Encourages writing teachers to use a grading system that employs checkmarks rather than letter grades to indicate whether a student paper has met the criteria established for the course. (DD)

Report cards should give parents descriptions of the progress of their children in at least these seven areas: play, social/emotional growth, arts and crafts, music, oral language, academic skills, and following directions. (Author/IRT)

Schools are plagued with significant deficiencies in measurement and assessment methods. The practice of dropping grades to control unacceptable student behavior is wrong and probably illegal. Also, tests are often severely flawed or misused. Administrators must recognize sound assessment, reward it, and deny advancement to those violating its…

During a "planning" period in the teachers' lounge of a large American high school, conversation turned to uniform, numerical grading systems versus locally determined letter grades. Then various teachers attempted to apply numerical grades to a colleague's coffee-making skills, and a visiting superintendent missed out on a grade-A cup of coffee.…

Test misgrading is treated as a stochastic process. The expected number of misgradings, inter-occurrence time of misgradings, and waiting time for the "n"th misgrading are discussed based on a simple Poisson model and a hierarchical Beta-Poisson model. Examples of model construction are given. (SLD)

Discusses how attempts to be reasonable may cause teachers to create exceptions (for disadvantaged students) to the grading norm. Maintains that making exceptions may ultimately do students more harm than good. Discusses how the harm can be avoided. (SR)

After implementation of plus/minus grading, in a series of classes, students were given a choice as to which grading system they individually wanted. Students overwhelmingly chose the straight letter option by a two-to-one ratio. The difference in actual grades earned was minimal, but the preference was clear.

In this article, the author discusses the "O" grade that is sometimes given out to students who do not complete their work. The author feels there are two issues to consider and in this article, he discusses those two issues. First, and most important, is to determine the appropriate consequence for students who fail to complete an assignment. The…

One minor but irritating problem that most composition teachers face--especially those who handle masses of papers at the high school level--involves coming up with a method of grading that is demonstrably objective but not so rigid that it allows no room for judgment. The author proposes a hybrid grading system: combining numbers and letters. The…

Assessing student performance is one of the most critical aspects of the job of a classroom teacher, but many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to assess their students' performance. In order to measure and compare secondary preservice and inservice teachers' "assessment literacy", both groups were surveyed using the Classroom…

The Killer Whale, Shamu jumps through hoops and splashes tourists in hopes for the big fish, not because of passion, desire or simply the enjoyment of doing so. What would happen if those fish were obsolete? Would this killer whale be able to find the passion to continue to entertain people? Or would Shamu find other exciting activities to do…

As part of the ongoing education reform initiated by the Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB), Liberal Studies will become a compulsory subject in senior secondary schools in 2009. It will be one of the core subjects all students must take, besides English, Chinese and Mathematics. Some of the objectives of the subject include cultivating critical…

First year students' academic performance in three Life Science courses (Botany, Zoology and Bioscience) was compared. Pass rates, as well as the means and distributions of final marks were analysed. Of the three components (coursework, practical and theory examinations) contributing to the final mark of each course, students performed best in the…

This study examined the benefits and difficulties that graduate student teachers perceived while participating in online collaborative group activities during their first year of a masters program. Overall, it was discovered that the three most prominent perceived learning outcomes involved 1) the teachers' recognition of the value of a supportive…