New and Experienced Teachers Should Avoid Playing Games with Grades

All teachers are advised to avoid playing around with grading. Doing so can be unethical and discourage students to take grading seriously. 

Among the most popular mistakes teachers make in assessment are:

Proper assessment techniques assure 

that grades are meaningful.

• giving meaningless extra credit to raise a grade
• grading behavior
• giving academic credit for non-academic tasks
• using pop-quizzes
• including trick questions on assessments
• curving grades
• grading homework or any formative assessment

The above list is presented only to develop awareness. The idea is that assessment is serious business and teachers and students should treat to as such.

New teachers will likely want to adapt procedures discussed to fit needs, but they should do so thoughtfully with a professional approach and keep it simple. There may never be an absolutely best way to assess and evaluate, but there is more to it than aimlessly grading and averaging. In the long run, when done right, there is actually less to it than many teachers realize.


Links:


Principles and Indicators for Student Assessment Systems


What Are Some Types of Assessment?