Bulldog Update
Week of January 25
19-20 Scheduling Meetings
Here is the schedule for the final three scheduling meetings next week:
Monday, 2/4
- 8th grade @ BMS 8:10am-10:30am
- 10th grade @ 12:45pm
- 9th grade @ 1:50pm
Scheduling forms are DUE on Friday, February 8 to 5th hour teachers.
8th Grade Parent Night - Monday, February 4 @ 7:00pm
A look ahead
WINTER CARNIVAL WEEK
Monday, 2/4
- Spirit Theme- PJ Day
- 8th Grade Parent Night @ 7pm
Tuesday, 2/5
- Spirit Theme- Beach day
- Para/Principal Meeting @ 12:30pm
Wednesday, 2/6
- Spirit Theme: Jersey Day
- Extreme Volleyball 7:30pm
Thursday, 2/7
- Spirit Theme- Throwback Thursday (Decades Day)
- Consortium Open House 6-8pm
Friday, 2/8
- Spirit Theme- Blue and Gold Day
- ASSEMBLY SCHEDULE
- Jackson Symphony @ CHS 7:30pm
- Scheduling forms due to 5th hour teachers
3 Minute Professional Read - The Results of More-Equitable Grading Practices, by Joe Feldman
As we continue to have discussions about our own grading practices, I thought this article was interesting and timely.
The Results of More-Equitable Grading Practices
In this Education Week article, consultant Joe Feldman (Equitable Grading Project) says that “traditional grading practices result in grades that provide unclear and often misleading information to parents, students, and postsecondary institutions. Teachers often combine a range of unrelated student information into a grade, compressing a bucket of information into a thimble-sized container.” This kind of grading tends to have the most negative effects on students identified as misbehaving and those without access to books, resources, and the Internet at home, perpetuating and amplifying social inequalities.
Feldman suggests the following ways to make grading more accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational for students:
- Shift from a zero-to-100 to a zero-to-4 grading scale. 100-point grading is “mathematically oriented toward failure,” says Feldman.
- Stop giving zeros for missing work.
- Give more weight to recent performance and growth versus averaging performance over time.
- Allow students to retake tests and projects with a chance to improve on previous scores.
- Grade work on required academic content and standards, separately assessing effort, homework, and class participation.
- Lift the veil on what students need to learn and what it takes to get good grades by providing standards-aligned syllabi, rubrics, and simplified grade calculations.
- Facilitate students’ understanding, ownership, and power over their grades by encouraging self-assessment and peer evaluation.
Working with teachers in California schools, Feldman and his colleagues found that implementing these shifts decreased the number of D’s and F’s, produced grades that more accurately reflected the quality of student work, and resulted in a closer correlation between grades and standardized test scores. These improvements were most pronounced with students who qualified for free and reduced-price meals.
What’s more, says Feldman, these changes resulted in improvements in school climate: “[T]eachers and students reported that classrooms are less stressful, teacher-student relationships are stronger and more trusting, and students are more motivated to learn after these interventions.”
“It Is Time to End Inaccurate, Inequitable Grading Policies” by Joe Feldman in Education Week, January 23, 2019 (Vol. 38, #19, p. 18-19), https://bit.ly/2UoTwvf; Feldman can be reached at info@crescendoedgroup.org.
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Chelsea High School
Email: mkapolka@chelsea.k12.mi.us
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/chelsea.k12.mi.us/chelseahigh/
Location: 740 North Freer Road, Chelsea, MI, USA
Phone: 734-433-2201
Twitter: @Chelsea_HS