Chapter 8

Abstract:
The first part of chapter was all about effective and fair grading. The second part of chapter was about reporting grades. There were six main principles to grading; grades and reports should be based on clearly specified learning goals an performance standards, evidence used for grading should be valid, grading should be based on established criteria not on arbitrary norms, not everything should be included in grades, avoid grading based on averages, and focus on achievement and report on other factors seperately. The part on reporting was that it should be expanded from the simple one letter grade to a system that shows more adequately how well students have mastered the content.

Reaction:
There was a slight disagreement at the beginning about the part that all assessments should not be grades but that all grades are assessments. There was disagreement in our group, some thought that all assessments should be graded. At the end I believe there was consensus. The one section that we all really agreed on was the fact that assessments should not be arbitrary. The things that we assess our students for should be the important things we are trying to teach them, not simply memorization of radom facts.