The interviews took place in a location on the DLSHS campus convenient for each participant, and in each case, in a room where only the main researcher and the participant were present. Approximately 1 hour was allotted for the interview and each participant was willing to engage in follow-up conversation via email for clarity. The following codes were used to differentiate the participants in this research project: ML for Modern Languages, SC for Natural Sciences, SS for Social Studies, MA for Mathematics, EN for English, and RE for Religious Studies. Appendix A denotes the primary questions posed by the main researcher to the participant and Appendix B contains the raw anecdotal data set with some editions for clarity and readability.

On the question regarding the purpose of grading and assessment as it relates to the experiences of the participants and to their specific academic discipline, most participants agreed that grading and assessment represents a demonstration of what students can do as it relates to the outcomes, content, and skills of their particular field. SC provided an interesting addendum when he noted that, “you have no idea what students know, you can only see what students can do.” This appears to be in-line with what Kohn (1994) earlier suggested regarding the notion that direct observation of student behavior (performance, or, the “doing”) more accurately representing student comprehension than test scores. Given student stress around test taking, one could conceivably ask the question: “Does test performance anxiety inhibit accurate representation of knowledge on products?” If so, we may ask if there are alternative tasks that teachers could incorporate in order to alleviate this anxiety while increasing the accuracy of knowledge representation. Additionally, SC remarked, “Grades serve too many masters.” Campbell’s (2012) admonition regarding the diversity and variability of practices and procedures of grading is perhaps well taken given SC’s remark.

The types of performance tasks relayed by the predictably revealed variation given that each academic discipline has its particular foci. The languages (ML and EN) use specific skills and content as grading categories. ML, for example, uses “reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar, and culture” as grading categories with the addition of “final exam” as the sole category container. Similarly, EN uses “writing, reading, outside reading, and speaking/listening/presentation.” (Outside reading refers here to student-selected books that are not part of the formal English curriculum.) Other departments, by contrast, seem to use traditional containers of “homework, lab reports, tests, final exams, and quizzes.” An argument could be made here that these traditional containers do not necessarily report academic achievement of skills and content but are merely placeholders for performance task types. Using specific skills and content as grading categories give teachers an opportunity to clarify student achievement or deficiency. This clarity may help anxious students gain a better understanding of where they need to improve in their work.

With regard to using standards-based grading, it appears that teachers have mixed feelings about their incorporation. MA, for example, noted that discussions of the incorporation of rubrics have started in their discipline, but that they were “nowhere near being able to accomplish that.” When asked for clarification, MA declared that mathematics teachers do not see how these might benefit mathematics students since their discipline deals with direct quantities. SC took it upon themselves to create learning targets for each unit but lamented that standards-based grading appears to be antithetical to this existing grading system employed by DLSHS. EN shared that mathematical accuracy in the translation of standards-based rubrics to letter grades and percentages are an issue. This issue alludes to Durm’s (1993) exploration of the history of grading in tertiary education in the United States. The conflation of the “100 percentile” grading system alongside the use of standards-based grading requires a translation matrix. RE relayed the idea that all rubrics should clearly indicate a score and a percentage relationship. For example, a 4-point rubric would equate as follows: an A (or 4) is 100%, a B (or 3) is 86%, a C (or 2) is 76%, and a D (or 1) is 66%. This helps to alleviate the skewed “100 percentile” grading scale adopted by most educational institutions. The relevance of using standards-based grading and a translation matrix also goes to clarity for students about specific learning outcomes and provides for potential redemption opportunities if teachers give such opportunities.

On the idea of using zeros in the grade book, most teachers agree that using the zero as a placeholder spurs students into action. Since students see the dramatic adverse effect of grades being skewed by a zero score in an assignment or grading category, most teachers feel that students will attend to their missing work. EN and RE were the exceptions to this. Specifically, EN stated, “I will not allow a zero. I will chase students down. Or, students will get an incomplete that eventually reverts to an F. We also accept late work.” The degree to which EN was willing to go and “chase down a student” in order to have them complete their work speaks to the care and concern that some teachers exhibit at DLSHS. For students dealing with school-related stress, having a teacher who is willing to go the proverbial “extra mile” to ensure that students are meeting their academic obligations can go a long way to ensuring equitable achievement, as Mindscape 1 reminds us.

On the notion of including behavioral outcomes in grading, SC engaged in self-reflection and asked, “This year, I was thinking should I ‘recharacterize’ homework as ‘ability to persevere with a task’ or ‘ability to collaborate with a team in lab work’.” SC also suggested that perhaps looking at Sean Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, which, in turn, is based on his father Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. MA said that behavioral outcome were not explicitly stated in his syllabus, and that they were trying to make it more implicit. The inclusion of behavioral outcomes in grading, however, as Duncan and Noonan (2007) previously stated directly skews the meaning of the final grade symbol. As such, for students seeking stress alleviation through clarity of communication, perhaps it is worth considering reporting two separate final grades: one for academic achievement alone, and a second one for behavioral outcomes.

On the subject of grade redemption and assignment re-dos, for most teachers redemption is not a big deal. Most indicated that teachers make these decisions on a case-by-case basis taking into account the situation of the student and other extra-academic factors. Notably, MA suggested that in order for students to avail of possibility for grade redemption or assignment re-dos that evidence of academic engagement is necessary: “Are they seeking help? Are they participating in class? Are they doing their homework regularly? Are they communicating with me? Are they proactive and responsible?” On the other hand, SC spirals their curriculum so that students have multiple opportunities to successfully convey their understanding thus reducing the need for any grade redemption or assignment re-dos. The ability for students to aim for mastery of their learning is predicated on the ability to demonstrate their learning over time. As the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again.” Relieving school-related stress by giving students an opportunity to reasonably try again and again shifts the focus toward learning as opposed to “stressing about the test.”

We then moved the conversations toward homework and especially as they relate to grading and assessment. When posed the question regarding the purposes of homework, most teachers indicated that it is a form of practicing. ML suggested, however, that “homework produces an artifact” and “we have homework because studying does not exist.” ML believed that there is a cognitive disconnect regarding work that is done outside of class and studying (which here is implied to mean memorization and recollection of material). EN, on the other hand, contended that homework is context dependent and is variable depending upon what is being studied in class. In most cases, homework, according to EN, is an opportunity to prepare for the next day’s lesson or to engage in deeper understanding of content. SS claimed that the purpose of homework is for the student to review, to reflect, and to prepare for the next day’s work. MA noted that homework, once assessed, gives teachers an opportunity to understand trends and to offer feedback on student understanding. Most teachers similarly lamented that students are often trying to find ways to avoid homework, or to gain compliance for completion without seeing the connection to any curricular content. SS elucidated on the idea that “homework is a game for some students and (it is) parsed out by teachers in a sometimes not so thoughtful way.” As such, all teachers believed that assigning an arbitrary point value to the homework is a way to spur students toward completion. As noted in our Stanford University Challenge Success survey that students seeking to minimize school-related stress appear to cope with this by violating academic integrity through cheating or copying. This raises the question for teachers as to how homework can be seen as an essential and effective tool for learning.

To that end, when asked what makes homework assignments effective, a variety of answers came up. ML shared the notion that encouraging a kind of student metacognition on the purpose of homework is one way of giving students permission to think of ways in which their homework is related to the curricular content. SC maintained that homework should be “tiered, short, and focused.” When asked to elaborate on the idea of “tiered homework” they mentioned that an emphasis on manageability of content and task are important: “it should not be so hard that you cannot engage in the material, but not so easy that it’s blown off.” SS suggested that “relevance, immediacy, currency, and authenticity” are important indicators of effective homework. MA noted that homework should not be busy work. Most teachers agree that homework is a formative assessment, except in rare cases in which certain assignments (like take-home essays or exams) are summative in a nature. Students dealing with stress deserve to understand why homework helps to reinforce curricular content. EN stated unequivocally that it is incumbent upon the teacher to explain why homework is necessary and useful.

With regard to average homework assigned by teachers, the variation was not surprising. Most teachers agreed that the average number of minutes was dependent upon specific classes. In general, Advanced Proficiency classes had more homework owing to their college level curricula. SS, however, only gave 1 or 2 assignments per week. They do not see the need for nightly homework and qualified this response by saying, “if every night I am saying my class is so important that you need to do homework every night, they’re going to have hours of homework every night. I am trying to consider their classes as well.” This laudable idea extends the capacity for teachers to be considerate of the amount of homework students may receive on a nightly basis. A full time student at DLSHS on average takes 6 classes and if they were assigned approximately 30 minutes of homework per subject per night, that would amount to 3 hours. Considering that approximately 80% of DLSHS students participate in some form of extracurricular activity or athletic competition of practice, the amount of time left over for rest and sleep is greatly diminished.

Finally, on the idea of grading homework, most teachers agree that students are reluctant to engage in homework if they see that it is not worth a grade. Therefore, most teachers assign a menial numeric value in order to spur the belief in students that completing homework is essential and important. The intrinsic reward of completing homework in order to ameliorate learning has not taken root at DLSHS. On the related topic of penalizing uncompleted homework, most teachers again apply these punitive measures in order to engage students toward completion. SC suggested a solution that perhaps does not inadvertently skew the mathematics involved in the computation of the final grade by docking assignments 5% per day with a cap of 50%. Put differently, for each day an assignment is incomplete, the overall grade for that assignment is reduced by 5% until the 10^th day at which point the grade cannot go any lower than 50%. It appears that finding ways to intrinsically motivate students toward completing homework is a mystery worth exploring further and which may be worthy of a research study unto itself.