Grading

 

1.You can grade any sort of activities and results.

2.Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives helps rise above stuff-in/vomit-out teaching

3.Ask for paraphrases, summaries, examples, applications, criticisms of ideas, principles, case studies

4.Groups can work together on all these together: paraphrases, summaries, examples, applications, criticisms, principles, case studies

5.Use a set of percentages for deciding what grades to give

6.Your school or district may have a set already

7.I use the decades: 90%, 80%, etc. for A, B, ...

8.I use 3% for + and 7% for -

9.80% for B, 83% for B+ and 87% for A-

10.                UWSP has no plus for A, no minus for D and there are no gradations of F,  for a total of 11 grades.

11.                No matter how much or how little work I give, the student who gets 90% of it done well gets an A.

12.                One single test: 90% right or more for an A

13.                A test once a month and quizzes other weeks: total of 90% or more for an A

14.                A spreadsheet or database allows me to give partial credit accurately, easily, quickly.

15.                I look over a poor paper and judge it to be worth one third credit.  The students gets 33%.  Later, he improves the paper and it gets 80% credit.

16.                I go to the cell with .33 and change the figure to .80.  All corresponding math is done instantly and correctly.

17.                Allowing improvements usually improves learning effectiveness.

18.                The spreadsheets in ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works are powerful.

19.                Excel is super-powerful.  It can give letter grades to numbers.

20.                All three spreadsheets are available on both Macs and PC’s.

21.                Added thoughts for Fall 00

22.                Dorothy’s subject heading is “testing”, not grading

23.                I asked my wife what she thought of “testing” and she said, “It stinks.”

24.                Basically, figure out what your students should experience or learn

25.                Set realistic expectations, without trying to be easy or hard

26.                Work reasonably hard at getting all students to succeed

27.                Expect difficulties and disappointments – they happen

28.                Try to give speedy and useful feedback

29.                Students almost all work harder and faster when they can see results of their efforts

30.                Note: no slides were injured in the making of this presentation.  All had less than 20 words each.