Why my Grades are Weighted 80:20... and Why Yours Should Be Too!

I remember the first time I heard about 80:20 grading.  It was my second year of teaching (first year in my current district) at an institute day.  The presenter we had to go to during a session talked about the benefits of 80:20 grading.  I was baffled at the concept.  Tests/projects worth 80 percent of a student's grade?!  Kids will fail miserably! Kids who used to get A's will now get C's!  What about kids who do poorly on tests but know the material?!  The list of arguments went on.

It wasn't until last year that I realized how much more accurate this grading system could be in assessing a student's grade.  In my old system, as long as you did your homework on time and did ok on tests, you literally could not fail my class.  This made it difficult for me to make recommendations that students repeat a level of French.  "Well if Suzie is getting a C, then obviously she deserves to move on!"

For anyone reading who is still confused as to what 80:20 is, allow me to explain.  Your students' grades have only two categories: summative assessment and formative  assessment.  Anything that fits into the summative assessment category (tests, big quizzes, end of unit projects, etc) are worth 80% of their grade.  The other 20% is formative assessment (day to day work like homework, mid-unit projects, small quizzes, classwork, etc). 

I decided to do a test run of 80:20 during fourth quarter last year and it worked REALLY well.  I also implemented a new test retake policy that really complemented the 80:20 policy well.  Yes students should be learning the material when its taught to them and be prepared for any test.  But, like mentioned above, students can have off days, they may not have gotten the material 100%, the format may have been confusing to them, etc.  I changed my policy to allow retakes, however students needed to prove to me they were truly learning the material.  After all, the whole purpose of 80:20 is to accurately portray what the student knows how to do, right?

My new policy was simple.  They had until the end of the quarter to retake any tests from that quarter, and they had to fill out an intensive retake form (CLICK HERE to check it out and feel free to use it for yourself).  Part of the retake form is doing extra work to practice what they had a hard time with.  I will not allow them to even schedule the retake until this whole form is completed.  With this policy, students really only were able to retake if they could prove to me they learned the material a little bit better.  They often love to kill two birds with one stone and meet with me to go over and correct their errors. 

Once I implemented this system, I've noticed how accurate grades are to what students are able to do.  Students who really didn't get it were getting Ds and Fs. Students who got it were getting As and Bs.  Their grade was a reflection of their knowledge, not of their ability to turn in work on time.  That's what summative assessment does: it measures your knowledge of the topic.  By making a grade worth that much, it truly reflects their knowledge.  The retake option is nice for two reasons.  Firstly, it encourages them to actually take the time to get help or try again if they didn't get it.  Secondly, it keeps parents from freaking out at me that their child is doing poorly in class.  If their grade is in the dumps, I always tell parents that their student has the option to retake tests and improve their grade.  Once again, the ball is in the student's court (which is how I like it).

photo from uhstitans.com

Late Work: To Accept or Not to Accept?

That is most definitely the question on A LOT of teachers' minds.

School isn't just about teaching facts and figures.  We are teaching these students how to be productive members of society.  We are preparing them for the REAL WORLD.  That scary place where you have to pay for stuff and be responsible for yourself.

Many teachers are afraid that accepting late work does not teach students responsibility.  In the real world, missing a deadline can literally be the difference between having a job and being unemployed.  In college, not a single one of my professors accepted late work.  Accepting late work gives them a security net that they might get too used to and could cause major repercussions some day when it is taken away.

But... let's think for a moment about the purpose of homework for a second here.  Why do teachers assign homework?  Contrary to popular student belief, it's not to torture them.  It's to reinforce the things we are learning in class.  As a language teacher, I simply CANNOT give them the practice in class that they need to truly succeed.  I only see them 45 minutes a day.  Homework is so important when it comes to practicing and retaining their skills in my room.

So.. with that being said... accepting late work has its pros too.  Most students, if they couldn't get any credit for it, would choose not to do the work.  Why bother if it won't have any benefit to them?  I tell my students at the beginning of every year to not focus on their grade.  I got an A all throughout high school in French and graduated with minimal speaking ability.  I have students with C's that can speak better than students with A's (I will be diving in to grading in a future post). What they need to focus on is the skills they are learning in the classroom.  They need to think about where they are at the end of the year in regards to where they started.

With the help of my cooperating teacher while student teaching, I instated a policy that I still use to this day.  All work is due at the beginning of the hour on the day it is due (unless otherwise noted).  (This is where the in-folder comes in handy.  I give a last call for anything to be handed in, I clip it together, and it goes in my personal "to grade" folder in my stuff.  Anything that shows up in the folder after that is considered late.) I accept late work until the day of the test for that unit, but they only get 50% credit for it.  Some teachers I know give them X number of days or weeks, but who has time to keep track of all of that?  I sure don't.  Having a concrete "this is the last day to hand in late work" makes my job a lot easier.

This is a great balance and leaves the kids with the best of both worlds.  It encourages students to still get the practice they need, but it also shows them there are consequences to not handing in something on time.  I have had parents complain that 50% is a steep penalty and that it should start small and get bigger for the amount of time it's been missing.  I remind them that the students have known from the beginning that this is my policy and that keeping track of how long the work has been missing is just WAY too much work for me.  Accepting late work already puts more work on my plate, so it's only fair that they have to "pay" for it in some way (their grade).

What is your late-work policy?  Feel free to share in the comments if you have a policy that works really well for you. 

The Stamp

I realized that I never did my last post in my string of organizational posts, or ways to make your life easier and your students' excuses go out the window.

Often, to save myself the headache of grading 50 worksheets in one night, I will just give my students completion credit, especially at the beginning of a chapter.  At the beginning of the hour, I go through the class and just check that everyone did it, then we would go through it.  However, I found it very hard to keep track of who did the assignment and who didn't.  Often, I'd have kids coming up to me and saying "but I had it done that day!" which was difficult because, unless I specifically remember seeing an empty page, I'd have to take their word for it.

So, I decided to get a little stamp.  When I check for completion credit, if they finished the assignment, they get a little smiley stamp on their paper.  That way if I do make an error, they can prove me wrong.  No stamp means the student never showed it to me completed.  I have yet to have any student try to tell me they handed something in when they didn't.

Blah Days

Oh the "blah" day.  As teachers, we all have them.  You're exhausted.  You can't focus.  Class starts in twenty minutes and you still don't know what you're doing with the kids.  The reasons one might have for this "blah" day are infinite.  Today, mine has to do with hunting.  Because of hunting, I didn't get home until 8:30 last night.  And by the time my deer was in the garage and we were unpacked and showered, I was so exhausted it was bedtime.

I came into school early today, but despite my 9 hours of sleep last night, I was still exhausted.  I remembered that I had planned on lesson planning last night to get ready for today, so I was in a bind.  My husband's "easy fix" suggestion was "have them watch a movie".  No dear, I can't just pop in any old movie.  When I DO use movies, I use them to supplement what we're learning and I create worksheets or activities for it.

I needed something that had them practicing what they were learning, but something that I could plan in under twenty minutes.  It also had to be pretty hands off for me because I was desperately behind in grading and I had told the kids that their grades would be updated at 8:00 last night (note to self, don't ever make promises that need to be accomplished between hunting and school the next day).  It then hit me to have THEM create a crossword puzzle for another classmate to complete.  Not only are they practicing their own chosen vocabulary, then they have to be "quizzed" by another classmate on it as well.  Between having them make those and going over the homework that was assigned Friday, it took up the whole hour.  I just had to print off a prompt and some empty grids and they were able to get to work.

This is something that is so simple and can work in any subject.  Whenever you are having a "blah" day and feel extremely stuck, have the kids create a puzzle of some kind for them to exchange.  It gives them the opportunity to be creative as well as practice their vocabulary.