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<p>Believe me, I covered that area when we were homeschooling!</p>
<p>@bovertine - we did have case studies and projects but most never counted for more than 30% of your final grade. Usually grades were calculated as:
- Midterm #1: 15-20%
- Midterm #2: 20-25%
- Cases/Projects: 10-30%
- Final: 30%-50%</p>
<p>I actuallly had a few classes where your grade was based on 2 things…midterm 25% & final 75%. :S</p>
<p>^^^Oh, okay. That’s pretty standard then.</p>
<p>I had a few classes like the 25/75 too. But if my memory serves me correctly, those exams were not like an SATII or AP exam. THey were not MC, and I think they were in my science or EE classes. They were pretty tough.</p>
<p>oh and it was for Wharton undergrad not b-school :)</p>
<p>As someone who has taught at the college level, I am troubled by the idea that this proposed plan potentially adds up to a lot more work for the teachers. So little Bobby and 15 of his classmates failed Exam A, and want to retake it. Do they retake the exact same exam, or does Teacher have to make a new exam? Does Teacher have to make 15 new exams so Bobby doesn’t just fill in his mates as to what is on the retake? </p>
<p>Now Teach has to grade the retakes, which takes additional time. She/He also maybe has to spend time out of class reteaching Bobby and the Mates the material they didn’t get the first time - and they all have different schedules, so they are coming in one and one. Isn’t there the risk that the Teacher loses the benefit of teaching in bulk, as it were, and the class devolves into a Teacher tutoring 30 separate students all individually and all moving at different paces?</p>
<p>It also seems to me that you could have a problem if there were no cutoff for who could retake a particular exam. Little Susie (or her parents) is uber-driven and will want to retake the exam until she has achieved a 100% on it. Despite getting the high score of 94 on the initial take, she no longer has the high score after little Bobby and the Mates all retake the test 6 times each until they have scored higher than she did. In order to maintain her standing at the top of the heap, thus making her HYPSM worthy, she has to keep retrying as well. </p>
<p>Not only that, if Teacher has set the cutoff at, say, 90% for retakes, little Susie’s parents are going to sue the school system because their DD is no longer on her way to Harvard. As a matter of fact, it behooves Susie to purposefully do poorly on the exam so she can get the lay of the land and then retake it for a better grade.</p>
<p>“Mastery in writing goes beyond what you reference in your first sentence.”</p>
<p>Hence the term “et cetera.”</p>
<p>I’m not convinced that there’s any set of standards that would separate good writing from great, and I do think students who are capable of excellence should be pushed to achieve it. A great writer should be able to do a standard exercise like the SAT writing test that demonstrates “mastery” of the core elements, but they should be able to do a lot more than that, too, and I don’t think you can quantify that. Insight and creativity matter in a research paper, and no one ever masters insight.</p>
<p>@Sylvan8798 - I agree that allowing for tests to be re-taken is a terrible idea that creates a lot of ancillary problems. I think it all comes down to (as I pointed out in intial post #59) the fact that grading in this country is more heavily weighted on things that don’t actually evaluate how well a student learned something. If it were up to me I’d make all schools follow the model that a lot schools abroad have where tests (non-multiple choice) account for the largest % of your final grade with homework/other projects having some impact on your grade but not determining it. Will it lead to grade deflation…absolutely…will more kids be held back…definitely…but will students actually end up learning the material and be more prepared for the realities of college…most likely.</p>
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<p>The part of this that concerns me is is why do students want to do extra work “after” the test? Students need to be able to assess their level of understanding before the test (middle school and high school). That being said, there are always cases where a make up test is in order and in the best interest of the student (after all learning is what we want)–it should just not be the norm.</p>
<p>“why do students want to do extra work “after” the test?”</p>
<p>Because now they’ve seen the test, and they can study just enough to handle those specific questions.</p>
<p>I mean, isn’t that really the answer in most cases? I don’t know many teachers who’d compose all new tests for makeup purposes unless a student had been ill.</p>
<p>Replying to bovertiine </p>
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<p>Youre right, on that point we mainly agree. However, I think my preference that tests comprise the bulk of a grade is based on my observation that tests are more likely to be relevant and substantive than class assignments are. Ive seen many more lousy homework, group projects and other assignments than similarly lousy tests. YMMV, as they say.</p>
<p>And yes, when I wrote minimizing homework, I meant that hw only came into play at the profiled school when a student wished to retake a test.</p>
<p>whartongrad08 has accurately described what I have read and observed regarding the problem with U.S. students lagging behind our international competitors in college preparedness.</p>
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<p>While relevant and substantial assignments are desirable, I believe improving and increasing the weight of exams will get us to higher achievement levels faster than trying to fix the problem of fluff assignments.</p>
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<p>Me too. While some may want us to focus more on how all students can be equally proficient if they try hard enough, I think there is great value in knowing that some students simply move at a faster pace than others do, whether due to a higher IQ or a greater effort.</p>
<p>Hanna wrote:
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<p>You’re absolutely correct. I was simply pointing out that your list, before you inserted “etc”, was limited to grammar examples and excluded other critical elements of writing proficiency.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if any “set of standards” exist that separate good writing from great (I’m sure many would argue that point). But I still disagree with your assertion “that ‘mastery’ doesn’t have a lot of meaning in the humanities and social science context at a good high school (or good middle school, for that matter).” My experience is that in discussions of K-12 education, “mastery” is usually defined as “full command or understanding of a subject commensurate with grade level standards”.</p>
<p>I think parental organization most definitely plays a part in young children’s grades. Sometimes the work load is complicated enough that good executive function skills are required to plan out one’s time around other commitments, arrange to find or purchase supplies, prioritize important assignments over lesser ones, and prioritize projects according to due dates. A parent assisting with that can make a big difference. In addition, if homework is actually checked and graded by the teacher for quality not just completion, then the child with the parent who checks it over and finds any mistakes will have an edge in grades.</p>
<p>I currently have two mom friends whose lives are in turmoil due to some very trying family situations. Both of them have reported that their children’s grades have suffered as a result. The problem tended to be trivial homework matters like the children didn’t have their tests signed and returned on time because mom was too busy and forgot to do it. Or the child left his homework behind, mom didn’t notice because she didn’t scan the room like she usually does every morning to make sure the kid’s backpack is packed, and also the mom couldn’t drive the forgotten paper to school like she might have ordinarily pre-crisis.</p>
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I’m not sure how young you mean. Once my DDs were in middle school they were expected to keep track on their own. Now my 3rd/4th grader, we’ll help him organize.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, check back with us when your son is in middle school. 
I’m only half joking, since boys typically develop executive function skills later than girls do.</p>
<p>The kids that I work with who are often really unorganized often have parents who admit to being unorganized as well. Organization is a skill that needs to be taught from a young age. We expected our kids to be responsible for most of their work in middle school as well or deal with the natural consequences. But the fact is, we had been teaching them executive function skills from very early on. Sometimes I think we expect kids to just be able to organize without taking the time to walk them through the steps they need to do every single day, day in and day out. Parents need to be big part of this process.</p>
<p>it seems to me that the principal’s new grading policy could be very useful in identifying underachievers. did anyone else pick up on that too? maybe it’s something i heard her say in a tv interview.</p>
<p>Well, my 6th grader does fine with knowing what she has to do and for when, and with bringing the required materials home. But when the homework and long-term project load is great, she needs help planning out her days and setting intermediate goals so everything will all get done and completed on time. For example, I’ll say things like, “Remember that you have X activity on Sat. and Y event on Sun., so you’d better al least finish the poster for your science project on Friday after school.” Parents who aren’t aware of what their child has to do and don’t supervise somewhat, tend to be the ones finishing said poster at 1 AM. There may be some brave souls who let their children take the consequences of disorganization, but I don’t know many. Zeros are too scary.</p>