Armitage72
Philosopher
-
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Race-Based Grading
- Thread starter Brainster
- Start date
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 31,756
Nice to see Snopes have caught up.
Armitage72
Philosopher
KingMerv00
Penultimate Amazing
You my not remember me but I sure as HELLFIRE remember you. I haven’t posted on this forum or been within miles of a skeptic event in a long time but your post literally (metaphorically speaking) reached out across space a time and dragged me back. It’s kinda impressive really.
Googly moogly.
The truly fascinating thing is your reaction to the reaction. You simultaneously downplay the falsity of the story, mischaracterize correction as arrogance, and implicitly reserve the right to be nebulously offended.
*slow clap*
Last edited:
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
As long as we all agree that it would be a bad thing if it ever happened, and we're all committed to joining forces to put a stop to it, if it ever does happen, I'm content. Also you're right that I don't remember you.
I know this is about K-12, but bear with me. I'm also aware that this article is BS that isn't happening.
But I think grading philosophy is an interesting topic. My dad was a high school teacher and I almost was (took a lot of the education classes, bet decided I'd rather graduate with my biology degree than stick around for an extra year to get my teaching certificate.) It's a topic I've often discussed with some of my colleagues at work who have taught at the university or junior college level. (I work with a lot of PhDs.)
I've seen college courses where a portion of the grade was attendance.
The reasoning is not that doing so conveys anything about someones work/study habits or anything of that nature. It's to discourage college students from skipping classes...which we've all done from time to time.
A more straight forward approach is to only allow a certain number of unexcused absences in order to pass the class.
I've never been a fan of this. I've always regarded college courses less as being taught than being guided self study. That is, the instructor tells you what to learn and it's up to you to do it. In class lectures, I've found to be mostly an introductory starting point. Tests and quizzes are all that's needed to assess progress and grasp of the topic.
When I was in college attendance was never taken and homework was rarely collected and graded, other than things like term papers. If you did the homework, great. If not, and you were able to do well on assessments, that was fine too.
In a K-12 setting, I still don't like attendance based grades. There is already an excused/unexcused absence system that determines if you can advance. Adding an attendance portion to the grade seems redundant. It also makes it harder for a student with attendance problems to turn things around and get back on track.
As for homework...my view is that homework is learning tool, not an assessment tool. I'm not in favor of grading homework for quality. I prefer a system of acknowledging completeness (with no late penalties, for the same reason I don't like attendance points). The point is to encourage kids to do the homework because it helps them learn. Getting the wrong answer in a learning exercise is not a good place to make a grade deduction, in my opinion. Instead it should inform a teacher of areas that individual students need help with. Also, students (regardless of race and social level) do not necessarily control their home learning environment.
I know my views on this are not exactly mainstream.
So to the original topic...if implemented are these ideas bad? Assuming the criteria is the same for all students, not necessarily. I'm for separating discipline from academics and learning tools from assessment tools.
But I think grading philosophy is an interesting topic. My dad was a high school teacher and I almost was (took a lot of the education classes, bet decided I'd rather graduate with my biology degree than stick around for an extra year to get my teaching certificate.) It's a topic I've often discussed with some of my colleagues at work who have taught at the university or junior college level. (I work with a lot of PhDs.)
I've seen college courses where a portion of the grade was attendance.
The reasoning is not that doing so conveys anything about someones work/study habits or anything of that nature. It's to discourage college students from skipping classes...which we've all done from time to time.
A more straight forward approach is to only allow a certain number of unexcused absences in order to pass the class.
I've never been a fan of this. I've always regarded college courses less as being taught than being guided self study. That is, the instructor tells you what to learn and it's up to you to do it. In class lectures, I've found to be mostly an introductory starting point. Tests and quizzes are all that's needed to assess progress and grasp of the topic.
When I was in college attendance was never taken and homework was rarely collected and graded, other than things like term papers. If you did the homework, great. If not, and you were able to do well on assessments, that was fine too.
In a K-12 setting, I still don't like attendance based grades. There is already an excused/unexcused absence system that determines if you can advance. Adding an attendance portion to the grade seems redundant. It also makes it harder for a student with attendance problems to turn things around and get back on track.
As for homework...my view is that homework is learning tool, not an assessment tool. I'm not in favor of grading homework for quality. I prefer a system of acknowledging completeness (with no late penalties, for the same reason I don't like attendance points). The point is to encourage kids to do the homework because it helps them learn. Getting the wrong answer in a learning exercise is not a good place to make a grade deduction, in my opinion. Instead it should inform a teacher of areas that individual students need help with. Also, students (regardless of race and social level) do not necessarily control their home learning environment.
I know my views on this are not exactly mainstream.
So to the original topic...if implemented are these ideas bad? Assuming the criteria is the same for all students, not necessarily. I'm for separating discipline from academics and learning tools from assessment tools.