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 have a hard time believing that someone like Selena (or any other student) would be receiving a low grade considering the efforts and enthusiasm she exhibits. It does not seem reasonable that if she is trying hard to learn the material that she is having a hard time grasping it, especially if her language proficiency is high. Our valedictorian in high school was a student from Thailand who started in ESL classes as a freshman and by the time she was a senior she had exceeded all expectations and all other students in her graduating class. I cannot grasp Selena's situation to be honest. I do not feel that it is a language barrier. It may be performance anxiety or insecurity when testing, but even those would be diminished once she was permitted to demonstrate her knowledge on something other than a test. A drastic conclusion about Selena could be that she could have some kind of an intellectual disability. As for Shelly, I would question why is not motivated enough to perform. Is it because she feels that her time is being wasted with daily assignments if she knows she can pass the test? That being said, if she performs well on tests it's because she already knows the material. What percentage are the tests? If Shelly is performing so well overall, it would mean the tests would have to weigh about 60% of the grade, if not higher. That being said, I agree that the course grade in the class should determined mainly based on what students make on summative assessment. However, I do not agree that all summative assessments should be tests. I think students should be allowed to produce products of knowledge in various ways that allow them to showcase their talents. Some may be good at multiple choice tests, others might fare better at writing or maybe some might be better at photographically presenting their learning. We can assess students dozens of ways. I like to alternate and provide them with means to express what they learned. On any major unit of study, I provide my students with various ways to express what they leaned by having a between 2 to 10 choices on how to demonstrate what they learned. These are some revision I would suggests to the assessment system in this particular classroom with Selena and Shelly. As previously stated, I believe that summative assessments should be mainly how we determine the student's grade. However, I also believe that those daily efforts that students demonstrate should weigh enough to be able to tip them over the threshold of passing if they are not successful on summative assessments. My county has suggested scales for grade weights and I have come to find them very helpful for student success. The final exam weighs 20% and that is standardized throughout the county. The classroom work weighs at 35% and the summative assessments weigh 45% which totals to 100%. When the summative and the final exam are combined, this still leads us to 65% of the grade total that will help those of us who advocate for majority of the grade counting toward assessments.