FIAE Chapters 11, 12, 13 & 14

These chapters of Fair Isn’t Always Equal focused mainly on grading scales and the place they have in the classroom. These chapters were really informative and really helpful for me as a future teacher, especially because they had plenty of graphics when they were introducing something they knew that readers would be unsure about. The first chapter was all about sixty vs. zero and the effects that either the sixty or the zero would have a student’s overall grade. The argument the chapter made was that, while zeros would impact the final grade more, students who don’t do anything and still get sixties aren’t going to be motivated to get their work done.

One of my favorite things said in these four chapters, was that whatever grade scale is used, should focus more on the learning and the progress than just on the grade itself, which is what it should be about. When students receive their report card at the end of the grading period, they should be thinking more about what kind of learning they achieving, instead of just on the grade itself. For this kind of response, Rick Wormeli suggests that the 4.0 grade scale be used, as it’s less focused on letter grades.

Another really useful chapter in this section was the chapter about how to arrange the grade book. As a teacher, we’re going to have a lot of students and a lot of grades for each of those students, and there are many different ways that we can organize these grades for not only our benefit, but also for the benefit of the student and the student’s parents as well. Grade books are an important part of teaching, because students are always curious about grades and it’s important to keep all those things organized, so when the end of the grading period comes around, everything is available to you.

This section was extremely informative, with chapter 11 including a lot of different tricks to grading and information that many people might not immediately think about, like grading late work, grading kids with different needs and intelligences, and grading English work versus science work versus math versus social studies. All different subjects are going to have different requirements for grading.  A math assignment is going to have less focus on grammar and more focus on the mathematical process, unlike an English assignment, which is obvious going to have a heavier grammar focus.

Overall, I thought everything presenting in these chapters was extremely helpful and informative with information that I hadn’t necessarily thought about before. Hearing ways to organize your grade book was definitely something I had never considered before. I also think, as teachers, it’s important to understand the different grading scales and the pros and cons of both, so we can use the one we find best in our classroom.

FIAE Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10

These four chapters focused primarily on grading and how we can be successful graders in a differentiated classroom, when everyone shouldn’t be graded on the same level. These chapters brought up a lot of good points about grading and what kinds of assignments should and be shouldn’t be graded. One of the major things that these chapters seem to agree on, is that students should be graded on their journey, instead of just their end product.

Grading is such a grey area in teaching; every teacher grades differently and uses a different scale to grade different things. Some teachers put a lot of weight on participation and others put a major emphasis on homework and attendance.  While, it might be important to note attendance and participation when finalizing a student’s final grade, along with their homework grades, chapter 9 suggests that students receive a grade for homework, especially if it’s just a grade on whether or not they did the homework.

Chapter 9 outlined ten different key things teachers should remember when grading students, and I found these points very helpful and agreed that all of them are important when grading a student. One of the major things pointed out in this chapter, that seemed to be a major point throughout the entire four chapters, was number five, “avoid assessing students in ways that do not accurately indicate their mastery,” not all students reach that mastery the same way, some it can take days, others it might take weeks, everyone works at different paces and has different strengths, so instead of just grading everyone’s test or essay after a certain amount of time, should be avoided, or at least changed to make it easier for the student to succeed.

Sometimes, as teachers, grading might be affected by something happening in a student’s life, as outlined in chapter 8, with F. being a smart student who is present and participates in class, but because of a hard home life, has a hard time completing a homework assignment. While, it might be tempting to just not grade this student on homework at all, as teachers, it’s hard to give certain students passes on homework, while every other student in the class is required to finish it and work towards a grade.

I really enjoyed these chapters of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, after learning a lot about assessment; reading about grading was extremely helpful. Before these chapters, I had assumed that assessment and grades were the same thing, and was unaware of all the different aspects of grading. I definitely know that when I have my own classroom, I’ll work to making sure that students are grading more on their own process to mastering the skill or task than anything else, because at the end of these chapters, that seems to be the most important point that is being made.