Chrisz (Canada) has come up with an idea that has the potential to blow up the entire grading system into little pieces and bring some sanity into our lives:
I have moved Spanish with TPRS to a whole-mark-based-on-final system.
Yup, you read that correctly: 100% of the kids’ mark is based on their final exam. The final exam will consist of: write 2 stories (based around pictures), answer some reading comp questions, and oral (one on one discussions about pictures and the kids’ daily lives– stuff like “what did you and your family do last weekend? How old arenyou etc etc”)
The eval rubrics for these were given out on the first day of class. I have done two “mid terms” which I graded but I didn’t use the marks.
I give feedback along the way– jGR useful there– which is basically, “to what extent is Johnny playing the game or not”, info I share with parents and kids, but I tell the kids, “there is NO POINT in me “testing” you until you’ve had at least a hundred hours of language exposure, so, yup, it all comes down to one test.
This avoids the “well I got 79.2386775% in term one, so I SHOULD be getting bla bla per cent now” bullshit. If the kid shits the bed cos of test anxiety, fine, they can take it again– I have a couple of sets of exams– and I can also tell them that there will be no “unit tests” (is there anything dumber than “subdividing” the intricately interlinked components of language skill?!?!?).
I tell them, “this is like the Olympics. You’re trying for a bronze, silver or gold medal. You earn those in your EVENT, not your training, and if you show up and train properly (and I am here to train you!), I guarantee you at least a silver.”
Chris adds:
Most teachers don’t do this. The trick is, your final has to line up with your year. I have to be able to say to kids and parents and admins: “here is what Johnny did/did not do this year.” I do take “marks” and I do report to kids and parents, but really, these “marks” are nothing more than work habits and vague indicators of what Johnny can/can not do. I have to be able to show parents and admins that the class does line up with Provincial curriculae bla bla.
Typically a kid who is focused along the way does well. A kid who screws around doesn’t. If I document, I am all good: I can show the parents “look, Johnny did/didn’t do his dictées, translations, threetells, reading etc etc and he did/didn’t participate (jGR) bla bla.” I don’t collect marks along the way– I collect “behaviour data” and this will keep kids tuned in– more or less– to how much they are acquiring. (And again, if they blow the final, they can re-do it).
If they want to argue “units,” there aren’t any. Yes, there are two culture projects, but whatever, those are 10% of the mark (and not difficult). At the end of the day, I can say to kids and parents: “by these clearly defined and shared criteria, Johnny gets ____% and here is his exam to prove it, and he “got here” by doing (or not doing) x, y and z in class along the way.”