Grade every assignment or just overall subject grade?

[LaMere Academy]

I still haven't figured out how to grade or keep track of my son's assignments.

I have HST Plus. But I HATE putting in every single thing he does. Do I have to? How else can I keep track of what he's doing? I also don't want to grade each thing he does...do I have to? Can I just say "OK he completed ________ subject and he earned a ___ grade" ?

[Michelle in MO]

was to grade every single assignment, except in a couple of subject areas which we never tested in. Sorry to break the bad news to you!

 

Overall, I would say that your intuition will serve you well---you know, intuitively, how your student is doing. Still, you want to have an objective means by which to assign grades.

 

For math, I graded approximately 80% on test scores and 20% on daily homework assignments. I did not actually give them a grade for daily math homework, but I did correct it daily. That became absolutely essential, especially since my older two dislike math and found very devious ways to get the correct answer but without showing the proper work! This made me re-learn Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry for myself. We used Lial's Introductory and Intermediate Algebra, and Chalkdust for geometry. If I were to do it over, I would probably switch to Chalkdust all the way through. Even though I don't care for the Chalkdust text as much as I do the Lial's text, the DVD instruction is superior.

 

With science, I graded about 65% for test scores, 25% for labs, and 10% for daily work (this was with Apologia).

 

For grammar (Abeka), I graded all tests and quizzes; tests were given greater weight than quizzes for the overall grade.

 

Vocabulary: We did two books per year---Vocabulary from the Classical Roots in the fall, and Wordly Wise in the spring. Again, I checked their daily work, but their grade (which was folded into the overall grade for English) was based strictly on the chapter tests.

 

Writing: Last year we did three Progymnasmata tutorials with Cindy Marsch, plus I also used her evaluations on most of their Omnibus II essays. They both did well with writing. For the high school years it really helps to have outside verification of your grades. When we enrolled them in a private school this spring, I had a huge stack of graded tutorials and essays to show the school.

 

Logic: When we started logic, there were no tests available, so when I put together their transcripts this spring, I based my grades on their daily assignments. Overall, I think I gave my oldest an A- and my middle daughter a B+. The logic text they used (Traditional Logic I) now has tests, but I'm still not sure if tests are available for TL II.

 

Latin: Again, when we started Latin, I didn't know there were tests available for Henle, so I based this grade on their daily assignments and translations. Since I didn't feel they were the most stellar students in this area (and had I taken a better approach!), I gave them a B-minus. If I could do this over, I would definitely get the MODG study guide, use all the tests and quizzes, and try to combine the program with Lingua Latina.

 

History: Although we did Omnibus II, I gave them a separate history grade, and instead of using the standard Western Civilization text by Spielvogel, we used his World History: A Human Odyssey. This was because my middle daughter was in 7th grade when we did Omnibus I. Her reading level was up to par with the Western Civ. text, but I didn't care for the online quizzes and study helps. I'm an old-fashioned sort of person and wanted a study guide, which I was able to find for Human Odyssey. Again, I based their grade on an average of all their test scores. I did beef up the practice tests given in the study guides.

 

Omnibus II: We used Cindy Marsch to help with the girls' evaluations in this subject.

 

The paperwork and grading did get to be a lot; sometimes I felt like I spent more time doing that than actual instruction. I would say that for the high school years, it really helps to outsource with certain subjects. If math is difficult, find an excellent DVD program or hire a math tutor. Same with science. There are also many online programs such as Seton, Scholars Online, The Potter's School, Florida Virtual School, the one for Pennsylvania (I forget the name), that have online instruction. That might help eliminate some of the paperwork for you and add in the factor of outside accountability. One caveat: with the writing tutorials---even though I didn't have to always create the assignments, I still had to keep after my girls to get the writing done! So, depending upon your student and their disposition, getting outside help doesn't always make the job easier on you! It does, however, lend outside credence to any grades you assign.

 

HTH!

[Sammi]

Up until 8th grade, I only graded my son in math, spelling, vocabulary. Things with an obvious test. Now that he is in 9th, I feel that I need to grade him a little more completely.

 

I am still grading tests, but am also adding in a percentage that he has completed his work on time and that it is all done. So he gets a check, check plus. I check the work, but don't really count that into the grade. I know he is a hard worker and if he gets it wrong, we fix it.

 

So if he gets all checks, then he gets 100% in the homework column and that is added to the tests.

 

It's different for different subjects. :001_smile:

[LaJuana]

...by which you want to assign grades, and it can vary with different classes. The important thing is to decide in advance the basis upon which you want to award the grade in each class.

 

For example, in math, I view the daily exercises as just that, exercises. My children earn 100% on those because I require them to do any missed problem over until they get it right. I think that math requires full understanding of each problem in order to progress, so I don't let them move on until they understand how to do all the problems. This means that I do *not* include a homework grade in calculating the course grade, since that 100% would be meaningless. Likewise averaging the first attempts at all problem sets would be an expression of his or her starting understanding, not the understanding that developed after careful study of each chapter. Instead, I award a grade for math which is determined by the average of the chapter test scores, which reflects exactly what he had learned after completing all the work in each chapter. I find this to be an accurate assessment of the child's mastery of the material.

 

For some courses, I assign a few points for completion of end-of-chapter questions or other assignments. For example, in Apologia Chemistry, there are usually both On Your Own problems and Practice Problems at the end of each chapter. I want my child to tackle the problems with gusto, but not be overly concerned with grades on the way to mastery of the chapter. Also the answers are in the back of the book for the OYO problems. So, any reasonable attempt at solving the problem on his own earns one point, with a total of 10 points possible for the entire OYO problem set. The Practice Problems have a potential value of 20 points in my gradebook. So, he can potentially earn 130 points for each chapter: 10 for the OYO set, 20 for the Practice Problem set, and 100 for the chapter exam. I always reserve the greatest percentage of the course grade for tests or major papers.

 

I use the "all tests" method of awarding grades a lot. I want my children to dig into daily lessons with a desire to learn, not with anxiety about grades. The grades for this method are accurate because they reflect what a student has learned after completing his lessons on the subject. It also has the advantage of freeing my schedule from recording every 'jot and tittle' of our daily work, giving me more time to spend teaching my children.

 

You can choose different objective means of grading for different classes. I just try to choose standards of grading that accurately reflect the student's mastery of the subject.

 

hth

[anissarobert]

Becky thanks for asking this question. This is exactly the information I need right now!

[LaMere Academy]

OK then, I have another question. In HST Plus, it says "points possible" and then "points earned" do I do 100 as possible points and then what he earned, which could be 90?

If not, then how do I do points?? :confused:

[Jean in Wisc]

But I don't use it for grades. I have a banker's box--a box with a lid big enough for files or folders--that I fill with folders, workbooks, notebooks, labs, etc for each child. Each folder has the name of a class on it. Whenever the child does a test, quiz, paper, etc., I grade it and throw the assignment into the correct folder. In a separate spiral notebook, I record the grade for each paper I throw into the box (one page for each subject). Any spiral notebooks they use gets tossed into the box at the end of the year as well.

 

I normally do not grade daily work, but if their grades are within a point or two of the next grade up (i.e. B+), and if they have been good at doing their school work faithfully and on time, I will either raise the grade up to the next grade or I will weigh the daily work as if it were an A on another test to give them the opportunity to bring that grade up.

 

I add up their grades in my notebook (sometimes they are percentages, other times they are A's, B's, C's), and find the average for their final grade.

 

You can use an on-line grade point calculator for classes with grades rather than percentages--like this: http://www.onlineconversion.com/grade_point_average.htm

 

And now, even though I keep finding errors in this attempted, late-night message, I am going to push "Submit Reply" and go to bed--hoping that the meaning is clear even if the writing is not. LOLOL!

[RoughCollie]

This is how I do it: A regular test is 100 possible points and mid-term or final counts 200 possible points. The program basically counts the points earned and divides them by the total number of points possible to give a final grade.

 

So if a kid earns 90 points on a 100-point test, he gets 90% grade, and if he earns 180 points on a 200-point test, he still gets 90% for a grade on that particular test, but the 200-point test counts as a larger percentage of the final grade than the regular test because it is worth a larger percentage of the total points possible.

 

It works the same with with assignments. Say an assignment is worth 50 points, and the kid earns 40 of them -- he gets an 80% on the assignment. He has earned 40 of the total points possible for the course by completing that assignment.

 

So when you are planning the course, it helps to already plan how many points are possible for each item you will grade, so it is clear how much each test, assignment, paper, or examination counts in the final course grade. For instance, if you are giving 10 equally-weighted exams and each have 100 possible points, you will have 1,000 total possible points for that course. If you add in two 200-point examinations (midterm and final) the total possible points is 1400. Each regular test counts as 100/1400 of the final grade for the course, or about 7.1%, and each examination counts about 14.2% of the final grade (200/1400). So, 7.1 x 10 tests = 71% of the final grade, and 14.2 x 2 exams = 28.4% of the final grade. The total possible grade is 100% (99.4% here because I rounded the percentages down to one decimal place).

 

You can mess around with the total points until each assignment, test, paper or project reflects how much you think it should count toward the final grade in the course. If each graded assignment is equally weighted, you don't have to mess around at all, as long as each assignment has an equal number of possible points.

 

HTH,

RC

 

OK then, I have another question. In HST Plus, it says "points possible" and then "points earned" do I do 100 as possible points and then what he earned, which could be 90?

If not, then how do I do points?? :confused:

[Pamela H in Texas]

You can do just about anything you want.

 

I personally like the idea of judge the subject for the semester version but it isn't very objective. What about just having test/quiz grades make up the bulk of the grade with a completion grade for homework factored in? That is how it is in my daughter's college classes (and how it was in mine). So you might end up with 6 grades for the semester, 5 tests and a homework grade.

 

I wouldn't grade daily work PERIOD. That is PRACTICE. They arent' supposed to get all that right. Instead, I'd grade things that are supposed to show they studied and mastered the work.

[LoriM]

I didn't grade anything, ever. My children graded their own work (for accuracy) on all objective things that we had answer keys to match. Then of course they made corrections if necessary.

 

I read and offered criticism on all written work, and ensured they met the requirements of the assignment. I would tell them if I thought it was a "good" paper or a "great" paper, or if it really could use yet another rewrite.

 

Anyway, it didn't limit my daughter's acceptance into the program she desired in college, because she had 66 hours of college transfer credits that verified her "grades" and ability, as well as her test scores.

 

So, my advice? Don't grade. Critique. Give feedback. Correct. But don't fret about grades.

 

(If you do grade, there are a million different ways to do it. GRIN. I'm a classroom teacher, and I give daily grades, weekly quizzes, and biweekly tests. Then every third week, there is a project that is worth two test grades. I think that the ideal thing is to give many opportunities to bring that average up, and to make mistakes without any one mistake costing you a letter grade.)

 

HTH,

 

Lori

[Gwen in VA]

Just to throw yet another way of grading into the mix --

 

Our standards are high, my kids fall quite short, and I don't necessarily think it is fair of me to penalize them for falling short of a very high standard by giving them a B or a C.

 

So for most class we adopted the following grading method --

 

1) If a student takes the related SAT-II afterwards and does VERY well, the student receives an automatic A for the class. (The lowest score that I gave an A for using this grading method was 760. I only used this as the only method of grading in one class, and on that SAT-II the student received an 800).

 

2) If a student takes a challenging follow-on class from an outside source and gets an A in the following year, I will give an A for the course he did at home. (For example, if a student gets an A in the PAH AP US history, I will give an A for the European history class he did with me the year before.)

 

Using this method saved me lots of grief -- I still feel like I am asking my kids for MUCH MUCH more than I ever did in high school. They are enthusiastic learners and rise to the bar (mostly), but I hate to penalize them gradewise for my being so demanding!

 

The wonderful thing about homeschooling is that we can all do our own method! (I should also not that my kids did almost exclusively outside class junior and senior years, so I used the methods only in freshman and sophomore years).

[Jan P.]

Hi Becky,

 

I'll tell you that I hate to grade, but it is a "reality" that I must live with. I can understand not wanting to grade every single piece of paper that comes across your desk or kitchen table. :-) Here are a few things that I have done.

 

A. A few workbook type course did have daily grades where I totaled up the grades and found the average. I'm trying not to do this with my kiddos this year because last year I waited until the end of the year, and I took an "entire" week to grade one child's papers!! Now I'm trying to keep up with grades on a daily basis.

 

B. I have used rubrics with writing assignments. Now I feel that my grades are not quite so subjective. I think I even grade harder than some college professors! I don't just hand out 100's. My kids have to earn high marks! This probably causes my kiddos to rank lower in our umbrella group, but I try to give honest assessments.

 

C. In traditional classes I give tests, papers, quizzes, and daily work. Tests and Papers tend to have more weight than quizzes and homework. I have used varying percentages, so I can't give you an exact scale. I would say that my scale would be close to what Apologia does which I think one of the other posters mentioned about her science grades. I have given credit for homework and discussions. But usually this is not worth more than one test grade. I have seen other's grading scales where participation was at the most fifty percent of the class, but I don't do this.

 

D. P.E. type classes are hard for me to grade since my dc have used their soccer or ballet for their P.E. grades. My kids usually go all out to participate, following directions well from their instructors, and will even play/dance when injured (not that I let them!). I have usually given them an "A", but since I give percentage scores to my umbrella group then their "A" translates into a 97% because the umbrella supervisors says "no one is perfect" so a 100% shouldn't be awarded.

 

HTH,

[Nan in Mass]

Maybe if I were a proper teacher, I could figure out a good balance, but I'm not. Grades would reflect my efficiency as a teacher, rather than my poor, longsuffering children's ability as students. If I graded, we couldn't do something that was very hard and then just not worry about it if we didn't do very well at it even though we were learning a lot. Unless I structured it skillfully, grades wouldn't encourage my children to try difficult things. I'm horrible at judging what my children can do and can't do. I need my children's guidance for things like that, and if I were grading, I can envision me constantly having to back down and redo things, encouraging much arguement, and setting up totally unrealistic expectations of college. With no grades, I can just muddle along and it is no big deal if I misjudge. I feel more free to modify things to suit us, also. And I'm not even present for many of the non-written things my children do. One solution would be to have them grade themselves, but this is hard to do as a young person. Like LoriD, I critisize and comment and praise and encourage, and they themselves use the answer keys and redo. I'm going to assign pass/fail grades on their transcripts, and they'll have a few CC classes if anyone is really interested. Hopefully this will work. I'll let you know in the spring GRIN. I've had several people here tell me over the years that no grades worked fine for getting into college, though.

-Nan