A Letter to Teachers: You get an “F” in Grading
The Digital Devil is the official student-produced medium of news and information published/produced by Journalism II students. The Digital Devil has been established as a designated public forum for student editors to inform and educate their readers as well as for the discussion of issues of concern to their audience. School officials do not engage in prior review, and the content of The Digital Devil is determined by and reflects only the views of the student staff and not school officials or the the school itself.
This time last week, all over school, there was buzz from students wondering about how their grades would end up. Students are widely frustrated because their work is not being graded, or is graded long after submission.
Too many teachers are doing exactly what they advise us against — they are procrastinating on grading until the very last day. The final term grade should not be a drastic change at the last hour.
It seems like teachers resort to giving completion grades because they feel like they don’t have enough time to grade for accuracy.
Students need to see grades entered consistently and in a timely manner.
If teachers are going to resort to giving completion grades, why can’t they grade an assignment quickly after it is turned in? Too many teachers plan on giving grades based on accuracy, and then run out of time.
A grade should be put in around a week after the assignment is completed so that students can track their own progress. A minimum of one grade should be put in every week in order for us to keep track of what is missing.
A majority of the teachers at OHS do have true dedication and passion for their careers and set great examples for their students. We have no issue with their grading process.
These teachers enter their grades in a timely manner and do everything in their power to help their students succeed. However, this does not apply to all.
A noticeable number of teachers demand a work effort from us that they do not match. These teachers insist that work be completed by a deadline, but don’t follow reasonable deadlines themselves. Many teachers view the end of the nine weeks as their deadline.
As students, we understand that teachers have outside responsibilities like we do. Often, they are pulled away from their planning to attend mandatory meetings, and many also use planning time to do work for sports and extracurriculars they sponsor.
However, there has to be a way administrators and teachers can work together so that delayed grading doesn’t affect student performance so negatively.
Grades have been posted now and the first term is finalized. Students are complaining that grades were pouring in from so early in the nine weeks, that had they gotten the work back sooner, they would have had time to fix it.
During last week’s Student Focus Groups, Mr. Delacey asked if there were problems with teachers’ grading. To his question – our answer is yes.
I agree. Some teachers give in to students at the end of the grading term. And give out a bunch of assignments to help get their grades up that are just for completion after going the whole term giving assignments for an accuracy grade.
i agree some teacher wait till the last minute, that leave us no time to try to correct our mistakes or try again.
I agree with this, they should post grades when we turn it in, not 2 weeks later. We have a more accurate grade in that class if so.
this was so accurate
I agree, because when a teacher puts a lot of grades in at the last minute and my grades drop for that class, it makes me not want to try anymore.
I got some teachers like this, one of which did not finish grading my essay from week 1 of school till 2 days after the grading period, *after the report cards got sent home and finalized.
I agree, because when a teacher puts in the grades at last minute I don’t know if I need to do something to bring the grade up or not, leaving me anxious about the class.
I agree, some teachers don’t even grade uti 1 until we’re already halfway through unit 3
I don’t feel like there is a problem with grading. Grading is different for each class that someone takes. Like, you have some classes that don’t put grades in every week due to how they run things in their room. You have some teachers that put a grade in every other week because the things that students work on in that class may take longer. Then, you have teachers that put grades in everyday doing to what they do in that teachers class. Every teacher is different with grading their grades. It just all depends on the teacher and the subject that they teach.