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 know that this is a very tough situation, as I have seen it many times in my own classroom many times before. I think that the issue is a lack of balance with the grading system. For example, it seems as if the majority of the grade comes directly from tests. This is unfortunate as life in and of itself is not begging for people to pass paper tests. Rather, it is demanding that people be motivated to do things which they are good at. Perhaps Selena is not a good test-taker, but that has no reflection about how motivated she is to do things which she finds interesting. This leads to my next question, how differentiated are your assessments? In other words, does everyone have to take the same tests? Or can the test grades come from a differentiation assignment in which students get to choose their final product? In the latter case, it seems as if motivation would play a much more crucial role. I think that this would help Selena, as she would get to choose something that she is good at, while also forcing the white student to become more involved in the class.