My Personal Grading Evolution

1. Personal Evolution
of Grading
Gregory Rodriguez
Concordia University Irvine

3. My History…
O Started teaching in the NCLB era.
O My first year I regrettably operated on “Motivation
2.0” with the “carrot and the stick” (Pink, 2009).
O During my first year reflection I felt like I had
been “anti-teaching” and doing “gotcha grading”
(Wissner-Gross 2015).
O In my second year I moved away from this and
focus on my instruction rather than on my
students grades but rather on their content driven
skills.

5. My transition…
O After my first year I started to tinker and toy with my
various grading policy, trying a multitude of
systems.
O It seemed that I was changing my grading
procedure every semester trying to find a balance.
O Still in NCLB I tried to sift through the confusion
between formative and summative assessment
(Chappius, 2007).
O My goal was to move out of the extrinsic and into
the intrinsic motivation through multiple types of
assessments.
O I wanted to motivate students without the reward
based incentive much like Lepper, Greene, and
Nisbett did with their Good Player study (Pink,
2009).

7. My current state…
O The advance of Common Core has greatly change
my own professional instruction and curriculum.
O My goal is to stay away from the 1/3 ratio as was
explained by Elizabeth Wissner-Gross and take away
the fear of education.
O Recently I divided my grade book equally between
my 4 major topics (essays, projects, tests, and
instruction). Trying to avoid “semester killers”
(Reeves, 2008).
O I agreed with Reeves that interventions were needed
inside and outside of class to “reduce the failure
rate”(Reeves, 2008). I did this in two ways:
1. Assign homework from the book Monday, collect Friday. All other
work would be done and explained in class.
2. Identify “D” and “F” students and require them to go to lunch time
tutoring to increase their grades.

9. My movement to the future…
O As I try to spend more time in class to work on skill
and advance critical thinking I need to have more
formative rather than summative assessments.
O Agreeing that these formative assessments can
provide “effective descriptive feedback [focused] on
the intended learning” (Chappuis, 2007).
O With this slowed and more comprehensive instruction
it will be like Pink said in his interview that to create
intrinsic motivation students must be allowed
autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
O My goal is for students not just to learn to take test
but to learn skills to better prepare themselves for
their future.

11. References
Congratulations for Passing Exams: Best Wishes for Students. (n.d.). Retrieved March
30, 2015, from http://wishesmessages.com/congratulations-messages-for-passing-
exams-best-wishes-for-passing-tests/
Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY:
Riverhead Books.
(2015). De-Grading Education [YouTube series episode]. In TED Talks .Elizabeth
Wissner-Gross.
Reeves, D. (2008, February 1). Effective Grading Practices. Teaching Students to Think,
85-87.
Pink, D. (2012, January 4). Daniel Pink - Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose. Retrieved March
30, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdzHgN7_Hs8
Chappuis, S., & Chappuis, J. (2007). The Best Value in Formative
Assessment.Educational Leadership, 65(4), 14-19.
Pink, D. (2010, January 10). CBS Moneywatch [Personal interview].