Grading Principles and Practices

Preamble

Historically, there have been multiple purposes for grading in schools: to evaluate students, communicate learning, and motivate students to name a few.  At JIS the primary purpose of grading is to measure and communicate how well a student has performed with regard to the Learning Goals and assessment criteria of the course.  Our High School Grade Descriptors also describe student learning for each Letter Grade. It is our aim to clearly communicate a student’s performance to students, parents, and outside organizations such as universities.  

Evaluations of individual assessments are aligned to common assessment criteria. Course Grades are aligned to the High School Grade Descriptors. It is the intent of our Grading Principles and Practices to provide a defensible and consistent approach to determining a course grade.

JIS High School Grading Principles

1. Grading is a process that requires professional judgement based on a body of evidence. Please consider Damian Cooper’s (2011) definition of professional judgment: Professional judgments are “decisions made by educators, in light of experience, and with reference to shared public standards and established policies and guidelines.”

2. Grading should be supportive of learning.(O’Connor)  Because we know that learning is a process that requires experiences with failure and challenge, our grading practices must support the learning process. Within a course there is a systematic approach to giving students multiple opportunities [these opportunities can be formative or summative] to demonstrate learning; the specific approach may vary by subject and course.

3. Grades should reflect only academic achievement/performance.(O’Connor)  Non-academic factors such as effort, behavior, attendance, punctuality and attitude are not included in the grading process, but are addressed through disciplinary consequences. However, at times student behaviors may result in assessments not being completed.  Lack of assessment evidence may impact a student’s course grade because these grades are determined using the assessment criteria of the course and our High School Grade Descriptors

4. Grades should be meaningful in that they communicate a student’s performance in specific areas of learning, i.e., Benchmarks and Learning Goals (O’Connor). Grades reported by Learning Goals communicate to students and parents where a student’s learning is stronger or weaker within the curriculum.

5. Grading should be consistent. (O’Connor) Common summative assessments and assessment criteria are used consistently by members of each PLC.

6. No one measure of central tendency is a “best fit” for all students.  The purpose of using measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode) is to accurately summarize the “picture” of a student’s learning journey over the course. It is possible that for one student the use of Mean is most accurate and for another student the use of Mode is most accurate.

7. A course grade should be composed of a variety of assessments in number and style.  

JIS High School Grading Practices 

Based on the above Grading Principles we have a set of Grading Practices.  The Grading Practices guide teachers when designing and marking summative assessments and when determining a course grade.

Marking/Grading Summative Assessments within a Unit of Study 

• Each Learning Goal should be summatively assessed more than once in a course.  

• Students should be allowed to demonstrate their learning through more than one method of assessment within each unit of study.

• Grades on assessments should reflect achievement of learning goals. 

• Teachers may not use points or marking to influence poor academic practices such as effort, participation, and attitude

• Please follow our policy regarding how to grade Missed Summative in-class Assessment

• Please follow our Academic Misconduct policy for guidance in how to reflect in your gradebook an assessment impacted by academic misconduct.

• Do not include in the gradebook or course grade, formative experiences that are not aligned in rigor and content to summative assessments of the unit.  Examples could include consolidation activities, homework, and vocab quizzes.  These exercises are intended to promote learning and are not appropriate measures of student learning in relation to the Learning Goals of the course.

• Include in your gradebook, formative assessments that are aligned in rigor and content to the summative assessments of the course.  These formative assessments are appropriate measures of a student’s performance in relation to the Learning Goals of the class.  These formative marks may be considered when determining a student’s course grade if the summative assessments do not provide a clear, consistent picture of the student’s level of achievement.

• No group marks/grades should be given, but rather individual marks/grades are given to the individuals in group projects. 

• All summative assessments should reflect a student’s own work. Therefore teachers must take steps to ensure that the work is the student’s alone if any part of the summative assessment occurs outside of class.

Determining a Course Grade

The course grade communicates the student’s overall level of achievement towards the Learning Goals of the course. Evidence for determining a course grade should be thought of in terms of a “collection of evidence” that comes from the summative assessments given during the course. Professional judgment and information from formative assessments that are aligned to the summative assessments in rigor and content may be used only if these formative marks are the most accurate reflection of the student’s learning. 

• The High School Grade Descriptors should be the first resource to inform determining a course Grade

• Each learning goal should be assessed and marked more than once in a course.  

• Most recent marks and scores are to be valued more heavily within each learning goal.

• A course grade should be based on the student’s consistent performance as measured by the course summative assessments.

• Teachers must consider which measure of central tendency most accurately summarizes the “picture” of a student’s achievement in the course.

• When a student’s performance is uneven or inconsistent over the course of the course, a teacher should place greater value on the most recent assessment evidence.

• Within each course there is a method for student Reflection.   A simple Google Doc template may be used. PLCs may also develop other methods.

Grade Book Guidelines 

Entering Assessments

1. For every entered assessment in gradebook the following should be present in the Assessment

     a. A brief description of the Benchmarks assessed.  

     b. A link to rubrics and/or assessment criteria

 2. Teachers will name and describe assessments in gradebook in a consistent way that parents, students, and counselors understand. Each assessment will include the topic, type of assessment and whether it is formative or summative. 

For example:

• 1. Radians and Degrees test (summative)

  2. Comparative essay on Of Mice and Men (summative)

  3. Comparative essay draft on Of Mice and Men (formative)

  4. Oxidation Reduction quiz (formative

 3. Formative assessments are noted with specific codes

 4.  The Standards Tab used- aligning assessments to learning goals. 

 Viewing the Semester ‘Grade in Progress’

5. All gradebooks include the statement: The grade posted is a “grade in progress.”  The student's final grade will be based on his/her most recent and most consistent assessment evidence. Therefore, a final grade will be determined at the end of the course.

6. The first entered assessment of the semester should be designated “Do not include in Final grade.”  This will result in a view of (--) for the student’s ‘grade in progress.’

7. Once two summative assessments have been entered, teachers should select “include these in final grade” and set the default view to include a Letter Grade. PLCs may decide whether the letter grade is accompanied by a percentage or a point score.

8. Exception: After the fourth week of the semester there must be a minimum of one published assessment (formative or summative) in the gradebook in order to ensure that students and parents are aware of their progress.

High School Grade Scales