What have I learned about assessment?

As I look back on my time in ECS 410, I can now see how little I knew about assessment coming into this class. When I first entered this course in Janurary, I thought that I had a handle on the ideas of diagnostic and formative assessments, and hoped this course would help me to learn more about the ideas around summative assessment. I assumed the course would help me learn about how to mark and how to write a test, both important skills for becoming a teacher. However, I come away from this course with more questions about the ideas than I started with. This is not bad thing! In fact I am extremely happy that this course has allowed me to think more about implications of assessment, and how we can be equitable in assessment when we have students with such varied backgrounds.

For me, I found that my philosophy around assessment only really started to formulate in this course. For some reason I had never thought about assessment, and the theories around it, before coming here. If anything, I thought assessment was things such as tests or the writing of essays. I have come to understand that such activities are actually evaluations. One of the big ideas that I learned early on in this course was that an assessment is a way of seeing what students understand, and the teacher then using this information to influence their teaching. Assessments can be something as simple as a hand gesture a student shows you, to a quiz, to a worksheet. An evaluation is used at the end of a unit, and it is used to see what the students have learned. This can be something like a final test or an essay. It is also important to note, an evaluation can be an assessment because a teacher can use the results of a test to see what students understand, and can then influence the teachers practice.Another way to think of it is that an evaluation is an assessment “of learning”, while an assessment can be used “for or as learning.”

This rethinking of what assessment is was a major change for me. I had always thought of assessment in a classroom as something that was very formal. Assessment had to look like students working on a set of questions, handing those in, and then marking these assignments. Now, I can see that something as simple as having students raise their hands or not can be a form of assessment. This shows a teacher right away where their students are at with a skill, and what needs to be done there after.

Many of the ideas we spoke about in the class I agreed with pretty easily. I agreed that our assessment should be more student centered, and that we should try to give students opportunities to show their learning in ways that they feel they can best show. One specific piece I can point to for changing my ideas about assessment came from the Classroom Experience videos we watched for class. When I first started watching these videos, I was skeptical. I had seen a small piece of the video before, the part about the Popsicle sticks, for a previous ECS class. I was pretty against the idea of calling out students at random to answer questions. It just didn’t seem fair to me to call on students if they are not prepared, and I thought that it could lead to students feeling like they are stupid if they could not answer the questions. However after watching the entire documentary, I found  many of the ideas the presenter had actually made a lot of sense. One such idea was that a teacher should be providing feedback over grades to their students. As someone who hopes to teach high school English, this idea really spoke to me. I hope to be able to teach students about writing and how they can become better writers. A great way to do this is to provide feedback to their students, and to then have their students use this feedback to better their work. As well, watching the video showed me certain things about how to provide feedback. The feedback that is provided to students should not be overwhelmingly positive or negative; it should highlight what the student has done well, and what they can improve on. If the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, a student may rest on their laurels. If the feedback is overly negative, a student may simply give up and not want to try anymore. This is why the feedback we provide should be able to let students feel good about themselves, and still give them areas to improve on.

These ideas are also presented by Kelly Gallagher in the book Teaching Adolescent Writers. In this book, Gallagher writes about how a teacher should have a student write four times before they are evaluated. This allows the teacher to have ample time to provide feedback to their students, and for their students to improve their work, before they are evaluated on this work. As well, Gallagher writes about how he would create the rubrics that he used to evaluate his students based on the feedback he provided. He knew what areas his students struggled with, and what they were doing to improve, so evaluation became easier.

Aside from the video, the other piece of this course I think changed my view of assessment came from the presentation we had about creating rubrics. When the presenter spoke about creating rubrics that are outcome based, and not predicated on numbers, it really opened up the world of rubric making for me. It may sound strange, but it made rubric making easier for me. After hearing about creating rubrics that were centered around an outcome, it let me know that  I didn’t need to necessarily fret over the numbers associated with a project, but instead I needed to see whether or not a student reached an outcome. This made the creation of rubrics so much easier for me, and it is a practice that I found myself doing in the field.

Speaking of which, now is probably a good time to transition from what I learned about to how I actually used it in my pre-internship.

THE FIELD

Once I actually entered into the field, I found that my new ideas about assessment didn’t exactly match up to what .was in the field. Though I found myself using assessment everyday in some form or another, whether that be through discussion with students or more formal forms, but there were somethings that just didn’t always work. One of the best examples I can think of relates to the idea of extensive feedback. I had the opportunity to teach Creative Writing 20, and I believed this would be the best chance I would have to use this method with a class. Since the class was filled with students who loved to write, I assumed they would want to hand in their writing to me whether or not it was for marks. However, I was very wrong when it actually came to having students getting us assignments. I made it clear to the class from day one of us working on this assignment that there would only be feedback associated with the assignment, no marks. It seemed like once students heard there were no marks associated with the assignment, they no longer cared about it. It was as if as soon as we told them they would not receive a formal grade for their assignment, that they decided it no longer mattered. Students were very slow to hand in their assignments, and in some cases were surprised that we even wanted them to hand it in.

It was at this time that I began to see that my class liked that external motivation  of grades, and that is understandable, they were Grade 11 students. They had been in school for a long time, and grades were important to them. However, external motivation was also something I needed when I worked with my Grade 9 ELA class. In that class, they were split into teams and were in competition with one another. Every day there were challenges where their teams could win points, and the winning team received a pizza party at the end of the unit. I found that whenever I assigned points to an activity that the students were much more likely to be engaged with it. In a way, this was disheartening to me. I didn’t want everything that I did in class to be associated with points to get students engaged. I wanted to use different ways to engage my class, but at times I felt boxed in by the competition format.

However, it was also my Grade 9’s I had one my proudest moments in terms of assessment in the field. It was in this class that I was able to create an outcome based rubric for the class. At first, my coop was a little confused seeing a rubric that did not have any numbers associated with it. Eventually, I relented and included numbers on the final rubric, but I still loved making it. After I made the rubric and went through it with my coop, I showed the rubric to the class and went through my expectations with them. I believe doing this was good for the entire class, as they were able to get a good idea of what I was expecting from them before I had them do the assignment (it was a Character Profile for a Romeo and Juliet character). The completed rubric can be found below.

Character Profile Rubric

	Developing (0-2)	Progressing(3-4)	Meeting (5-6)	Established (7-8)
Visual (8 marks)	The student has presented a picture that is not a clear depiction of the character. This image may be like a stick figure drawing. As well if the student decided to make a digital image, it is clear that the student simply took an image from the Internet and did not attempt to create their own image.	A clear, original picture of the character the student wishes to depict.The picture may be either handdrawn or created digitally, but it is clear this was created by the student. However, the student may not have included colour or shading to the picture.	A clear, original picture of the character the student wishes to depict,  that includes eye-catching elements such as colour or shading. The picture may either be hand drawn or created digitally, if the student so wishes.	The student has provided a detailed picture of the character the student wishes to depict. The image includes innovative use of colour and shading, and the student uses these elements to enhance their image. The picture may be either hand drawn or created digitally, if the student so wishes.
Selected Quote (4 marks)	There is no quote provided.	Included with the visual, the student has presented a quote from the play. However, this quote may not provide any insight into the character. As well, the student has not provided a citation in MLA format.	Included with the visual, the student has presented a quote from the play. This quote will either be: a) a quote spoken by the character, or b) a quote that describes the character. With this quote, there will also be a proper citation presented in MLA format.	Included with the visual, the student has presented a quote from the play that shines new insight into the character. This quote will be either: a) a quote spoken by the character, or b) a quote that describes the character. The quote will be cited in MLA format.
Descriptive Paragraph (8 marks)	The student has presented a paragraph about their character that is incoherent and vague. There is no evidence of organization of the piece, and the paragraph contains little in the way of biographical information about the character. None of the descriptions in the piece are supported in the play, and there has not been an attempt to include a quote in MLA format. The piece contains frequent spelling and grammar errors.	The student has presented a descriptive paragraph about their character. However, at times this paragraph can become unclear and vague. There is some organization of the piece, but only has some pieces of biographical information about the character. Some of the descriptions the student has used are textually supported, but others are not. Also, the student has not included a quote from the play presented in MLA format. The piece contains occasional spelling or grammar errors.	The student has presented a clear, concise, descriptive paragraph about their character. There is evidence of organization of the piece, and includes biographical information about the character and more descriptive elements. This can include at least one point about the character’s physical description and at least two points about the character’s importance to the plot. This can include who the character has relationships with and what actions they are involved in.. All of the descriptions used are supported by the text. As well, the student has included at least one quote from the play presented in MLA format. The piece contains minimal spelling or grammar errors.	The student has presented a concise descriptive paragraph that shows their understanding of the character. There is evidence of organization in the piece, and there are multiple forms of biographical information provided. All of the students descriptions of the character are supported by the text. There are multiple quotes included in the paragraph, and all of the quote are presented in MLA format

In the end, I found myself mostly relying on the traditional assessment strategies that I was used to from when I was when school when I was in the field. This was a little disappointing for me, as we have spoken so much about student centered assessment this semester. I wanted to try and use these in the field, but I ended my just going back to what I was comfortable with when I went to the field. In particular, I used a lot of observation of the students as a tool of assessment. A lot of the time, I would watch what the students were doing and try to figure out what the students understood based on these observations. If there is one area I would like to improve for my internship, it is to use a wider variety of assessment strategies when I go back to the field.

Where will I go from here?

Obviously, I have a lot more to learn about assessment for when I go back into the field for my internship. In particular, I would like to learn more about inquiry based learning and what this actually looks like. At time I was confused by the idea of inquiry. I didn’t know if inquiry went students were free to do whatever they like for a project as long as it met the outcomes, or if it just went student choice about what they are learning? The reason I ask is because the two descriptions have very different connotations. The first area is very student based, with students having almost all the control over what they are doing, while the second still has a great amount of teacher control, as a teacher can create a project and let students select the topic. What makes the first area inquiry and the second not?  How can teachers keep control over the first scenario? These are areas I would like to learn more about as I enter the internship. Also, I want to continue to learn about how to use a wide variety of assessment strategies in the classroom. In my three-week block, I found myself using only a few assessment strategies repeatedly. I would like to learn how I can use a variety of assessment strategies. Doing this will help to keep my classroom continuously fresh and interesting.

It is because of this ECS 410 class that I have been able to create ideas about assessment. Though  I do not believe that assessment is in anyway easy, I now can see that assessment is one of the most vital parts of education and it is because of this class that I am able to understand how assessment affects teaching. There are three key learnings I have taken from this class that will impact my teaching:

1) there needs to be assessment everyday in a class

2) feedback is key for student improvement

3) what our students are learning should be key when we are creating rubrics

The last two points will have the greatest impact on my teaching. This is because I hope that my classes would not be so focused on student grades, but have student learning and improvement at the core.

Reflecting on the idea of assessment

At the beginning of this course, I don’t think I really knew anything about assessment. I remember when I first got into the Faculty of Ed,  I heard that assessment had to be a part of every class and thought that was crazy. How could it be possible to be graded in every class  you have during a semester? How could a teacher possibly do that? Wouldn’t it be cruel to students to do something like that to them? However, now that I have become a more seasoned student of the practice of education I have a more nuanced idea of what assessment is. Through courses, such as ECS 410, I can now see the role assessment plays in education for both students and teachers. As well, assessment is not exactly the big scary thing that it can be made out to be.

On Thursday at the end of class we were given a sheet titled “8 Takes on Thoughtful Assessment.” As I am sure one can gather, the sheet provided 8 different quotes teachers gave about what thoughtful assessment went to them. Of these quotes, a few of them stand out to me and I believe reflect what I think good assessment looks like. The first of these quotes comes from Carol Ann Tomlinson, who states “Great teachers are habitual students of their students. They assess continually to understand the human beings that they teach.” This quote reflects one of the key skills of a teacher- the ability to observe our students. As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, observation is one of the angles of assessment that can be used in the classroom. As well, it is through observation that a teacher can see what assessments work for students and which don’t. We can tell when a student struggled with an assessment, and when they didn’t. It is then our job to take this data and change our assessments to best improve our students learning. This also reflects how teaching is a progressive profession. Teachers are continually taking in data and trying to make changes to best improve their students’ learning.

The next quote that stands out to me is “when we give students the impression that we value the right answer more than critical thinking, we may drive them to take shortcuts and cheat.” The quote speaks to what we should be trying to get out of our students, and what assessment can easily become. As we know, one of the broad areas of learning in the Saskatchewan curriculum is to have students become lifelong learners. To me, a lifelong learner is not someone who just seeks out the “right answer” (whatever that is), but is a person who thinks critically, and seeks out knowledge. As well, in the description of a lifelong learner the curriculum states that students will “explore and construct knowledge.” I think that to construct knowledge means to go beyond just seeking out that right answer, and to get a certain score on a test. Those types of end goals can be satisfying, but they are also finite. Students who are engaged in inquiry lead instruction may be able to become interested in a subject that could change their entire lives.

The last two quotes that I really liked, I believe, play hand in hand. Those quotes are “the more time that elapses between a student response and teacher feedback, the less meta-cognitive reflection takes place”, and “grading too soon can lead students to the damaging inference that if you have to try, you aren’t smart in the subject.” These quotes have a certain importance to me as a prospective English teacher, but they have obvious applications to people in other fields of study. When it comes to grading, I have come to see that giving a student an actual grade on an assignment should be saved until closer to the end of a semester, as more of a summative assessment. This is because we give students the opportunity to actually learn something, and for the teacher to see what the students have learned to one degree or another, before we actually assess a student on that skill. What we should be doing before giving a grade is what is reflected in the first quote. We should be giving our students as much feedback as possible from the beginning of a course so they can improve. Students need to see what they have done wrong, and see ways that they can improve. This should be a major goal for every teacher no matter what the subject, making sure that every student improves. It shouldn’t matter whether a student comes in with proficiency in a subject, or they have no knowledge of it, it should be our job to make sure that every student improves in some way. And, the best way to have a student improve is to give them constructed, informed feedback.

Now that I am at the end of ECS 410, I think I am beginning to see what I believe is important for assessment. First, assessment should be a tool for teachers to improve their instruction to students. This is done through forms such as diagnostic and formative assessments.  Next, students should not merely want their students to give them the “right answers”, but they should hope their assessments inspire students toward lifelong learning. This can be done by using inquiry style assignments in any class. Finally, feedback should be the main thing we hope to give our students and not grades. Grades may not inspire students to improve. A grade does not tell a student how to get better at a skill. However, good feedback does both of these things. It should be our goal as teachers to have our students improve, no matter what level they come into our class, and providing good feedback will do this.

“Using Assessments Thoughtfully.” (2014). Educational Leadership, 71(6).

Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. (2010). Broad Areas of Learning. Retrieved from the Saskatchewan Curriculum website: https://www.edonline.sk.ca/bbcswebdav/library/curricula/English/Broad_Areas_of_Learning_2010.pdf

Changing the idea of a parent-teacher conference

One of the most interesting ideas I have read in Making Classroom Assessment Work pertains to the parent-teacher conference. I am sure everyone has experienced one of these styles of conferences in our lives as students. You would go to your school with your parents, and then your teacher would tell you whether or not you are doing well in school. In my experience, parent teacher conferences pretty much ended as soon as I was done with elementary school. When I was in high school the only time my parents would meet with my teacher was if I wasn’t doing well in a class. If I was doing well in a subject it was assumed that there was no reason for my parents to meet with a teacher. This idea is changed in chapter nine of the text.

Anne Davies (2011) says “student-parent conferences are a time for students to share their learning with their parents” (89). In the model Davis is suggesting, students are the ones facilitating the conference and they are the ones choosing what they want to be shown to their parents. As well, in the conference a parent will provide feedback to their child about what was demonstrated to them and they will fill out a prepared response form. Davies (2011) also says “sometimes parents and students will also set goals about future learning” (89).

The conferences Davies is suggesting can also take a variety of forms. The conferences can take many forms depending on ” the purpose …(of the conference)…, the student’s needs, the families’ needs, and the teacher’s comfort level with the process” (89). As for teacher involvement in a conference, the text states “when evaluation is involved it is important to have the person who is responsible for evaluation involved” (90).

In chapter 10, Davies goes through the parent-teacher-student conference. The main role of the teacher in one of these conferences appears to be as a translator to the parents. The teacher is translating their evaluations to the parents. Davies (2011) states the teacher assists “students to communicate their learning to parents, and they make themselves available to discuss how they have evaluated the student’s work, as well as ways that students learning could be better supported” (94). What Davies is suggesting with these conferences continues with the ideas of classroom openness she has had throughout the textbook. Earlier in the text, this openness was mostly between the student and the teacher. We, as teachers, should be open with our students about how they are being assessed, and what is expected of them. This is great, and helps to create the relationships based on trust that the majority of teachers strive for. However, if a teacher only creates an open environment with the student, there is one level of a student’s life that is left out. That level is the student’s parents. The parents are usually the one who are left out the most here. They are a captive audience, usually, to a student’s academic life, but usually they know very little about what is going on. They only get any indication of how they can help with their child’s education is when it is too late, and they are called in for a conference because the student is struggling. With the conferences Davies is suggesting, the avenues of communication are opened up to the parents, and they can find out how they can assist in the education of their child. This would create a more holistic educational environment, that would be better for all involved.

Davies, Anne. (2011). Making Classroom Assessment Work. Courtenay, BC: connect2learning.

Comparing the Assessment Strategies of Today with My Experinces

After reading chapters 7 and 8 of Making Classroom Assessment Work, it has been interesting to read about the strategies that Davies suggests and the ones used back when I was a high school student. Davies speaks about how assessment should be a collaborative process between student and teacher, and that students should have a say in how evidence of learning is collected and what this evidence should be. When I think back to my experiences in high school, it is pretty easy to say that the previously mentioned suggestions were not there.

Chapter 7 deals with “Using Assessment to Guide Instruction” (63). From what I can deal, the chapter speaks to using diagnostic and formative assessment to guide our instructional practices. The chapter provides examples of teachers asking students about what they know about a certain topic, and using that knowledge to see where the instruction should go next. Now that I have become an education student, this model of assessment makes a lot of sense to me. It should be obvious to ask our students what they know about a theme we are teaching at the beginning of a unit, and then using that information to see where we should take our students next. However, when I think back to my own experiences as a student I cannot remember my teachers using this technique often. When I look back on it now,  I think my teachers were just very confident in there unit plans and believed they could work in any group of students they would be teaching. If changes were made to lessons or units, it was never clear. Specifically, I can never remember a teacher asking a class I was in ‘what a good essay looks like’ or ‘what makes a good science lab report.’ If they were to ask this, maybe my classes would have left that we were more involved in the learning process, and we would have had a better learning environment.

As for chapter 8, the idea I like the best was the process portfolio. Especially as a, hopeful, future English teacher, I believe process portfolio would be a great tool. The use of a process portfolio would allow students to show all of the different products that helped in the creation of a final project, and would allow students to show all the steps taken in the creation of a project. This would be very useful in the creation of something like an essay. As those of us in English know, skipping over the drafting process is commonplace among high school students. But, the use of a process portfolio may help in having students go through all the necessary steps to complete a good piece of work. However, I also wonder how far the process portfolio should go? Should it include all the things that have helped a student create a final work? Or, should it only be the explicit steps taken in the production of a final project, like showing all of the drafts of an essay?

Davies, Anne. Making Classroom Assessment Work. 3rd ed. Courtenay, B.C.: Connections Pub., 2011. Print.

The Impact of Effective Grading

The other day in my ECS 350 class, we were assigned to read the piece “Leading to Change/Effective Grading Practices” by Douglas B. Reeves. Though the piece may have been for another class, I believe it has a great deal of crossover with what we are talking about here in ECS 410.

The piece focuses on the importance of grading policies in schools, and how they can be the difference between student success and failure. Reeves points to three specific common grading policies that he has labelled as toxic. The first of these policies is giving students a zero for assignments they haven’t handed in. The author states” defenders of the zero claim that students need to have consequences for flouting the teacher’s authority and failing to turn in work on time. They’re right, but the appropriate consequence is not a zero; it’s completing the work” (Ineffective Grading section, para. 3). Reeves suggests having students complete work in study halls or after school to make sure they are completing their assignments. The second policy Reeves looks at is the practice of using the average score of throughout the semester. It is presumed that the use of this practice makes learning at the beginning of the semester as important as learning at the end of a semester (Ineffective Grading section, para. 4). Reeves suggests a method where students are evaluated for learning at the end of a semester instead of throughout. Although evaluation would be at the end of the semester, assessment would be throughout the semester. The final grading practice Reeves believes should be eliminated is the “semester killer” assignment, a large exam or project which is taken in at the end of a term. Reeves state this “puts 18 weeks of work at risk based on a project that might, at most, have consumed four weeks of the semester” (Ineffective Grading section, para. 5).

I can agree with Reeves suggestions as the way they are laid out, but I have some questions about them. The first pertains to the zero policy. When he speaks of “no zeros”, does this mean the score of zero cannot even be used as a place holder? I think that zero can still be used a place holder for a grade, until the missing assignment is completed or the assignment is redone to receive a higher grade. Also, when it comes to not taking the average over a semester, would change something like when report cards are handed out? Would report cards be switched from going out at the end of a semester to being handed out at the end of a unit? But, I do agree with taking out the “semester killer” assignments. Students should not be expected to have a semester worth of work being evaluated at the end of a semester. Students should have evaluations and assessments throughout a semester to track their progress.

Overall, I believe Reeves makes some very good points in his piece, but there are some questions about his suggestions I still have.

Reeves, Dougals. (2008). Leading to Change/Effective Grading Practices. Teaching Students to Think, 65, 85-87.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb08/vol65/num05/Effective-Grading-Practices.aspx.

The Importance of Transparency and Collaboration in Assessment

As I was reading chapter three of Making Classroom Assessment Work, for some reason I had a vision of government pass through my head. Maybe I have just taken to many political science classes in my university career, but there was something about the chapter’s message of teachers making their quality expectations clear to their students. This connection was the idea of transparency. In a perfect world, we as citizens would our governments would act with a great degree of transparency (I know this will probably never happen in my lifetime, but I can dream) so that regular citizens can clearly see the decision making processes of those in charge. This applies to the classroom as teachers should, ideally, make their design making process in assessment and grading clear to their students.

The main difference I see in the two organizations I have included earlier, is that teachers have to make their designs easily digestible for their intended audience. While politicians can arguable try to intentionally confuse citizens, teachers should take the learning outcomes they either invent or take from curriculum, and translate them into phrases their students can understand. This is an example of how we want our learning to be student-centered. We are taking outcomes, that are meant to be understood by teachers, and taking them and translating them into words for our students. This is a powerful idea. Through this idea of translating outcomes, we are changing the perspective of learning from one that is focused on the government curriculum, and putting that focus instead on students.

The idea of transparency I spoke of earlier comes up after the outcomes have been translated. This is because Davies, the books author, suggests teachers allow their students see the end goal of what the teacher wants students to learn. This would appear to not be that revolutionary an idea. As the author states at the beginning of the chapter, “when golfers swing their club, they know where to aim-toward the flag marking the next hole” (25). In the same way, by being transparent definition of what we want our students to learn we are providing a clear destination for where we want our students to end up. By letting our students see a little bit of our process, we can possibly provide a road map to student success.

Chapter four goes into how we should provide models to students of different levels of work, and what good work looks like. The idea that stood out to me in this chapter is how schools should create a cohesive vision of what good work looks like inside their walls. I thought this was an amazing idea to apply within education. Time and time again, I have questioned what kind of standards would be used against me as a student. Myself and my peers would gather around and talk about what teachers were hard markers, and what other teachers in the school expected in their classes. This would be so much simpler if all teachers in the school had similar expectation of what good work looks like. Also, students may feel less pressure in a class with this model, as they know how their work is being assessed as they have experienced other classes within that school.

The other idea from this chapter I thought was very good, was the idea of providing students with a range of examples of work. This means not only showing students examples of work that got the highest grades, but also work that received middling and low marks. The idea of multiple models watches to something we English people talked about the other day in our ELANG 351 class. In that class, we spoke about the idea of the “Grecian urn” in writing classes, which is when a teacher provides a polished piece of writing to their students. Doing this can create anxiety in students, as they may believe that they cannot watch the excellence in the model presented. The same situation can happen if we only model work that received high grades to our students. Students may become paralyzed when presented with this level of work because they do not believe they can match such a high standard. For this reason, it is important to model different levels of work so students can see where mistakes were made in the past and so that they can know others have made mistakes on these types of assignments prior. As an example, Rhonda did this for us with the example blogs she posted on the website. These blogs presented a range of grades, not just the best of the best of her past students. This provided us as students with examples of where her standards as an assessor lay, and where we should aim in our work.

In summation, these two chapters reinforced how important transparency is in terms of assessment. We, as educators, must make our standards clear to our students so they know where to aim. Also, by being transparent we are creating an environment that is more welcoming to students and their ideas. If we are clear with our expectations of students, we welcome them to try and reach for what we have laid out and to even go beyond them.

The debate over keeping behaviour in report cards

Is it a teacher’s responsibility to grade their students on their personality? Should a student’s behaviour influence their final grade? According to the article “Keep Behaviour in Report Cards”, the argument is made that a student should be judged on their behaviour and it should show up in their evaluation.

This article’s inspiration came form the Saskatoon public school board taking behaviour off of high school report cards. The article’s author makes the case that behaviour should be on report cards because without this type of evaluation, students will take tremendous advantage of it. The author makes the case that student’s will inevitably copy “chunks of an online publication into his essay without acknowledging the source” (“Keep Behavior in Report Cards, Saskatoon Star Pheonix: October 4, 2010) and will be given a chance to re-do the work. The author is also against the idea of schools scrapping late marks. It appears that the author’s main problem with this is how it will hurt the work ethic of students, and will reward students for missing deadlines.

This article is a perfect example of how people outside of education are very abrasive to any changes to the educational system. As has been stated many times, every thinks they are an expert on education because everyone has spent some time inside a school in their lifetime. If a person has done well in school, many times they do not want the system they had success in to change. If it worked for them, why wouldn’t it work for some else? As well, this article exhibits the idea that certain people believe that if teachers begin to give a little bit of leeway to their students they will be taken advantage of. Students will be handing in assignments late and taking credit for other people’s work, and will still reap the rewards of high marks in spite of their supposed crimes.

For me, I have no real problem with schools getting rid of late marks and no longer putting behaviour on report cards. When it comes to late marks, I don’t really believe that it is the students getting marks in the nineties that are handing assignments in late. I would argue that it is students who are struggling in school that hand in assignments late, and simply docking off late marks doesn’t necessarily answer the problem of late assignments. These students may be handing in assignments because they lack confidence in their work and need a teacher to help them gain faith in the worth of their effort.

In conclusion, when it comes to the idea of having behaviour on report cards, it is probably right that it is being taken off. It is not our jobs as teachers to judge students on things such as their personality or classroom demeanor. We should be trying to help make our students into the best people they can be, but we shouldn’t punish them if their behaviour doesn’t line up with our personal morals.