect on the grade he receives.
We have reviewed many different types of assessment tools that can be used to determine a students grade. Wether you use rubrics, peer and self assessment, appropriate tests, etc. a grade should be reflective of how well a student masters the content being taught, not how much a student tries, is liked by the teachers and others, has a great attendance record, etc. Let us not forget the purpose behind assessing someone in education. We need to make sure we are teaching the learning targets required and assess on those targets so we can paint an accurate picture of the student in regards to themself, their parent, and future educators.
Reply by Cyndi Austin
In my first year of teaching I attended the Initially Licensed Teacher (ILT) training where the presenter likened the number of F’s a teacher recorded in the grade book to the number of deaths a doctor recorded after surgery. The F’s represented the failure of the teachers to teach as the number of deaths represented a doctor’s failed attempt to fix a patient. This analogy made an impression on me and I began my career vowing to “save them all.” After about three years of tirelessly working toward this goal I grew weary of trying to save those who did not want to be saved and I was ready to become a statistic in the teacher retention rate. I grew ever more frustrated at the students, the process, and the system. After several years of teaching I took a year off. When I returned to teaching I took a position at a school that serves abused and neglected children. Because the school is a small K-12 charter school it does not have the luxury of providing different levels of classes for students. The vast array of learning disabilities and emotional issues that I face with each student requires me to meet each student at their academic level. Serving the students as individuals to meet their needs, while teaching them as a group, has resulted in “hodgepodge grading.”