David asks the group:
Hi Ben,
I’d like to learn how some of the other teachers on the blog keep track of the Interpersonal Communication / Participation part of a students grade in their gradebook.
What follows is what I do now, which isn’t a great system, but I had to start somewhere. I’m trying to figure out how to improve it for this quarter. You don’t have to post my system on the blog; I’m mainly interested in what others are doing that allow for efficiency and flexibility in grading kids on their Interpersonal Communication in class.
In case you think it would be helpful to post, here it is:
Right now I use a slightly modified version of the participation rubric that I got off of your site (on the posters tab, from Ben Lev) and just give each student a weekly grade on a 10 point scale. For kids who fall below a 9 or 10, I mark the rubric and hand it to them. Kids that fall at 7 or lower are supposed to get it signed by a parent and return. These 10 pt. grades go into a category I call “Input, Showing-Up” which is 40 percent. Assessment (quizzes, tests, freewrites, dictations, etc.) accounts for the other 60 percent of their grade.
The main things I don’t like about this system are: it is time consuming for me to fill out all the rubrics, there are way too many scores entered in my gradebook and I feel like if a kid had been doing well for while, but then is not, the change in performance can’t reflect quickly on the grade.
Not only that, it’s hard to monitor all my kids perfectly each day, especially in the classes that have 40 plus. If I can remember if a kid was talking or zoned out, I feel I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and may give them a better grade than they may actually deserve. Also, I’ve just been too kind on some of these grades and really need to toughen up on them. The year started out pretty well and most kids were pretty compliant, but lately a lot of kids, (maybe 20 percent in some classes) have been breaking the class rules much more frequently and I had a couple days last week of complete CI shutdown because there was so much English and distracting behaviors going on. I confronted it in class, but need a way quickly making the grades of those contributing to the disruptions reflect their bad behavior.
I know there is nothing that beats just calling parents, which has done a lot for some of my discipine problems that showed up early in the year. I’m going to be doing more of that next week, but as far as the gradebook part goes (computing a grade that accurately reflects their Interpersonal Communication in class), what are some suggestions of things that work?
Thanks! David
David Maust
Latin Teacher
California High School
Whittier, CA