Ken O’Connor excellent...évidemment !!!

A repair kit for grading: 15 fixes for broken grades.
Autre belle conférence ce matin. Voici un résumé de mes notes de ma rencontre avec Ken O'Conner…

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Grades must be consistent, accurate, meaningful and supportive of learning… Not a grading game but a learning game…

“The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust)

The grading box: We are doing it because it has been done before and that we will keep doing it this way. If students are different shouldn’t our practice be different? Uniform dose not equal fair…

Success is maybe the single most important factor in order to keep trying and getting better… We need lots of opportunities to include the students in the process..

The primary purpose of grades is to communicate student achievement to students, parents, school administrators…

Don’t take marks for assignment not turned it…Do it through a positive and supportive approach (after school follow-up, contact parents, make-up responsibility in a supervised setting, comment on report card about chronic lateness) As an adult if you don’t made a date line…you communicate with the other person expecting to receive something from you. In the real world, we negotiate timelines. There is everything from deadlines to full flexibility. In schools we tend to have only deadlines…

Our practices shouldn’t distort achievement…

“No studies support the use of low grades or marks as punishments. Instead of prompting greater effort, low grades more often cause students to withdraw from learning “ (Guskey & Bailey 2001)

“No student’s grade should depend on the achievement (or behaviour) of other students” (Glasser)

A student could make significant personal growth while making limited progress at a relatively low level of achievement; also
A student could make little personal growth while making limited progress at a relatively high level of achievement.

We need a minimum of 3 piece of sample in order to provide a assessment. More is ok but we don’t need 15…
Time shouldn’t be an issue in assessment. I we want accurate information; we have to plan assessment in order to complete the assessment.

You can offer a flex time period for students that are slow writers (this is about one third of the test length). It takes the pressure off. There shouldn’t be time limit on tests.

There shouldn’t also be arithmetic mean as the predominant measurement of student achievement. ( D. Reeves,2000)

Do you run the number? Or do they run you?

Whenever I hear statistics being quoted I am reminded of the statistician who drowned while wading across a river with an average depth of three feet. (Letter to the editor, Globe & Mail, 2003)

You should use “I” for incomplete instead of zeros. It put the responsibility on the student…where it should be…

Purpose of homework; Preparation, practice, extension and integration… Practice homework shouldn’t be marked. Students are doing then for compliance if they are graded…

The research indicates that implementing through assessment depends on 5 deceptively simple key factor;
- The provision of effective feedback to students
- The active involvement of students in their own learning
- Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment
- A recognition of the profound influence assessment has n the motivation and self-esteem of students, both of which are crucial influences on learning
- The need for students to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve.

Grades should come from : Body of evidence + Performance and standards + guidelines…Professional judgment NOT just number crunching.

Guiding practices of effective grading and reporting :
1- Grades and reports should be based on clearly specific learning goals and performance standards.
2- Evidence used for grading should be valid.
3- Grading should be based on established criteria, not norms.
4- Not everything should be included in grades.
5- Avoid grading based on mean averages.
6- Focus on achievement and reports other.

A repair kit for grading: 15 fixes for broken grades.

1- Don’t include student behaviour in grades; include only achievement.

2- Don’t reduce marks on “work” submitted late; provide support for the learner.

3- Don’t give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in a higher level of achievement.

4- Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduce grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement.

5- Don’t consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately.

6- Don’t include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence.

7- Don’t organize information in grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goals.

8- Don’t assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations.

9- Don’t assign grades based on student’s achievement compared to other students; compare each student’s performance to present standards.

10- Don’t rely on evidence from assessment that fail to meet the standard of quality; rely only on quality assessments.

11- Don’t rely only on the mean; consider other measure of central tendency and use professional judgment.

12- Don’t include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement or use “I” for incomplete or insufficient evidence.

13- Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence.

14- Don’t summarize evidence accumulated over time when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities; in those instances, emphasize more recent achievement.

15- Don’t leave students out of the grading process. Involve students; they can-and should- play key roles in assessment and grading that promote achievement.

*Note that number 1 to 6 ingredients to distort achievement, 7 to 10 are low quality or poorly organized evidence, 11 to 12 are for inappropriate number crunching and 13 to 15 are to support the learning process.