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!) I feel that you do not need to modify your grading scale because of one student doing poorly on your test. Test are suppose to measure a student's complete understanding of the unit. However, you can modify your test to help those who are in need because they are struggling. Therefore, it is possible to give different versions of the test and modify the questions slightly based on the students capability. For example, I went to a work shop where a teacher puts different levels for one question on the test for the students to choose from. The question is, what is the catch? The catch is the question are at different point level. If a student chooses to do all the easy ones, they can only receive a certain grade because of the level they are working at. If they choose to do the more rigorous questions, then they will receive the highest grade possible. This will help challenge those that feel they understand it the most and help those that maybe struggling boost their self-confidence. Students who maybe struggling to a certain extent will not be penalized because they are not ready at that time for the rigorous questions but can later on increase their understanding to become more comfortable with those questions.