Ms. S Measures Up: Back to School Prep: Grade book...

Ugh...grading. Not my favorite thing to do, especially because I feel a tad bit guilty giving a student a grade based on their class room performance. Sometimes these grades are misunderstood by students (and parents) as me saying their child "can't sing well" or "can't play instruments well". Nevertheless, it's a part of my job, and it must be done.

I combat the questioning by posting my rubrics on my class website every nine weeks, so that when students ask "Why did you give me a _______? My mom wants to know...", I can refer them to my website.

This year, I made posters with the different grades that students can earn, so that they can self-assess often.

This is my grade-level expectation. Getting the + requires more effort, and if a student earns the -, it's because they are having a little difficulty, not because they "aren't good at music".

In addition to these quarterly rubrics, I also have rubrics that I used to grade individual objectives. Last year, rubrics were my best friend. I use 4-point rubrics, with 3 being the expectation. Over the course of the year, I developed rubrics for most of the performance based assessments that I include on the report card. This year, I printed all of these in my new paper grade book :-/.

I used to only keep grades electronically, but that was such a hassle, and I spent too much time at the end of the nine weeks scrambling through seating charts to find the grades. So, I decided to give a paper book a try this year, and I figure it can also serve as a physical record of student grades if they are ever challenged by a parent.

Just like the plan book, I spent quite a while developing a grade sheet that would work for me, and a book layout that would work. I'm pretty happy with the finished result...for now.