With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. The book provides a critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students' academic potential - practices that are still in place a century later.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR PROLOGUE: MALLORY'S DILEMMA PART I: FOUNDATIONS CHAPTER 1. WHAT MAKES GRADING SO DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT (AND EVEN HARDER TO CHANGE)? Grading as Identity Grading and Our "Web of Belief" Who Is This Book For? Blending the Technical and Theoretical How Is This Book Organized? A Final Word Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF GRADING The Twentieth Century Context Impact on Schools Grading in the Twentieth Century Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider PART II: THE CASE FOR CHANGE: HOW TRADITIONAL GRADING THWARTS EFFECTIVE AND EQUITABLE TEACHING AND LEARNING CHAPTER 3. HOW TRADITIONAL GRADING STIFLES RISK-TAKING AND SUPPORTS THE "COMMODITY OF GRADES" Risk-Taking, Trust, and the Teacher-Student Relationship The "Commodity of Grades" and Extrinsic Motivation Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 4. TRADITIONAL GRADING HIDES INFORMATION, INVITES BIASES, AND PROVIDES MISLEADING INFORMATION Traditional Grading Evaluates Both a Student's Content Knowledge as Well as Their Behaviors, and Invites Subjectivity and Bias Implicit Bias and Traditional Grading The "Omnibus" Grade: A Barrel-ful of Information in a Thimble-Size Container A Tale of Two Students: Tangela and Isabel Grade Hacks The Impact of Variable and Unreliable Grading Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 5. TRADITIONAL GRADING DEMOTIVATES AND DISEMPOWERS Disengagement and Disempowerment Motivating Students to Do the Wrong Thing So Where Do We Go From Here? Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 6. A NEW VISION OF GRADING Supporting the Pillars: Coherence A Measured Vision Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider PART III: EQUITABLE GRADING PRACTICES CHAPTER 7. PRACTICES THAT ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE The Zero The 0-100-Percentage Scale: Early Use and Enduring Flaws The 0-100 Scale's Orientation Toward Failure Minimum Grading The 0-4 Grading Scale Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 8. PRACTICES THAT ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE (CONTINUED) The Problems With Averaging Weighting More Recent Performance Examining the Group Grade Encouraging Productive Group Work Without a Group Grade Our Accuracy Pillar: A Final Thought Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 9. PRACTICES THAT VALUE KNOWLEDGE, NOT ENVIRONMENT OR BEHAVIOR Examining Extra Credit If the Work Is Important, Require It; If It's Not, Don't Include It in the Grade Grading the Work, Not the Timing of the Work What's the Alternative to Lowering Grades for Late Work? Alternative (Non-Grade) Consequences for Cheating Excluding "Participation" and "Effort" From the Grade Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 10. PRACTICES THAT VALUE KNOWLEDGE, NOT ENVIRONMENT OR BEHAVIOR (CONTINUED) Homework The Impact of Including Homework in the Grade: Student Voices and Copying Reframing Homework Grades Based Entirely on Summative Assessment Performance Grades to Teach Students, Not to Control Them Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 11. PRACTICES THAT SUPPORT HOPE AND A GROWTH MINDSET Our Understanding of Motivation Grades and Their Impact on Student Motivation The Role of Mistakes in Learning Minimum Grading (A Revisit) Renaming Grades Retakes and Redos Retakes: Frequent Approaches Retakes: Common Concerns Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 12. PRACTICES THAT "LIFT THE VEIL" The Veils in Our Schools, and "Hostile Attributional Bias" Rubrics: What Are They, and Why? Scoring Rubrics and Grade Book Entries Using Rubrics to Empower Students "Lifting the Veil" for Tests: The Opacity of Points Beyond Points: Standards Scales The Effects of Standards Transparency Standards-Based Grade Books Veils, Rubrics, and the "Real World" Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 13. PRACTICES THAT BUILD "SOFT SKILLS" WITHOUT INCLUDING THEM IN THE GRADE "Soft Skills" Grading as Feedback Preparation for the "Real World" Whose "Real World" Are We Talking About? Connecting Soft Skills to Academic Success Two Grades: Academic and "Soft Skills" The Twenty-First Century's Soft Skill: Self-Regulation Creating a Community of Feedback Student Trackers and Goal-Setting Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider CHAPTER 14. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: NICK AND CATHY Nick: Rethinking Assessments: Getting Away From the Games, and Focusing on Learning Cathy: A Clearer Vision of Excellence Summary of Concepts / Questions to Consider EPILOGUE: A RETURN TO MALLORY'S SCHOOL BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
