Grades+that+Show

=Grades That Show What Students Know by Robert J. Marzano and Tammy Heflebower = =Four best practices for schools that want to implement a standards-based grading system =

Gina Micucci's Summary & Ratings: This article highlights four recommendations that could assist in altering the practice of grading. From a standards-based opinion, they suggest getting rid of the letter grade, translating standard scores into letter grades for report card purposes (if requested), making more assessment options available and allowing students to earn higher scores on previous tasks. The article gives suggestions for testing proficiency, including oral examinations, unobtrusive assessments, and student-generated tasks. The author feels strongly that proficiency must be tested in a variety of ways. The author also explains ways that the grading practices can be implemented, and he provides conversion/grading charts to show how proficiency would be tested. A. 5 B. 3 C. 9

Molly Maguire's Summary & Ratings: This article focuses on four, suggested reforms for grading practices specific to the standards-based 4.0 scale. First, it illustrates the faults of the 100-point system, suggesting that the weighting in a test of this kind strays the grade. According to the authors, this obstructs the gauging of students’ knowledge. If the 100-point system cannot be eliminated, the article proposes displaying the student’s progress on both an 100-point scale and a 4.0 scale. The third recommendation involves offering alternative testing options. Lastly, the authors suggest that it would be useful for students to have the option to raise their scores from earlier assessments throughout the course. If a 4.0 scale were implemented based on their suggestions, I think that it would demand extra work from teachers. A. 6 B. 3 C. 6

Meghan Casey's Summary & Ratings: The article is primarily practical, though it is philosophically biased toward standards based grading. It covers comparison between the 100 point scale vs. the 4.0 scale for grading, including findings that three levels of content knowledge is the best arrangement for assessing learning, thus making the 4.0 scale more useful. The authors give specific examples, including a proficiency scale (similar to a rubric), a conversion chart for moving grades from the 4.0 scale to the 100 point scale for report cards, and four recommendations for making a 4.0 scale work. The article may be challenging for our use because it starts from a bias-- that the there is little correlation between work habits and understanding of material. But if this can be overlooked, it gives very helpful information about converting to a 4.0 scale. A.5 B.4 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff00ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">C.8