I saw this via Hugh over at the RepairKit. One of the things I did midway through the school year last year was to stop giving out zeros. When I talk to other teachers at my school site and in my district, they look at me like I'm nuts.
For those interested in learning more about what Dr. Reeves does, you may be interested in his website, The Leadership and Learning Center.
Then one of my fabulous readers left a comment about another website, Solution Tree, which also has many wonderful resources for educators.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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6 comments:
You are right! Let them look at you like you're nuts...they will eventually come around. We're going through all of this in our district now. So many teachers just want to go into their classrooms and shut the door to work in isolation. Those days are over if we are going to meet the needs of students by reframing our focus from teaching to learning (or to steal a phrase...learning for all, whatever it takes). I highly recommend the website www.solution-tree.com...they offer wonderful staff development on becoming a professional learning community. Can you tell you touched on something I'm passionate about??
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have never questioned the practice of giving zeros, but his points are so on target that as I prepare for the upcoming school year I need to reflect on my grading practices and what they really tell students.
This gets me some crazy looks at school, too. Like I get when I say I don't mark down for missing work. And oddly enough, my kids still turn in their work! And I evaluate it, based on their understanding of the concepts involved, and if they need to, they can try again with a a new assignment. I never met a kid who WANTED to do extra work, they much prefer to get it right the first time, but parents somehow think that this is being too easy on the kids.
Amazing how you can find all sorts of research on the damaging impact of grades but yet we are still compelled to give them. 99% of the time grades are used as a form of coercive classroom management.
This is great. What a nice presentation. His speech reminds me of Ken O'Connor. His book on grading and the presentations he has given is what I based my presentation to my faculty on this past week (and I'll present again to the other 1/2 of my faculty next week).
If anyone is coming across these "Toxic Grading Practices" and want to see some more from my perspective - You can check it out here: Grading for Learning Presentation
I would love to hear some feedback. Now, I get everything this Canadian is saying... but, truth be told we can't break out of the box all at once. We probably need to tweak. That's the Adapt Don't Adopt philosophy. I have adapted and taken some of these ideas and put them into place. I have seen great success.
I don't know how to do this! I really don't b/c how do I make them stay after school to get the work done. I understand how a zero messes up the grade. But the principal doesn't want us to give I's when they have work left to do. So, how do I go about getting them to get it done? I can offer lunch time and after school, but making them show? This has to be reinforced by the administration.
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