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=Welcome to all 503 students for Spring 2012.=

Please post your reflective essays on the grading philosophy based on Frisbie and Waltman.
Group response: Mona Bushnaq, Hoda Said, Engy Abdallah, Shahira Makram Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry? A grade symbol should be an average reflection of what the student was able to learn over the year/term, etc. It  should tell us about the knowledge and skills the student has been able to demonstrate in whatever form of assessment has been applied. It  is designed to communicate to students, teachers, school administration, parents and future employers the degrees of mastering the course material studied.

Q2. What should failure mean? Failure should imply that the student has not been able to perform at the minimum level required as indicated by the curriculum. It means the student learned very little or none of the material and failed to meet minimum expectations in exhibiting any form of knowledge grasped through learning. Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? The grade itself should be limited to demonstrating a student's academic knowledge and skills with regard to the material being taught. In other words, only the measurable results of learning should be included. Other elements of performance such as effort and participation should be mentioned separately as they are difficult to measure accurately and because these elements reduce the strength of the relationship between grades and academic achievement. Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? Grades reflect performance of a student so each student’s grade should be based on this performance.  Grading should be objective and fair and there shouldn’t be any external influence by imposing policies for the distribution of grades among the class. Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? The components that go into a final grade should be made clear to students at the start of the year or semester. It could be a combination of homework, quizzes, written and oral tests, as well as a project and/or presentation and a suitable final assessment that gives an overall view of the students' knowledge and abilities. Conduct, participation and effort could be recorded separately to be included in the report or evaluation of the student. Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? Not all components should be weighted equally. Regular (e.g. weekly) similarly styled quizzes should be weighted equally, with a final quiz or monthly test carrying a heavier weight. Similarly, the final project or presentation should carry a heavier weight than other assignments given throughout the year. Easily measurable items should be weighted more heavily than items that involve subjectivity (immeasurable items). These should represent a minimal portion of the grade in order to avoid bias. No single item should be weighted at higher than 20% so as not to attach too much importance to a single assessment tool and in doing so, possibly grade students unfairly. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Students should be graded against course requirements (criterion referenced grading), not against other students. As a group, we do not believe in the curve system because <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">a <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">student should not suffer if his fellow students do well, nor benefit when his fellow students do badly. This grading system deemphasizes team work and promotes competition amongst students as opposed to cooperation. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? <span style="font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">We believe that borderline cases should be reviewed, but it should have a certain predefined criteria for application as our end result is not just to pass the student to next level but rather to ensure that learning has occurred. No extra work or projects should make up for a grade to avoid unfairness to the others. But if the student's previous work shows a better ability, he or she may be allowed to sit for a make-up test. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">School policies, as well as the general practices of the other teachers at the school would affect a teacher's grading philosophy. Also, in Egypt, teachers must abide by ministry regulations (where applicable). In addition, a teacher must consider what the students are accustomed to. If a teacher has new ideas about grading, he/she can meet <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">with the school administration and explain the rationale of the policy and try to convince them of it. This may be possible since most schools lack a standardized and codified grading policy.


 * Group response:** Paul McKenney, Sahar Farouk, Basma Abouzeid, Laila Lashin

.Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry Q2. What should failure mean ? Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade ? Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy?
 * A letter grade is useless. For primary students you should look at each section of the scheme of work and record how well the child completed each section. This is a more accurate reflection of performance. **
 * A failure should represent that a child has not covered the learning outcomes.. **
 * The learning outcomes should be incorporated into the letter grade. **
 * Generally speaking students should fall on the stanine curve where the majority of the students attain a C grade and approx. 10% A and 10% D or below. **
 * The grade should reflect all the learning outcomes and it can also include behaviour, homework classwork etc. **
 * Ideally no more than 20% should reflect quizzes, 20% classwork, 10% homework, 10% behaviour, 20% project and 20% exams. **
 * There should be a clear understanding from the beginning of the school year that should be followed and adhered to. **
 * Borderline cases can be reviewed to see if a marking error had occured in earlier work. However, there should NOT be additional assignments allowed as this unfairly alters the class results. **
 * Grades should be fair and a true reflection of the learning outcomes for the term on which they're based. Personal opinnion should be disavowed and it should focus solely on empirical data. **

Sahar Farouk:

.Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry Q2. What should failure mean ? Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade ? Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy?
 * For question one A grade should be limited to tell how much the student know.**
 * For question two Failure means that the student could do only the lowest level of work in the curriculum,he hasn't try to learn or hasn't learn much in 9 weeks.**
 * For the third question the answer is communication skills,interpersonal relations,attitude and motivation.**
 * Question number four, the grades in a class should be distributed as As ,Bs..etc.,as it is not oki that**
 * every one can have A ,and there should not be an equal number of B and D .**
 * The answer of question number five will be that the component should be like to go into a final grade with the separate scores or goals that are combined to form the final reporting must above all convey the meaning the teacher previously decided upon for the grade symbols.**
 * For question number six ,I would suggest that the 20 % goes to heavily weighted quiz,the teacher would give the chance to the different levels of thinking for the students .**
 * For question number seven,the method of assignment ought to be consistent with the decisions made earlier about the meaning each grade symbol should have.**
 * For question number eight ,border lines cases should be reviewed by being needed to be before or just above what is considered border line, it should be taken in consideration that the students should be allowed to furnish extra work to raise border line grade.**
 * For question nine ,the teacher philosophy of grading can be shaped by school district grading polices and building practices.**

Q1. What meaning should each grade symbol carry? For me a grade symbol resembles the average outcome for a student at the end of the year. I believe that a report card should convey exactly and independently each item evaluated such as the different activities in each subject, extracurricular activities and behaviors, however at the end of each report card, letter grades must be explained in detail for parents and students to know where they stand exactly and not to make it a matter of non-meaningful letters. Q2. What should failure mean? Failure for me means that a student was not able to meet the standards and objectives required to be learned throughout an academic year; i.e. evaluated at the end of the year. When this happens the student is given a second and a third chance until he meets these expectations. A school or an effective learning environment should support such a student through shadowing or extra external assisting hours to improve his/her learning deficiency. Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? The teacher from the beginning should be decided on how to divide the elements of the course to include all the learning styles for students to meet the standards and objectives of learning. A report card must include all the scores for the different activities to give an average score for every subject. To include observations about skills and motivation styles, that would be mentioned in the comments paragraph at the end of the card. Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? The issue of grade distribution doesn’t really bother me and I don’t mind if all the students get an A as long as they all deserve it. Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? The final grade is an average of all the scores of the different activities and assignments. A report card must include all of these activities such a written assignment, exams, an oral presentation, a project and I believe that would be the minimum because each of these meets the learning styles of students. Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? The weight of each assignment must convey the amount of effort estimated to be put in that assignment. For example, I don’t think it’s fair to weight an exam for 10% while weight an oral presentation for 30% so it’s just a matter of relevance. Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? I would base grading to preset standards of performance for every student and his parents to be aware exactly of how they would be graded at the end of the year. Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? I would include an extra credit activity that would be optional for students, in cases of borderline especially if it will boost a student’s grade. I don’t think that teachers could apply anything that is subjective to his/her perspective about a student to avoid biases. So to avoid such a bias, extracurricular or credit activities must be announced in advance to be used in similar cases. Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? Here in Egypt I would say: the school’s system.
 * L****aila Lashin:**

<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A grade is supposed to show the outcome that the student have learned through the term and measures the performance of a student according to the objectives that have been put by the teacher. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q2. What should failure mean? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Failure for me means that the student wasn’t able to achieve the minimum level of the objectives that allows him to pass <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The grade should be divided into different scores that represents the student performance in academic knowledge, the effort, motivation, participation etc… <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I don’t think that a teacher should limit the number of As, or Bs in a classroom. I think every student should get an A if he deserves it according to his performance in regard to the objectives. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The components that go into a final grade should reflect the student’s work throughout the year such as quizzes, tests, presentations, activities and different projects. The grade should show the effort the students have put in all areas. Also the student should know from the beginning of the semester how the grade is divided. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I believe that the weight of each assignment or exam should reflect the effort put from the student. For example I can’t weigh the final exam that requires allot of effort from the student the same as an assignment. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? I believe the absolute grading would be the best because it doesn’t compare students to each other but it compares the student performance to a certain criteria. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I believe that every student should be given a second chance so I would give a makeup exam for borderline students or I would give bonus or extra activities for anyone who would like to improve his grade in order to be fair and give everybody a chance to improve. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">other factors will be the school system and policies and also that schools should abide by the ministy’s rules and principles
 * Basma Abouzeid:**

__**Mona Bushnaq**__

Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry? A grade symbol should tell us about the knowledge and skills the student has been able to demonstrate in whatever form of assessment has been applied, with regard to what has been covered/learned in the past unit/term/ etc... Q2. What should failure mean? Failure should imply that the student has not been able to perform at the minimum level required as indicated by the curriculum. The minimum level would grant a student a D, but anything below that means that the objectives have not been met at the lowest level possible which indicates failure. Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? The grade itself as I have stated in my answer to question 1, should be limited to showcasing a student's academic knowledge and skills with regard to the material being taught. Any other elements of performance such as effort, motivation, communication skills and the like should be mentioned separately so as not to blur the lines between the essence of the objective behind learning (i.e. gaining the skills and knowledge required for the next stage of learning) and other important factors that contribute to learning in general. Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? I don't believe a teacher and his/her students should be limited by a certain percentage requirement of As, Bs, etc... I think each student should get the grade he/she deserves based on his/her performance. If the whole class ends up with As, so be it. Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? The components that go into a final grade should be first and foremost be made clear to students at the start of the year or semester. It should be a combination of homework, quizzes, written and oral tests, as well as a project and/or presentation and a suitable final assessment that gives an overall view of the students' knowledge and abilities. Of course these elements will differ depending on the age of the students and the subject they are learning about. In addition, also depending on the students' ages, the final grade could include behavior, attendance, participation and effort. However, I believe that these should be given a separate grade, possibly under the heading "conduct". Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? I don't believe that all components should be weighted equally. But if there are several similarly styled quizzes, they should be weighted equally, with a final quiz carrying a heavier weight. Similarly, the final project or presentation should carry a heavier weight than other assignments given throughout the year. No single item should be weighted at higher than 20% so as not to attach too much importance to a single assessment tool and in doing so, possibly grade students unfairly. If a student happens to be feeling sick on the day of that heavily weighted test, it would be unfair to base a large percentage of the grade on that one item. Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? I am against grading on a curve. I feel it promotes competition amongst students as opposed to cooperation and deemphasizes team work. I am more inclined to absolute grading methods. Criterion- referenced grading seems to be the most fair. Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? I believe in second chances. Borderline cases should be reviewed, but only if they are below the cut-off point. This may seem hypocritical but I don't believe one should be so rigid when it comes to children's learning. If a student has barely passed, I don't think it is constructive to his/her learning to make him/her re-take a test to see if they'd fail the second time. I'm not sure about giving borderline students extra assignments to raise their grades, as it may not be fair to other students who may have done better if they'd gotten the chance to do those assignments. Maybe allowing them to take make-up tests would be fairer. Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? School policies, as well as the general practices of the other teachers at the school would affect a teacher's grading philosophy. Also, in Egypt, teachers must abide by ministry regulations (where applicable). In addition, a teacher must consider what the students are accustomed to. If they have always been graded using absolute grading methods, it would be a great shock to suddenly change it to grading on a curve. If the change is a must for some reason, then this change must be introduced gradually and a lot of information must be given to parents and students about the new grading methods.

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The degree system is designed to communicate to students, teachers, school administration, parents and future employers the degrees of mastering the course material studied. Grades usually measure results, not effort**.** If we’re using letter grades **A** should mean that the student masters the material well. **B** should mean that the student masters the material but with some flaws. **C** means that he met the minimum requirements of the material. **D**The student learned some of the material but did not meet minimum requirements. **E&F** The student learned little or none of the material.======

Failure means the student learned very little or none of the material and failed to meet minimum expectations in understanding the course work.
Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? The level of mastering the course material studied or the degree of meeting the course objectives. Measurable results should be incorporated, other aspects like participation and effort should not be included.

Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? Grading should be very objective and there shouldn’t be any external influence from any institution by imposing policies for the distribution of grades among the class. It should measure the degree of mastering of the course objectives regardless of the number of students receiving the same grade.

Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? The final grade should include quizzes, written and oral tests, projects which are recorded and then summed up to produce the final grade. Conduct, participation, effort could be documented or recorded separately to be included in the report or evaluation of the student.

Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? Weekly quizzes usually weight the same since they each cover a week’s work. As for the tests, they are usually monthly so their weight should be more than a quiz but could be equal to the quizzes put together. Accordingly projects are not done regularly and I believe they should weight more than a quiz but less than a test.

Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? Students should be graded against course requirements(criterion referenced grading), not against other students. I don’t believe in the curve system because A student should not suffer because his fellow students do well, nor benefit because his fellow students do badly.

Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? Although borderline cases are not so common, but I believe if it’s not clear from the final grade if the student passed or failed, maybe I can refer to the subjective part of the student’s performance like participation and effort and decide whether the student has a chance to pass or better off sit for a makeup exam. .

Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? Of course in reality the teacher is not free to adopt her own grading policy just like that. The teacher should follow the school’s grading policy which in turn follows the ministry’s policies (they might be able to bend the rules a little bit if they can get away with it). The only thing a teacher can do is sit with the school administration and explain the rationale of her policy and try to convince them of it.

__** Engy Abdallah: **__ Grades should reflect the relative emphasis placed on the assessable objectives of school programs and the syllabus. Grades are primarily used to provide feedback about student progress and achievement, to provide guidance about future coursework, and to provide information for instructional planning. At the most fundamental level, a grade is intended to measure a student's mastery of the curriculum. A grade is a “certification of competence” that should reflect, as accurately as possible, a student’s performance in a course. “Failure” means the student failed to meet grade level expectations, i.e student’s performance was below the minimum grade level. Achievement at a level insufficient to demonstrate understanding of the basic elements of the course. Grades measure performance and results, not effort, behavior, or communication skills although it is necessary to include these aspects in the report card under a section of citizenship and communications skills. Trouble arises when we include grading components that are difficult to measure accurately (such as effort or participation) because these elements reduce the strength of the relationship between grades and academic achievement. Grades reflect performance of a student so the distribution of the grade should be based on this performance which reflects fairness regardless of the achievement. So if the student delivered he should be graded based on this delivery. The components of the grade should be clear to students, so they can chart their own progress. A complete description of the grading system should appear in the course syllabus, including the amount of credit for each assignment, how the final grades will be calculated, and the grade equivalents for the final scores. Also, students should perceive the grading system as fair and equitable, rewarding them proportionately for their achievements. The components of the grades depends on the purpose of the assessment and what actually the instructor wants to measure ,however it should not be heavily weighted on a single component, each component should be appropriately weighted. I will go for absolute grading, or criterion-referenced grading, consists of comparisons between a student's performance and some previously defined criteria. Thus, students are not compared to other students. When using absolute grading, one must be careful in designing the criteria that will be used to determine the student's grades.
 * Q1. What meaning should each grade symbol carry? **
 * Q2. What should failure mean? **
 * Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? **
 * Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed? **
 * Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade? **
 * Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined? **
 * Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades? **

I believe that borderline cases should be reviewed, but it should have a certain predefined criteria for application as our end result is not just to pass the student to next level but rather to ensure that learning has occurred. There are enormous differences in grading practices between teachers and schools as most schools lack a standardized and codified grading policy, schools’ philosophy and teachers’ fairness are major factors that affect the grading philosophy.
 * Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed? **
 * Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy? **

Shahira Makram
Q1 What meaning should each grade symbol carry?

Each grade symbol should be an average reflection of what the student was able to learn over the year. It is a measurable unit through which outside parties are able to place the achievement of each student within an accepted framework of understanding.

Q2. What should failure mean?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Failure is a reflection of a student's inability to minimum curriculum requirements to pass. Usuallay a student fails when he/she fails to exhibit any form of knoweledge grasped through learning.

Q3. What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Only the actual grade results pertaining to course work and measurable assessment or work results. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Other more unmeasurable results, such as behavior, participation and effort must be reported, but in seperate colomns so as not to distract the viewer from actual grade point.

Q4. How should the grades in a class be distributed?

I don't really put much weight on grades distribution so long as every student is graded according to his performance and ability.

Q5. What should the components be like that go into a final grade?

Homework, quizzes, projects, presentations, research, participation, effort and general behavior could be included in the final grade.

Q6. How should the components of the grade be combined?

If I am to be fair with grades, I should put more wieght on actual student work such as quzzes projects and presentations, and minmum grades on the other components in order to avoid bias or lack of objectivity.

Q7. What methods should be used to assign grades?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I absolutely would never use a curve method. In general criteria based grading systems work best for me. Q8. Should borderline cases be reviewed?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I believeorder line cases should be reviewed within acceptable limits. No extra work or projects should make up for a grade to avoid unfairness to the others. But if the student's previous work shows a better ability, one might be able to consider any sudden circumstances.

Q9. What other factors would affect the grading philosophy?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The country's general schooling system ending in university acceptance should be taken into consideration. Each school has its own policy and considerations as well.