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!) In the case of Selena, there are a number of options. The first would be to try to determine what is causing her difficulties with the tests and modify them accordingly. It is important to determine Selena's English proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing as they may not all be in the same range. She may also have difficulties with the formatting of the tests or unfamiliar cultural references in the assessment. All of these issues could be mitigated with the use of modified assessments. Another option would be to maintain the emphasis on summative assessments but begin varying the way students are being tested. If Selena is doing well on written work in class or can demonstrate her knowledge orally or artistically, it is likely that she would benefit from the use of essays, short answer questions, or projects to demonstrate her mastery. While it is still important for her to learn to be successful on a traditional assessment, this would provide some buffer to her grade and would demonstrate that she does, in fact, know the material. Shelly's case is a bit more difficult. It is clear that she is a student that has figured out the machinations of grading and school and knows how to scrape by doing as little as possible. While her test grades indicate that she is able to understand the simple course concepts tested in a traditional manner (likely by cramming the night before a test), it is highly unlikely that she is doing any real authentic learning. Expanding the scope of the assessment types as mentioned above might help to alleviate this problem as well. At the very least, it ought to make it more difficult for Shelly to scrape by and would allow for a grade that more accurately reflects what she is doing in class. If not, it may be time to worry less about changes to the assessment and more about addressing Shelly's lack of performance on a day to day basis from a behavioral perspective.