Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Unfair Assessment I have been a successful middle school teacher. I know it sounds strange when I call myself successful, but I have received recognitions at the school and county levels for the quality of my teaching. I have a big dilemma this year. I have two students who are not your ordinary students. Selena is a Hispanic student who is an English Language Learner, but her English proficiency is quite high. She fully participates in all class activities, she functions well in group and individual work, and she is always motivated. She is an ideal student. However, she never makes passing grades on tests. Her current grade is an F. Shelly is a White student. She shows no interest in course activities. You cannot even know if she listening or not most of the time. She chooses not to do group work. If I force her, she does not really contribute. She also does not turn in any assignments. What puzzles me is that she usually receives the highest grades in tests. Her current grade in my course is a high B. If she had turned in the assignments, her grade would be an A. The course grade in my class is determined mainly based on what students make on tests, because I feel that tests are the only means for me to know whether students have retained what they learned or not. Lately I have been thinking that my grading is not doing justice to Selena. At the same time, I think Shelly does not deserve a B with the attitude she has displayed. I need to revise my assessment system. Please help me with this. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) There are a couple of comments that stand out to me that need addressing in this case study. The first is "The course grade in my class is determined mainly based on what students make on tests, because I feel that tests are the only means for me to know whether students have retained what they learned or not." I think this dilemma has two roots to it. (1) You need to have a clear understanding on what your curriculum is and (2) you need to have an assessment system that you feel good about. Once you are clear on what your students are to learn in your class you can then search for alternate ways of assessing. It is perfectly acceptable to continue using tests for most students but offer other assessment methods for students that you feel do not take what we consider traditional tests well. The second comment that stands out to me is "At the same time, I think Shelly does not deserve a B with the attitude she has displayed." I think we have to be careful as teachers that we don't give grades according to how well we like the personality of our students. If working in groups is part of your curriculum then you can assess that, but we need to be careful that we aren't giving grades on how well we like our students. I know it's sometimes hard to give an F to a kid with a great attitude that you like and it seems unjust to give an A to a kid with a poor attitude that can rub us the wrong way. This is where we have to be clear on what our curriculum is and how we plan to evaluate regardless of the likability of the student. With those things addressed, I say revise your assessment system but do it with your curriculum in mind and not the personalities of your students.