Ok. I have three sets of tests to grade this weekend, I’ll play all 3 (though one is Logic with a group I have not had, at least not for this sort of subject, before)

Algebra 1 for 18 (percents, work problems, fractional eqns)
Algebra 2 for 16 (mixed polynomial stuff, from factoring through remainder theorem).

Since I don’t give letters, if I guess 92 and the result is 88, what do I deduct? If I guess 81 and the result is 88?

I gave an exam yesterday and luckily I looked at this before I started grading.

Of 41 students that took the test:

– I guessed 16 grades correctly
– I overestimated 21grades
– I underestimated 4 grades
– My score was -33 (off by 0.8 grade per student)

As to the moral/ethical issues around this game–I’m of multiple minds. It seems useful for teachers to have realistic knowledge of their students’ abilities, so the lower the score the more a teacher is understanding his or her students. On the other hand, what does it mean that we write a test knowing that some people will probably fail it? Obviously, the responsibility is not all ours, but I tend to take more for responsibility for those failures than I give to the students.

On the other hand, I strongly believe that grades on tests are mostly a measure of students test-taking skills and only barely an indication of how much of the material they understand (and this is ignoring issues of grader subjectivity, which makes the results even less revealing of students’ content abilities). With this in mind, a failure on a test is simply an indication that the student needs to improve their test-taking on that particular kind of test. Many factors can be involved, including outside stresses, confidence, cultural and language issues, and more. See also the very important work that Claude Steele is doing on “Stereotype Threat” at Stanford for more on the effects of cultural differences in testing situations.

One way I try to deal with all this is to give my students the ability to choose the percentages that they assign to homework, quizzes, and tests (within ranges; e.g., in my algebra class students must choose a test percentage–not including the final exam–between 20% and 40%). This can greatly reduce the stress and importance of tests, while still helping the students improve their test-taking skills for future classes or situations where tests may be more high stakes. Looked at in this way–as preparation for the future, but not as a measure of what students necessarily understand about the material they are studying–it is perfectly fine for teachers to know that some students are going to fail a test. The choice for how a student is graded also creates the opportunity to talk to students about what they do well, what they don’t, and why. It can be a great meta-cognitive moment. I’m not saying the method is perfect, but I like it overall.

Dan: I like the consistent approach that you mention; it definitely helps deal with the issue of students learning to take the test better and with reducing formatting interference, as you say. However, that is only true as long as the student stays with you. What happens when they go on to the next teacher?

I use an excel spreadsheet for my grades because it gives me a lot of flexibility. And, yeah, I did spend a hour or so setting it up the first time, but once I did it I could use that template for all the subsequent classes.

One other issue came to me about the “game”. Taken another step or two further, we could be making a “game” of guessing our students final grades after the first day of class. This seems to me flatly amoral: the twin dangers of influencing the results through our behaviors and of the students possibly finding out your guesses are the first of several bad possible results. Of course, we already make these kinds of judgments to some degree so it’s possible that by making them explicit we could deal with them in ourselves, but I think the potential for bad is greater than the potential for good.

I realize that the test game is qualitatively different from the first-day game because it is based on our experiential knowledge of students rather than quick first impressions, but the more obvious dangers of the first-day game make me very suspicious of the test game’s morality.

I love this. I haven’t taught in quite a few years, but this ‘game’ seems to me to be an invaluable exercise in expectations. very important for a teacher to see by how much his or her expectations are right or wrong!

Yes, of course, I meant “immoral” rather than “amoral”. Thanks for correcting my silliness.

Hal:

Yes, predicting grades out a quarter in advance is immoral if you really believe your expectations. However, I have no idea a few days later who I had high expectations for and who I had low expectations for because I “graded” 160 kids after seeing them for two days. After all, I had a assigned seating chart, and at the end of the second day of class, I made a note of who seemed to be answering the first day’s set of homework questions, who was asking questions, who seemed to be daydreaming, etc. I always do this because I need to know who are the few kids that I will need to keep a careful eye on as the class progresses. After my first quiz, I know what kids that I need to go to first when they are working on their classwork. After the second quiz, I have more information, and can adjust the list of “underperformers”. This list gets more representative of who needs help as the quarter progresses. To think that I have this down after two days is silly….I know that, and I certainly don’t put any faith in this list.

I’m absolutely convinced that it is very important to come into a new group of students with no prior knowledge about their past experience with school. For instance, I never talk to other teachers about the kids on my roster at the beginning of the school year. Only once I realize I’m having problems with a kid do I go to their previous math teacher and talk about what happened in their class and what, if anything, can be done about the kid in my classroom. Will a call home result in him getting his homework done more often? Will I get more attention when presenting a lesson by sitting him in the front of the room? Will a referral to the principal’s office help with behavior concerns or will it make it worse?

In a sentence, don’t assume that a kid cannot do something, but when you find he can’t, then help him get there. Except with the surface area of a cone…then you’re wasting your time!

With all that in mind, I did just post my predicted grades and their final quarter 1 grades on my blog.

I would agree with Stephen’s argument that a teacher should be rewarded with overcoming initially low guesses so long as the guesses weren’t made by the teacher themselves.

Stephen is using economic thinking to tackle a problem, but then there would be an economic incentive for the teacher to purposely lower their guesses of student outcomes.

We know that black, Latino, and Native American kids score lower than others. We know that boys have lower grades than girls. We know that kids from low socio-economic status do worse than others. If teachers can overcome any of these attributes to get scores up to where we would like them to be, they should be heavily compensated (and copied).