Grade Like You Mean It 2: Organizing the grade book

Thanks to many great conversations through Facebook feeds and personal messages, I have had time to reflect and think about the organization process of transitioning my grading style. I had it worked out in my head, but nothing formally written down; a crucial step in goal setting. So this is my post about what this change means for me as a classroom Spanish teacher.

Setting-up my grade book

Paper copy

My paper copy of my grade book won't change much. Yes, I still keep a paper copy because my trust in our online grade book has yet to be established (I did randomly lose an entire quarter of grades for two classes last year, win 1 for the paper back-up). My paper copy makes it easy for me to look at a student's behavior patterns (magically sick every time a project is due, never retakes a vocabulary quiz, etc.). I can also see if there are a lot of pink highlights in one assignment, I need to stop, reteach, and reassess. It is also easy to pick-up and go to IEP or intervention team meetings. This is also where my love for color coordination comes in. (I will post a picture of my book from last year)

I use high lighters and written symbols to track things like absences (A in corner, highlighted in blue), missing assignments (highlighted in yellow, also circled if due to an absence), failed assignments (highlighted in pink; if they retake I write the new score in pen over the old score and highlight), behavior concerns (bx in corner in pen), and days I contacted parents (p in corner). Sounds like a lot, but it just works for me.

Online grade book

With the online grade book, we have very limited features and it vaguely resembles Windows cerca 1990's. We can't add commentary to an assignment (e.g. "0 points due to cheating/absence/not-submitted) and there is no highlighting or otherwise linking assignments together. The teacher side is also less organized looking than parent/student side.

Categories
May teachers set up their grading categories by type of assignment: quizzes, projects, homework, participation, etc. Other options are by unit which is very helpful if you use a textbook: Unit 1, Gustar Unit, Realidades 2.6, etc. The standards-based school I was at used skill sets: Culture, Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.

Proficiency-based: I am using the proficiency guidelines set-up by IWLA (discussed in previous post here). Therefore my grade book will use the three modes of communication as my grading categories: Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Communication, and Persentational Communication.

Weights
The math department uses weights with their categories to calculate final course grades: 60% Tests and Quizzes, 40% Homework. When I was at the standards-based school, all five of our categories were weighted equally at 20% each (reasoning that all skills are equally important to language learning). Pros: This can keep "fluff" points from skewing final grades (e.g. homework, participation). Students have to preform well on their summative assessments if it is a project or test. Cons: The weights may not reflect what happens in the learning process. I taught 6 sections of Spanish 1 at the high school level when all five of our categories were worth 20% each. The problem I ran into, that the Spanish 4 teacher did not have, was that may Spanish 1 students weren't speaking as much so they had less grades entered into that category (we could only enter summative assessments for grades). The first quarter of the year, three grades made-up their entire Speaking category while the other categories had 10 assignments each. That meant that three assignment grades made up 20% of their final quarter grade. Not fair.

Points
For the last few years I have used total points for my grading system, no weights to any category. I still used categories to keep my grade book organized, but none were "valued" more than the others. Pros: Their grade reflects their overall work and mastery of the language in a very raw form. This also makes it easier for me to keep a consistent grade book between all four levels of Spanish. Cons: Grades can become easily diluted by "fluff" grades. If you give 5 points a week for participation and 5 points for every homework assignment; you can be giving out anywhere from 10-20 points a week in "effort" points. By the end of a quarter, that's 90-180 points. That is now worth more than the four 25 point vocabulary quizzes you gave and possibly worth more than your unit test.



Proficiency-based: I am going to continue to use points. I am very careful about what I take the time to grade versus look-over and use for my feedback. I want their grades to clearly reflect their mastery of Spanish, not how many papers they can hand-in on time.

They have 100 points worth of vocabulary quizzes per quarter. They typically have a mid-term and quarter test at 100 points each. Homework and participation points never total more than 40 points per quarter. Their comprehension quizzes from class stories etc. are about 10 points each and I don't use the grade for every quiz in the grade book. They normally have one smaller project about 50-100 points each quarter and a bigger project about 100-150 points at the semester.

I give homework points based on completion, and homework and participation points are very few, maybe up to 5 points at a time. (I also have a different idea about what homework looks like in my TPRS/CI classroom.) These points are never daily, maybe weekly. This gives enough "padding" to their grades to allow for a bad test day. *My Spanish 3 and 4 classes don't have homework or participation points.

Assembled grade book

I anticipate all three categories to be close to even by the end of each quarter. Spanish 2-4 should be just about 33% each. I think Spanish 1 will have a Presentational Communication category closer to 25-30% of their final quarter grades to allow for their comfort levels and their development in the language. Also remember that Presentational Communication looks very different at Spanish 1 versus Spanish 4 per the "I can statements".

My grading categories are in bold. The scores underneath each category are exactly what I type in the "assignment description" box in our online system. The points are in parenthesis and go in the "points possible" box in our online system. If you are standards-based using a 1-4 or 1-5 etc. scale, this is where your scores go.

I hope to include a picture soon (whenever the online system is up and running), but here is essentially what my grade book will look like after the introductory unit in Spanish 1.

Interpersonal: (totaling 29 points)
      HW- greeting dialogue arrangement (2pts)
      P- polite exchange game (2pts)
      Q- Greeting questions (10pts)
      Pjt- Hanging out with the new kid (15pts)

Interpretive: (totaling 24 points)
      HW- comprehension questions reading story Miguel (2pts)
      P- Active involvement class story Dracula (2pts)
      Q- listening comprehension quiz Sara (5pts)
      Pjt- Hanging out with the new kid (15pts)

Presentational: (totaling 22 points)
      P- skit practice howtnk (2pts)
      Q- grocery store checkout line responses (10pts)
      Pjt- Hanging out with the new kid (10pts)

You can see for this unit- the final project was 40 points, quizzes were 25 points, and homework/participation are 10 points. As the year goes on, they receive less possible participation points, in the beginning it helps them be accountable for being involved in class. 

The "Hanging out with the new kid" is a skit that each small group prepares using basic introductions and simple phrases. They record these and I grade them privately; following up with each group about their grade. It was only one assignment but it hits on all three categories based on the assignment requirements.

I also labeled the stories by character name so I can find which story it is for absentee students