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On 11/01/09, curiositycat wrote:
> I definitely see keeping formative assessments out of the
> gradebook, but what has the rationale for not recording the
> other items? Like you pointed out, it's just not
> developmentally appropriate for many students to be
> intrinsically motivated. Doing the work just for the sake of
> personal improvement is simply not something that applies to
> the majority of students. What was the topic of the workshop,
> and who was the presenter?
>

I agree. It is nice to be reminded that this is true everywhere
and not just at our school. The topic of the workshop was
standards-based grading and the presenter was simply a working
teacher, not someone famous in the field. The rationale is that
you should only focus on whether or not the student has met the
standard, not their behavior, or extra credit, or what have you.
I can see that, but the problem remains. The presenter bases 90%
of his grades on tests, and has a system for allowing retakes to
pass. One thing I do is to simply give credit (say, 2 pts) for
assignments that are practice and that we grade in class. Still,
some students catch on and do sloppy work. Sometimes I pass it
back and tell them to try again. It is still a lot to keep track
of. Sometimes we might do three different assignments in a class
and that is a lot to record.

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