Tagging grades
I finally figured out what I would really like to do with grades. After talking to some of my freshmen, I have realized two things.
Number one, many don't use the categories at all - they just look at the overall grade and move on. To combat this, I am considering starting out next semester with a discussion about grades in each of my classes. Part of this will entail taking a student's grade report from this semester (minus all identifying information) and walking through it, step-by-step, with my students to show them the ways in which categories can provide feedback.
Number two, those students who do pay attention to the categories LIKE the fact that mine are currently divided into 1) objective portions of tests 2) written portions of tests 3) content of formal writing 4) mechanics of formal writing 5) participation. In other words, they like to see which skill areas are strong for them, and which skill areas need work. I am glad about this, and it also creates a dilemma for me. If I decide to move to the content-based category system, I think that in many ways I will be taking needed information AWAY from my students at the same time that I am giving them other information.
The solution to all of this may be the integration of a Del.ic.ious-like tagging system into Infinite Campus assignments. In other words, the students could receive two types of grade reports. One would be a skill-based report that would show a student, for example, that while his participation, formal writing and in-class writing skills are good, he needs to work on improving his objective-test skills. The other report could be a content-based report. I could tag assignments as social, political or economic (or 2 or all 3 at the same time) in nature, and a student could see that, for example, he does well on political and economic questions, but does poorly on social questions. The two-report system would really be the best of both worlds - we would be reporting skill-based and content-based proficiencies. How to do this with Infinite Campus?
Wait - my brain just came up with something which is an alternative to rewriting Infinite Campus. My biggest problem with all of this is how to make the category-based grades work with tests. It is hard to separate a test into social / political / economic categories, especially if there is a matching section on a test. Futhermore, going through each student's test would be a nightmare (especially when we teach multiple sections of the same class). What if I created a sheet for each test, to be given to the students when they got their tests back, which listed all of the numbers of the questions that tested political knowledge, then all of the numbers of the questions that tested economic knowledge, then all of the numbers of the questions that tested social knowledge. They could circle the numbers of the questions that they missed, and total the categories. Then I could enter the number correct out of the number possible into an Xcel spreadsheet with social / economic / political columns. Because the Xcel spreadsheet would be content-based information, and the Infinite Campus report would be skill-based information, I could provide both kinds of feeback to students!!! This would not really double my work because I could have a student assistant enter the Xcel spreadsheet information because it wouldn't allow the student assistant to see each student's overall grade. Plus, this idea for tests would give the students immediate feedback regarding which categories they were good at, and which categories they needed to work on. WOW! I will bet that with the equation capabilities of Xcel, the spreadsheet could produce averages for each of the three categories for me. That way, I could include all homework or writing assignments in the Xcel spreadsheet as well. Will this work?
Number one, many don't use the categories at all - they just look at the overall grade and move on. To combat this, I am considering starting out next semester with a discussion about grades in each of my classes. Part of this will entail taking a student's grade report from this semester (minus all identifying information) and walking through it, step-by-step, with my students to show them the ways in which categories can provide feedback.
Number two, those students who do pay attention to the categories LIKE the fact that mine are currently divided into 1) objective portions of tests 2) written portions of tests 3) content of formal writing 4) mechanics of formal writing 5) participation. In other words, they like to see which skill areas are strong for them, and which skill areas need work. I am glad about this, and it also creates a dilemma for me. If I decide to move to the content-based category system, I think that in many ways I will be taking needed information AWAY from my students at the same time that I am giving them other information.
The solution to all of this may be the integration of a Del.ic.ious-like tagging system into Infinite Campus assignments. In other words, the students could receive two types of grade reports. One would be a skill-based report that would show a student, for example, that while his participation, formal writing and in-class writing skills are good, he needs to work on improving his objective-test skills. The other report could be a content-based report. I could tag assignments as social, political or economic (or 2 or all 3 at the same time) in nature, and a student could see that, for example, he does well on political and economic questions, but does poorly on social questions. The two-report system would really be the best of both worlds - we would be reporting skill-based and content-based proficiencies. How to do this with Infinite Campus?
Wait - my brain just came up with something which is an alternative to rewriting Infinite Campus. My biggest problem with all of this is how to make the category-based grades work with tests. It is hard to separate a test into social / political / economic categories, especially if there is a matching section on a test. Futhermore, going through each student's test would be a nightmare (especially when we teach multiple sections of the same class). What if I created a sheet for each test, to be given to the students when they got their tests back, which listed all of the numbers of the questions that tested political knowledge, then all of the numbers of the questions that tested economic knowledge, then all of the numbers of the questions that tested social knowledge. They could circle the numbers of the questions that they missed, and total the categories. Then I could enter the number correct out of the number possible into an Xcel spreadsheet with social / economic / political columns. Because the Xcel spreadsheet would be content-based information, and the Infinite Campus report would be skill-based information, I could provide both kinds of feeback to students!!! This would not really double my work because I could have a student assistant enter the Xcel spreadsheet information because it wouldn't allow the student assistant to see each student's overall grade. Plus, this idea for tests would give the students immediate feedback regarding which categories they were good at, and which categories they needed to work on. WOW! I will bet that with the equation capabilities of Xcel, the spreadsheet could produce averages for each of the three categories for me. That way, I could include all homework or writing assignments in the Xcel spreadsheet as well. Will this work?
posted by Crosby at 7:21 PM
3 Comments:
I just worked on the spreadsheet idea. The Xcel document looks great. It is pretty labor-intensive and will be too much for daily assignments. Maybe the key is to create one spreadsheet and have each student fill his or hers out after downloading the set-up document. This could occur after each test so that the students could better prepare for the next test and ultimately for the final exam by focusing on the troublesome content area(s).
This is great thinking, but it sounds way too complicated. I don't have a better solution at the moment, but I'll keep thinking about it. I do like the idea in your comment of turning it over to the students.
Two ways you could conceivably deal with it in IC - neither of which is very good.
You can create assignment groups in IC that do not contribute to the overall grade. You could either enter scores twice for each assignment (one in a content group that "counts", one in a skill group that doesn't - or vice versa), or simply assign the assignment to two different groups.
Another possibility would be to use the description feature for each assignment to try to break down either the content or the skills.
I don't think either of these is really what you want, but thought I'd throw it out there.
One more comment on the Excel idea (although I still think we can come up with something better) - instead of copying off a sheet with the problem numbers tagged to the SEP areas, tag each question on the original test (S, E, P) - then they can just look at it. Or, alternatively, use the projector you're going to have in your classroom to show them - no need to kill the trees.
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