FIAE+B1+Chapter+11

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Seth
I liked how the book gave examples of how a zero could really impact a student’s grade. Granted you normally won’t see a student with straight 100’s drop a zero in there, but it got the point across. Zeros can be detrimental to a grade, dropping it nearly ten points! Raising the zero to a sixty will still have an effect on the grade, but it won’t be as damaging as a true zero would. Giving the student a sixty still ensures that s/he receives a failing grade but won’t hurt the over-all average as much. I don’t plan on grading my students any differently because I am going to hold them all to the same standard that is (hopefully) printed in a student handbook they receive at the beginning of the year.

Lily
Chapter 11 talks about grading issues that give teachers a lot of problems. Like, Should a teacher put a 0 or a 60 if the homework is not turned in? The book states that teachers should record a 60 because it shows some mastery. I am not sure if i agree with this because they have not turned anything in at all, does that mean that if you turn something in then you automatically get a grade that is better then a 60? How about grading gifted students? Each student should be graded the same no matter what. It does not matter what the students get in other classes or the reputation they have, if they skipped 10 grades or if they stayed back it should not matter the teacher just grades the work. One thing that book suggests that is hard for many teachers is making grading late work an option. I agree with this to some extent. I think that there are always things that come up and if the student has a valid reason why the work is not turned in and talks to the teacher then they can decide if full credit is available but if it is a long term project and it is not turned in on time then the grade will reflect.

Max
I have had a lot of teachers give good example for how zeros can really mess up someone’s overall grades. If you can explain to the kids that a zero would be detrimental then it could motivate them to not get one. With math it will work in well to beginning classes with a little introduction on how I grade and what a zero can do. I do not think that we should just give kids a 60 or a low grade. If the students show nothing and gave no effort then you cannot tell whether they are mastering the material. For some kids a 60 would be good enough. You can’t just hold students hands and move them along school. They need to learn life lessons and positive lessons.

Casey
Something interesting that I read and never thoroughly thought about until reading it was the zero or sixty topic. Wormeli made a good point when he talked about how students can have a test right in front of them and receive a sixty for just being in the classroom. Giving sixties to students when they do not do anything is cheating, like Wormeli says. If they are not doing anything then why do they receive any points? This is a good point that I do not think cross some educators minds. Although he then makes the point of saying that this is for grading purposes and mathematical reasons.

Brody
In the eleventh chapter of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//, Wormeli brings up the subject of controversial grading issues. One of the issues I found particularly complex was the issue of recording a zero or sixty for work that hasn’t been turned in. Upon first reading about this controversy, I favored giving the student the zero. After all, if they didn’t do the work then they don’t deserve the grade. Furthermore, if there is a student that did nothing to receive a sixty and another student that worked attentively to get a sixty-five, how is that fair? After further thought however, this would be fair. The student that received the zero did not display mastery but neither did the student with the sixty-five. The cause is not important; neither student lived up to the expectations. If teachers are to assign grades then we must remember what grades are used for. Grades are not used to harshly punish a student for failing to do an assignment- so much so that even if they did realize they needed to do their work in the future, there would be no way to recover from the zero. Grades should be used to show mastery. Zeroes distort the image of whether students have mastered content or not. This same philosophy can be used for late work. Dropping whole letter grades for each day an assignment is late does not benefit anyone. The teacher fails the student and the student becomes discouraged and does not even bother making the assignment up. Taking off a few points for every day an assignment is late would suffice. One suggestion I liked was recording two grades for the student- one that represents their level of mastery and one that includes the late penalties. Thus, students can look at the grade concerning mastery and know what they need to work on while still being held accountable for late work.

Kim
The first concern in this chapter is whether to give students a zero or a sixty for incomplete work. The argument for giving a sixty is strong, suggesting that a sixty provides a better understanding of the student’s mastery, while a zero does not. This makes a lot of sense and does not seem as though you are rewarding students for doing nothing, but I think it applies to specific cases only. A student who never does any of the work should not receive a sixty for every assignment just because he or she did not feel like doing it. If it were a once in a while, occasional occurrence, then I certainly see the benefit. But a student who receives only sixties for everything should not be. Students that do not do any of the work should instead receive “Incomplete” for each assignment, that way they are not being given a grade for something they did not do and also not showing any kind of mastery for something they did not do. Another issue that this chapter deals with is whether to grade gifted students differently and how to do so. I really like the idea of teachers providing supplemental information on a student’s progress that gives more detail than just a letter or number grade. It helps to show exactly how a student is making progress and what kind of progress he/she is making. Many parents/guardians do not know what goes on in a classroom, so they see a number or letter grade but do not know what that number or letter means. The idea of taking off a full letter grade for late work is one that I don’t agree with. I think late work should be dealt with on a case by case basis that has a general policy the teacher refers to, but I do not think that a complete letter grade should be dropped for every day that it is late. This causes some students to stress over turning an assignment in on time when it is incredibly difficult for them to do it due to some personal reason, but they do not want to lose a complete letter grade.

Mike
Chapter 11 talked about the different problems you may deal with when it comes to grading your students. What annoyed me about the chapter is that instead of giving a student a 0 for not completing or even attempting an assignment then we should give me some type of grade for now. The author says that if we automatically give them a 0 it is going to hurt their chances of reaching their potential as a student. If a student does this on various assignments constantly then I feel a 0 needs to be put into place to give them a realization that you earn your grades based on what type of effort you put in. At the school that I am doing my field experience in some teachers gave their students all the time in the world to complete an assignment during the whole semester. This is why I think the education system is flawed and we baby students too much. I understand certain students have personal issues going on,but life is not always fair. As a teacher I would assess my students on my own scale based on how many times they do not complete a certain assignment will be the grade that I will assign to the student at hand.

Kaitlyn Bartlett
In chapter 11 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, the author talked a lot about grading: record a zero or a sixty, grading gifted students, weighting grades, automatically versus concept attainment, grading late work and grading special needs students. The one that caught my attention the most was recording a zero or a sixty. After being in the school and seeing how my mentor teacher did his grades and reading this section, they are like reveres philosophies. Not that he wants any student to fail because he doesn’t, but if a students does not put any effort forth with their work, then their is no reason to record such. As the quarter ended while we were still in the school, I got to see how my mentor finish and checked all of his grades. He went through every class and if someone got a 69, he would give them a 70 and so on. He doesn’t believe in giving out grades that end in 9, unless it is a 99. Between the books opinion and my mentor teacher’s opinion, their ideas will heavily affect my classroom because I will need to make a decision of whether I want to record a zero or a sixty.
 * ===Jen===

This Chapter set me off on such a tangent and a rant it was ridiculous! I feel very strongly about this chapter more specifically changing the 0 to a 60. I know that most people, if not all of them student in block one agree that it should be the way their preparing us. You didn’t do it and you got a 0 that’s it! That's my philosophy! Then you deserve the 0 because you didn't show mastery. But those who got a 60, yeah its failing but they failed and tried not not those who didn’t do it and got a 0. They don’t deserve it. I believe that when you sign up for classes and on the first day you are given the expectations of the teacher and on the syllabus it will say if you don’t do the assignment u get a zero. So they KNOW what to expect!!! Well I say they made the choice to go into all AP classes. There was a time senior year that I said no to AP class because I didn’t think I could handle it. I made that choice because I knew my abilities. I have my night class and practicum and at the end of the night my choice is sleep or hw and I CHOOSE sleep because I chose to go into these classes. AND yes I didn't understand HOW hard it would be but I got myself into this position so I have to deal with it and get through. I feel like those students who do actually care and do the work but just get a poor grade are suffering now. Yes it might discourage them, but don’t they know the expectations ahead of time? I would have late points for a week and then it would be a zero. Yea it doesn’t show every other time but they would have known that ahead of time. They would know the affect it has. Now yea there will be certain exceptions but the general rule would be that they know the expectations from Day one when they walk in and they can choose to do it or not but everything has consequences. In life every action has a consequence, whether good or bad it has a consequence. School should help you with preparing for life as well as giving you the knowledge you need.I understand that life will have consequences because of the ways I was taught in school. I understand life is hard and that people aren’t going to say oh well you tried, no there are deadlines, etc. and some things you can't turn in late in life. If you don’t pay car payments or mortgage people won't care if you had a bad day, you'll still be expected to have paid because you have a responsibility. But why do we NEED to hold students hands? and I don't emphasize WE because that is the job you sign up for when you want to be a teacher. But why cant students and people just be responsible and understand that’s life. Why? Why do we need to hold their hand? See I feel like that is unfair to the students who just do what is expected because they know it’s expected. They do it because its what is expected- and yet they don’t require us to hold their hand? I understand people are different. But why should the others need more of our help?

Brittany
Okay, so there are grades and then there are GRADES. The difference between the two is that the first one only exists at the top of a paper/test/quiz and the other one is what goes on your report card for the entire world to see. How teachers take grades and turn them into GRADES is the mystery that every education student has to solve at one point or another. Do we want everything to be graded equally or do some things count more than others do? It is this never ending cycle of what system is the best one for showing what our students have learned while judging the quality or timeliness of their work. I think that the first step is to make sure the students are placed in classes that are appropriate for their learning level and that their report cards say whether or not they are doing advanced work. If a student gets a C in an advanced placement course but could be getting an A in a regular course it is only right to acknowledge that they are doing the harder work. At least then whoever looks at the grade can see that this student is smart enough to do the challenging work and that for that class they are doing what may be considered average.

Leighlan
As a tutor, I get to see students at their most frustrated and jaded. I see a teacher’s job as two fold; help them learn, and record their progress, not to cause anxiety and frustration. That’s why I agree with recording a 60 instead of a 0. Calling the typical grading system the 100 point system is wrong; if failing is a 60, then in reality it is a 40 point system, 60-100. There is no point in recording grades below failure, because failure means one did not learn which means one needs to try to learn it again. If one records a 0 one is effectively recording a -60, which does nothing for acrasy, and only serves as excessive punishment. Corporal punishment was band from schools because it is child abuse. Any excessive punishment is abuse; in this case the abuse is emotional and needlessly hurts a person’s future.

Jasmyn
Chapter 11 talks about grading issues, this seems to be a controversial issue. In EDU221 our block has had a lot of discussion about this. The chapter focuses on the issues that give teachers a lot of problems. For example, should the teacher put a 0 or a 60 if the homework is not turned in? The book states that teachers should record a 60 because it shows some understanding. I don’t agree with this because if the student has not turned anything in at all than they haven’t mastered anything and in reverse does that mean that if you turn something in then you automatically get a grade that is better than a 60?, even if doesn’t pertain to the topic. I don’t believe I will be grading this way.

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