Chapter 12

Summary: This chapter is mostly concerned with grading scales, and explains the advantages and disadvantages to the two major systems. The first, and most common, is the 100 point scale, and the other most prevalent system is the four point scale. The general consensus is that neither system is actually better than the other, just that each teacher will prefer one to the other. One key idea to consider is the emotions that grades can bring up in one's students. Getting a fifty, for example, seems quite different from getting a two. A teacher should be aware of not only their own comfort, but also the feelings of their students.

Key Thought: Other than concerns with the 0-60 failure range, the 100 point scale seems to me to have the greater range of versatility, allowing for much more specificity than the four point system. Also, students will more often have an easier time understanding the 100 point grades, as they've been conditioned to expect the 100 point scale grades.

Chapter 9 Reflection

This chapter talks about things not to do when differentiating assessment and grading. They talk about ten things to avoid when it comes to grading. some of the tips include, avoid penalizing students' multiple attempts at mastery, avoid grading practice assignments, avoid assessing students in a ways that do not accurately indicate their mastery.

We thought that it was a good idea to not grade homework on the answers they got wrong if it is practice homework, but instead to grade on effort, as long as you can see that the student tried then they should get credit for the assignment.
We also think that a better way for students to get good grades is to give them the opportunity to revise their work to get full credit, this way you don't have to grade twice as much work and they don't have to do more work for your class

This chapter discussed grades and grading in depth. Every aspect of grading that must be considered was touched on. An example essay was provided and asked to be graded. Grades ranged from A-D. This showed that there are no universal set criteria for assessing a student's work. Another key point was that you need to know who your students are, and how they tend to perform on work. An eye opening point was that there are actually teachers who will give a student a D on an assignment rather than give them the F that they deserve.

This Chapter was very repeatative and similar to DI/UbD chapter 8. Many of teh suggestions were discussed were common sense things. Every teacher is going to establish thier own personal grading policy and there is not much that can be done to alter or influence that. A teacher's grading ideas are going to be based on what works for them. However we feel that every student should be treated and graded equally.

Chapter 13 Reflection

This chapter explains different format styles for your grade book in a differentiated classroom. The following formats were introduced and discussed; grouping assignments by standards, objective, or benchmark, grouping assignments by weight or category, listing assignments by date, and having a topics based grade book.

We would most likely use the listing assignments by date approach for our grade books. That seems like the most organized and helpful way to find grades. We also might consider using the grouping assignments by weight method. This way it might be easier to calculate grades because assignments would already be in groups. Now that many grades can be entered in the computer in online grade books it will make our lives even easier and more efficient.Even though they have grade books on the computer we think it's still a good idea to have an up dated hard copy on hand