Evaluation - Grading - Dropping or not Dropping a Low Grade
Should a low grade be dropped? Focus Questions
- How does dropping a grade help students learn?
- How does dropping a grade help students, who may not yet achieved at an acceptable level, improve?
- What does this communicate to students about grades vs. understanding?
- Why did the instructor give the quiz in the first place if she or he was going to ignore the assessment information it yielded?
- Selecting the lowest score would probably result in a different assessment being dropped for each student. Is that fair?
- If dropping a grade results in raised grades, then how does - raising all grades - affect students' achievement? Does it help, hurt, confuse, or bewilder students?
- Does this practice actually raise students' grades?
- What does a grade mean, if it can be raised at the teacher's discretion?
- Oops, perhaps that gives too much of a clue.
Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©