Survey -- How do you weight components of science grade?

[JanetC]

I had planned to weight my chemistry course as:

Homework/daily work = 50%

Tests = 25%

Labs = 25%

 

Then, I was googling chemistry syllabi to use to help write my course description, and it seems that the schools weigh tests MUCH higher (50 to 60%). I know I can do anything I want, but I thought I would ask here if I was unusual to weigh tests at 25%.

 

So, if you do a science class with written work, tests, and labs, and if you do formal grades: How do you weigh the value of each component? If you've changed over the course of high school, put how you do it for each grade.

 

Thanks!

Edited September 7, 2012 by JanetC
horrible grammar!

[Melissa B]

Basically, labs, homework, quizzes, etc. are required in order to take exams.

 

Exams - 100% of grade

[Alice]

For the high school Anatomy class I teach at co-op we are doing:

 

Average of 8 tests- 60%

Midterm 10%

Final 10%

Average of three projects (they each have to do a presentation on a topic) and one written experiment:20%

 

We don’t look at homework and for this particular class the labs are mostly dissections. We are not having them write up the dissections, just participate. The homework we suggest but it’s more for their benefit. They know that they will do better on the tests and exams if they have done the readings and answered the study questions. They are mostly 11th-12th graders who have all had to take Bio and Chem to take this class so we are trying to treat them at a higher level.

[regentrude]

Science we do at home:

course grade consists 100% of test grades, averaged.

I do not give grades for homework; it is for practice, a tool to learn the material, and in a homeschool situation I do not have to reward my student for completing required work.

I do not grade lab, it is simply required. We do the actual experiment together; the student has to work on analysis and lab report until it is done to my satisfaction.

 

Now for the courses I teach at the university, I am (unfortunately) required to give the students "incentives" for doing the homework and showing up to class.

There, 2/3 of the grade is exams, 1/3 homework and quizzes.

I wish I could base the whole grade solely on exams.

 

My philosophy is that grades should reflect mastery of the subject and long term retention; I do not give points for participating, trying, busy work.

[EKS]

For biology I did:

 

50% tests/quizzes

20% labs

20% homework completion (to my satisfaction, meaning that everything was complete and correct, but not graded per se, if that makes sense)

10% "participation" (meaning that he was engaging with me during lessons and not just sitting there like a lump)

 

For all courses I tried to have a balance of about 70% graded work and 30% homework/participation. It made my son think that there was a purpose to doing the homework and not acting like a lump. It also allowed him to make mistakes on the homework without the penalty of a bad grade. My philosophy is that homework is there to help the kid learn and mistakes are part of that process and shouldn't be penalized. This weighting system seems to be the standard in the local high school and is what is done at his private school as well.

 

I did something similar for chemistry, but I don't have those records in front of me.

Edited September 7, 2012 by EKS

[Jenny in Florida]

Well, I'll be the weirdo, here, and admit that I wasn't planning to give any tests for chemistry this year.

 

My son is doing written answers to the review questions in his text (ck12), and I'm keeping grades for those. He'll be doing at least one lab report per week, which will also be graded. And he'll write a brief paper on each of two chemistry-related books he reads.

 

I'm thinking percentages will break down something like this:

 

Daily work = 25%

Lab reports = 50%

Reports and any additional projects = 15%

Participation (discussions, working hard on labs, etc.) = 10%

[Joani]

This is our first official high school science course, so take my plans with a grain of salt. We're using Spectrum Chemistry and supplementing with assignments I'm making up with the help of Nivaldo Tro's Chemistry: A Molecular Approach. We'll complete the labs together, but I'll grade him on the lab reports that he will complete on his own.

 

Labs (30) - 20%

Assignments (10) - 20%

Tests (10) - 40%

Final Exam - 20%

[Mom22ns]

Basically, labs, homework, quizzes, etc. are required in order to take exams.

 

Exams - 100% of grade

 

:iagree:

 

I have considered adding lab or homework grades, but it would only be grade padding because those things must be done until they are right.

[Gwen in VA]

They don't get a grade until they do all the work. And I give an A as long as they score well on the relevant SAT-2!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Will you put a grade on the transcript or mark it as pass fail?

[Candid]

I think you will mostly find that labs and homework rarely make up 50% of a course in more advance studies. At my college the lab component was a separate one hour class and the grade was based totally on finding an unknown substance in a titration. As others have noted most classes at the college level, rarely grade homework. However, at high school level, I'd be surprised to find that 100% of the grade came from the final exam.

 

Here's a breakdown from the syllabus I'm using this year for chemistry:

 

Honework/notebook 20%

Labs 30%

Quizzes 10%

Unit Test 40%

 

You can find information about the program here: http://www.doctortang.com/Honour%20Chemistry/units.htm

[EKS]

 

I have considered adding lab or homework grades, but it would only be grade padding because those things must be done until they are right.

 

If you run the numbers, a kid who has a 90% average on graded material where the weighting is 70% graded/30% ungraded @ 100%, the percentage only goes up by 3 points:

 

90 x 0.7 = 63

100 x 0.3 = 30

Total = 93

 

Since I figure that a kid who does all of the problem sets/reading/participating to 100% will most likely be getting good scores on exams (like 90+), the worst thing this scheme would do would be to push an A- to an A.

 

However, the reverse can be devastating. A kid who does no homework and does not participate but gets 100% on the exams will wind up with a 70 in the course.

 

For a strong student, it's not much padding.

[bobbeym]

I just can't wrap my head around the thought of the final grade being based on a handful or less of exams in any subject. I guess it's because DS doesn't work that way and still needs to see regular numbers to chart his progress. Or maybe it's because we're working to make up for gaps in study habits that never developed well over the years in ps.

 

Here's my grading system for Earth Science this year.

 

40% unit tests

30% labs/chapter quizzes

20% research project/papers

10% notebook

[creekland]

Science we do at home:

course grade consists 100% of test grades, averaged.

I do not give grades for homework; it is for practice, a tool to learn the material, and in a homeschool situation I do not have to reward my student for completing required work.

I do not grade lab, it is simply required. We do the actual experiment together; the student has to work on analysis and lab report until it is done to my satisfaction.

 

...

 

My philosophy is that grades should reflect mastery of the subject and long term retention; I do not give points for participating, trying, busy work.

 

This is the way we do things too - no regrets. My grades are based on whether they know the subject and can prove it on tests (no open book tests either). It doesn't matter to me if they can do the homework or not. I don't even assign homework, but my guys figured out quickly that being able to do homework problems helped them with test material.

 

I was never in a college class that graded homework (answers were posted outside profs offices), so I guess I just decided to prepare my highschoolers for those days. So far, it's worked well.

 

For middle son's AP classes, I waited for his AP score for his "final" grade. Since he got 5s, he got As (a 4 would have been a B, etc).

[SailorMom]

I'm still working on this myself, but right now...

60% exams and quizzes

30% labs

10% "binder checks" and homework (I am teaching him to take lecture notes and notes from text books - and want to make sure he is doing all the homework - so I'm checking his binder for organization, notes, and homework every week)

 

I also don't give a grade for homework in math anymore - just a complete/incomplete.

[kiana]

Responding specifically to the OP:

 

The only issue is that 75% of the grade is coming from open-book stuff. If you have a student who does well with open-book stuff and fails to remember it or be able to apply it without seeing the examples, they could still be passing even with getting 0s on the exams.

 

If they had perfect homework and lab grades, they could fail every exam (assuming 60% is the minimum passing mark) and still get up to a B+. That doesn't sound right.

[PeterPan]

Admittedly I'm not the voice of experience, but when I was in school they graded multiple sources (quizzes, homework, notebooks, exams, etc.) in 9th and 10th and switched over to just exams and papers by 11th and 12th. Part of it is a teaching process and teaching the student how to get each component done to a standard. You don't have to do it the same way all 4 years.

 

My 10th grade Algebra 2 teacher was quite the lady and gave notebook grades. Sounds like an easy thing and padding the grade, but actually it was VERY HARD to get a good grade for her on that. She gave open notebook tests to check the carefulness of your notes and people would STILL fail. We were using Dolciani, and she made a big deal out of the definitions and being *accurate*. It's a lesson that has stuck with me to this day, that details matter, precision matters, definitions matter.

 

So you can use it as a tool to teach, and it can be very appropriate for certain ages and levels. Not every class did it the same way either. Just use your head and have a good reason, that's my two cents. Maybe somebody else's kid doesn't need that type of instruction and maybe yours does.

Edited September 8, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[ereks mom]

Science we do at home:

course grade consists 100% of test grades, averaged.

I do not give grades for homework; it is for practice, a tool to learn the material, and in a homeschool situation I do not have to reward my student for completing required work.

I do not grade lab, it is simply required. We do the actual experiment together; the student has to work on analysis and lab report until it is done to my satisfaction.

 

<snip>

 

My philosophy is that grades should reflect mastery of the subject and long term retention; I do not give points for participating, trying, busy work.

 

:iagree: except that I do grade labs. I require lab reports, and I grade those. I count tests as 65% and labs for 35% of the final grade.

Edited September 8, 2012 by ereks mom

[bobbeym]

My 10th grade Algebra 2 teacher was quite the lady and gave notebook grades. Sounds like an easy thing and padding the grade, but actually it was VERY HARD to get a good grade for her on that. She gave open notebook tests to check the carefulness of your notes and people would STILL fail. We were using Dolciani, and she made a big deal out of the definitions and being *accurate*. It's a lesson that has stuck with me to this day, that details matter, precision matters, definitions matter.

 

So you can use it as a tool to teach, and it can be very appropriate for certain ages and levels. Not every class did it the same way either. Just use your head and have a good reason, that's my two cents. Maybe somebody else's kid doesn't need that type of instruction and maybe yours does.

 

This (in bold) was my thought for giving notebook grades this year. I hope it will teach DS to take better notes knowing he can use notes but not his textbook for his quizzes.

[PeterPan]

Oh btw, I wasn't very precise in what I said. It wasn't that *all* the tests were open notebook. She gave notebook tests, as in quizzes meant to check out tidy, accurate, and precise your notebooks were. (did you have your homework done, did you take good notes on the textbook, that sort of thing) It had questions you wouldn't be able to answer if you hadn't kept a good notebook.

 

But yes, I'm with you that an open notes test could be very helpful to the right kind of student at the right stage. I'm getting ready to try that with my dd this week to see if it can work for us right now.

[JanetC]

As usual, I seem to be the "softie grader" on this board!

 

I don't agree that it's easier to make an "A" on the labs because they are open book, but we have just started. I had wanted the labs to count as much as the tests because they require a different, but equally important skill set, than the paper/pencil tests, which is how they ended up at 25%.

 

As far as homework grades go, if my kids do poorly on an assignment, there is another one with the same type of problems assigned (until they seem to get it). But, the new assignment and the old assignment both "count" in the grade book. I don't just write down the 100% that they got on the second or third try.

 

I will help if they come to me with questions on daily work, but not on tests. So, it's potentially easier to get A's on homework if a) they monitor their own understanding b) admit they need help. Unfortunately, DD #1 has troubles with "a" and DD #2 has troubles with "b." But, I could weight this part less, and count the labs and tests more.

 

--Janet