alternative grading

One might be to grade on improvement rather than on performance. Most often we assign As to the highest performing students. Another approach is to offer As to the students who have shown the most improvement even though their skills may yet not be as strong as some others.

My favorite approach to grading is to not grade though. I see grades as communicating little of true value. I prefer written evaluations to grades.

One of the teachers I am trying to assist is a new teacher, so while I understand the idea of written eval within the context of what I do, how do I explain to her how to apply that principle to her social studies class. Examples, daily work, tests (essay or multiple choice). Do you have an example that could clarify that for her in the regular ed. room? Thanks for your response.

I have used a checklist to make things easy. I’ve used like this for Social Studies. When I’ve taught math or Language Arts, it’s somewhat different but many of the same catagories still apply.

At the top I have catagories such as

Outstanding Good Acceptable Improving Needs Attention

On the side I have listed the essential areas of the class such as

Mastery of concepts
Test Scores
Homework Reliability
Writing Skills
Speaking Skills
Listening Skills
Reading Skills
etc. etc.

Work habits
Organization
Effort
Classroom Comportment

etc. etc.

When I do a written evaluation and do not use the checklist, I can speak to similar things. My interest is mostly on skill development and will the student go on to be a successful student in other classes in the year(s) to come. I want to be sure to give parents a heads up on any concerns that I have for the student for the future and where those concerns are coming from.