1. GRADING AND
STUDENT EVALUATION
Eighth Group

2. Critical questions
• What is the purpose do grades serve?
• What is the trouble with evaluation of
students?
• How to make grading more effecient?

3. Definition of grading
• Grades in the realm of education are standardized
measurements of varying levels of comprehension
within a subject area.
• Grades can be assigned in letters (for example, A, B,
C, D, or E, or F), as a range (for example 4.0–1.0), as
a number out of a possible total (for example out of
20 or 100), as descriptors (excellent, great,
satisfactory, needs improvement).

4. Philosophy of Grading
Base grades on student achievement, and achievement only.
Grades should represent the extent to which the intended
learning outcomes were achieved by students. They should not
be contaminated by student effort, tardiness, misbehavior, and
other extraneous factors. . . . If they are permitted to become
part of the grade, the meaning of the grade as an indicator of
achievement is lost.
Gronlund (1998) (pp. 174-175)

5. Institutional Expectations and Constraint

6. Alternatives to Letter Grading
12 Alternatives to Letter Grades
1. Gamification
2. Live Feedback
3. Grade–>Iterate–>Replace
4. Always-on Proving Grounds (Continuous Climate of Assessment)
5. Standards-Based Reporting
6. “So? So What? What Now?”
8. Curating the Highlights
9. Pass/Fail
10. P2P, S2S, or Mentor Celebration
11. Non-points-based Rubrics
12. Publishing

7. Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading
and Evaluation
Principles
• Grading is not necessarily based on a universally
acceptedscale.
• Grading is sometimes subjective and context-
dependant.
• Grades may not “mean” the same thing to all people.
• Alternatives to letter or numerical grades are highly
desirable as additionalindicators of achievement.

8. Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading
and Evaluation
Guideline
1. Develop an informed, comprehensive personal
philosophy of grading that isconsistent with your
philosophy of teaching and evaluation.
2. Design tests that conform to appropriate
institutional and cultural expectations of the
difficulty that students should experience.
3. Select appropriate criteria for grading and their
relative weighting in calculatinggrades.
4. Communicate criteria for grading to students at the
beginning of the course and atsubsequent grading
periods (mid-term, final)
5.Triangulate formal graded evaluations with
alternatives that are more formativeand that give
more washback.

9. What is the purpose do
grades serve?

10. What is the purpose do grades serve?
Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson identify the
multiple roles that grades serve:
• as an evaluation of student work;
• as a means of communicating to students, parents,
graduate schools, professional schools, and future
employers about a student’s performance in college
and potential for further success;
• as a source of motivation to students for continued
learning and improvement;
• as a means of organizing a lesson, a unit, or a
semester in that grades mark transitions in a course
and bring closure to it.

11. What is the trouble
with evaluation
of students?

12. What is the trouble with evaluation of students?
Suskie identify some problems with student evaluation :
• Evaluation is a highly inconsistent process. Teachers give
different numbers and types of assessments and weight them
differently.
• There is disagreement on issues like the role and value of work.
Some teachers assign homework frequently and weight it
heavily, while some don’t assign it at all.
• Some teachers will allow retakes of tests and quizzes, others
do not.

13. What is the trouble with evaluation of students?
• Different policies exist for work turned in late.
• Districts may or require different final grades as a passing
mark -– 60 to 70 is a common but large range.
• Districts may set a minimum score that teachers can record –
e.g., no grade lower than a 50 is allowed.
• The validity and reliability of student assessments vary.
• There are major philosophical differences regarding evaluation.
Some teachers view learning as primarily a student
responsibility, while some place the responsibility for teaching
mainly on themselves.

14. What is the trouble with evaluation of students?
• There is little agreement on many assessments and what kinds
are needed for evaluation.
• Even within the same school different teachers teach
differently and test differently for the same course.

15. How to make grading
more effecient?

16. How to make grading more effecient?
There are some strategies that we can use to make the grading process more
efficient.
At the very beginning
Consider the course grading policies.
Before you grade
Try creating a rubric, or grading scale, and test it out on a sampling of papers.
While you are grading
Grade while you are in a good mood.
Commenting on Student Work
Identify common problems students had with an assignment and prepare a
handout addressing those problems.
After You’ve Graded
If appropriate for your course or section, use a spreadsheet or the Space
Grading feature to calculate grades.

17. CONCLUSIONS