Repair Kit for Grading Series - Fix 1

The first 15 weeks of the MRVED update is going to feature a series on the book A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades by Ken O'Connor.  This is an excellent and quick read for any teacher.  O'Connor really makes one think about what you are grading and how you are grading your students.  The best part of the whole book is he offers practical ideas that can be implemented into the classroom tomorrow.  These posts will only be an overview of the fix.  I highly suggest this book, and it would make for a great PLC book study.

The book is broken into chapters:

• Chapter 1: Fixes for Practices That Distort Achievement (Fixes 1-6)
• Chapter 2: Fixes for Low-Quality or Poorly Organized Evidence (Fixes 7-10)
• Chapter 3: Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculation (Fixes 11-12)
• Chapter 4: Fixes to Support Learning (Fixes 13-15)

Before diving into the fixes, we must first come to agreement on the purpose of a grade.  As defined by Ken O'Connor as to the purpose of grades, he states "I Believe that primary purpose to be communication about achievement, with achievement being defined as a performance measured against accepted published standards and learning outcomes." (O'Connor, 7)

Fix 1: Don't include student behavior in grades; include only achievement

This fix is the first one for a reason.  It is one of the biggest problems with grades today.  If a grade is used to communicate what a student knows and is able to do based upon a certain standard or benchmark, then the grade should accurately reflect that.  Adding or subtracting points based upon behavior severely distorts the grade, thus not showing exactly what the student knows and is able to do.

Behavior can go both ways; a teacher could have a student that knows everything, but misbehaves in class, therefore reflecting in a lower grade.  Or, a teacher could have a student that might not know everything, but tries hard, thus reflecting in a higher grade.

O'Connor is clear in that he is not saying that certain behaviors are not important to learning.  Many students who exhibit desirable behavior will achieve and many students who do not exhibit the desirable behaviors do not achieve.  But the grade for achievement should not reflect these behaviors.

In a truly standards-based environment, this fix is easy, (the student either knows it, partially knows it, or does not know it at all).  The easiest way to fix this is to have a separate grade for behavior.  I encourage you to try this quick grading fix for a quarter.