After days and days of checking for A, B, C, or D, if the correct answer was true or false, and if the short answers were appropriate for the question, I have come to a decision about my own personal teaching philosophy. It happened rather organically, it was more of an immediate thought and feeling, and I've decided to adopt it into my beliefs as a teacher while grading.
Here it is, my golden nugget for the week:
When 95% of my students get an answer wrong, I'm throwing the question out. Obviously my question was either unclear or under taught or both and the students should not be held responsible for my own hiccup on their exam.
I understand that some students just do not take the time to study well for their exams, but when most of my best students are getting these questions wrong I feel the appropriate action should be taken.
I've also discovered that I'm probably too lenient with short answer questions; if the student basically gets it right, but does not actually come right out with the exact answer do I mark it right or wrong?
And I definitely believe in half credit! Sometimes the student gets most of the answer, but just misses a part of it and I don't think their efforts should be entirely shot down.
I can't wait to take on my first class this Wednesday and am able to utilize more of my own personal teaching philosophies with grading. Very excited!!
Kayla: Wow. Grading seems to be the Topic of the Week. I suppose it is one of the most uncomfortable things we need to do as teachers, and until you get into a real teaching situation, it's difficult to simulate the experience of ranking other people's work. Needless to say, you're not alone in feeling a little conflicted when doing this!
ReplyDeleteSomething you also might want to consider--as it seems you are assessing your own beliefs in light of your cooperating teacher's practice--is if you believe in testing at all. I do not. So, I do not give tests. I assign writing that asks of my students something more complex than a test--synthesis and application of learning.
Why do we give tests in English class? To hold kids accountable for the characters, plot, conflict and resolution of The Scarlett Letter? Why are we testing that when anyone can go look it up on Google in two seconds. No one needs to memorize when information is right at our fingertips all the time.
So, why do we give tests in English class? To give our students opportunities to practice "writing on demand?" To simulate the high-stakes environments that they had better grow accustomed to? (because there's going to be a lot more where that came from!)
With the advent of PARCC testing at least twice a year for weeks at a time, we should be asking ourselves how we want to spend our other time with our students? Preparing them for tests? Administering tests? Or, doing something OTHER THAN tests/testing?
A critical question to chew on this week...
There is NO RULE that says teachers need to give tests. I have not given a test in 10 years. And, I'm pretty sure I have the data to show that my students learn anyway. Think about it!