grades...

[SparklyUnicorn]

I know this has been talked about MANY times.  I haven't graded anything this year so far.  I'm not even sure what I would grade exactly.  We work to mastery.  So if the paper isn't up to snuff, it gets redone until it is. 

 

I'm not sure what exactly I'm asking, but I guess I don't want to get to the end of our high school time without any sort of transcript.  I do have to submit quarterly reports and an end of the year standardized test.  So there are things there, but no real grades. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[regentrude]

If you work to mastery, that means the student has to continue working until he satisfies all requirements, i.e. gets an A. That's fine. Give the A for the paper.

 

I grade very little. Final exam in math, monthly tests in physics and chemistry, longer writing assignments in humanities. Daily work is done until correct and complete. No busy work. 

You only need one final grade per course for a transcript. 

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by regentrude

[EKS]

We worked to mastery too.  I wrote this in my school profile to explain why my son's homeschool grades were so high:

 

All home-based courses were taught to mastery, meaning that assessment was done only after [the student] had mastered the material through discussion and practice. Because meeting expectations was not optional—and expectations were to produce excellent quality work—[the student's] grades in his home-based courses are uniformly high.

[Ellie]

JMHO, but it seems to me that at some point children need to learn that if they turn in a half-baked assignment, they're going to get the grade they deserve right then. There will be no do-overs in college, there will be no do-overs at work. They need to learn to give it their best shot from the beginning, and to own the consequences if it is not what it should be.

 

I say this as a very relaxed homeschooler.

[MysteryJen]

There are plenty of opportunities for do-overs at high school, I have found. This explains the high gpa/low test score phenomenon. That said, we worked to mastery, but if we ran out of time (summer here is consumed by sports), there were/are Bs or in ds1's case a C on the transcript. He earned that fair and square.

One college commented that they had not seen a C on a homeschool transcript and ds1 laughed and said, "my mom only has five students!" It didn't hurt him too much, just his pride. Most of his scholarship opportunities came from his test scores.

[Peaceful Isle]

We start using grades in middle school. We don't grade everything either.

 

That being said, my 14 year old daughter just totally bombed a history test yesterday. We are studying together and she is taking it over today. Lol

[quark]

I'm not sure what exactly I'm asking, but I guess I don't want to get to the end of our high school time without any sort of transcript.  I do have to submit quarterly reports and an end of the year standardized test.  So there are things there, but no real grades. 

 

But he will have DE grades won't he? Even if you choose not to grade at all (hypothetical scenario), he will still have the grades from the DE classes he takes to show quality/ level whatever.

 

It felt natural for us to use the mastery method too. But DS also has DE grades in every single subject area that further substantiate the A's I gave him at home. The mastery approach did not teach him any bad habits at all. I explained some of it in the school profile but wish I had worded it as well as Kai did.

[EKS]

JMHO, but it seems to me that at some point children need to learn that if they turn in a half-baked assignment, they're going to get the grade they deserve right then. There will be no do-overs in college, there will be no do-overs at work. They need to learn to give it their best shot from the beginning, and to own the consequences if it is not what it should be.

 

This assumes that if a child turns in a half-baked assignment, it is because they have chosen to slack off and that they actually know how to do better.  Since I was making up the homeschooling thing as I went along, I felt the fairest thing was for me to assume when my son produced a poorly done assignment was that it was *my teaching* that was lacking and that my student was trying to produce work as best he could.  While I didn't tell colleges this, "working to mastery" was often as much a case of *my* mastering teaching as it was of his mastering the material.

[MerryAtHope]

I know this has been talked about MANY times.  I haven't graded anything this year so far.  I'm not even sure what I would grade exactly.  We work to mastery.  So if the paper isn't up to snuff, it gets redone until it is. 

 

I'm not sure what exactly I'm asking, but I guess I don't want to get to the end of our high school time without any sort of transcript.  I do have to submit quarterly reports and an end of the year standardized test.  So there are things there, but no real grades. 

 

I had a student who struggled greatly with writing papers. He did lots of rewrites and corrected tons of errors (seriously, he easily puts in 3 times more time and work on papers to get the results he does than other students), and really did an excellent job--but his writing was still sometimes a bit awkward with glimpses of brilliance if that makes sense. I mean as a teen (I did not have unrealistic expectations, this was just a student who had a lot of trouble). So working to mastery for English papers for this student did not usually reach "A" status in writing in my opinion, and we both felt that was okay and appropriate. His B's in English were hard-earned and we were proud of them. In college, his first English course received a C overall, but by the end he was writing B papers. In his second English class he got a B and we cheered! In outside classes where they look mostly at content/ideas, he often gets A's on papers. So, I felt overall that my grades were accurate and appropriate. 

 

All that to say, even if you are working to mastery, that doesn't necessarily mean give an A. I think you can sometimes use an intangible criteria when grading, and in this case, knowing my kid worked extra hard but it's just not his thing weighed into the grade. 

 

Another example...I use the first 2-3 years of highschool to work on hard on how to study, how to take good notes, and how to take tests and how to accurately read test questions. Some kids might not need this kind of help/direction, but I know I was never taught how to really study and it would have helped me in the transition to college--and I do think my kids benefit from this kind of extra attention/teaching. This means that they correct all mistakes on tests (orally or in writing, depending), and I may let them earn points back. I don't do that senior year--and as they progress from Freshman to Junior, I let them know that this is a process and what the goal is. Generally if they get a B on a test, Iet it stand. If they get a C or lower, I usually keep track of both grades, and at the end of the year I see whether one or the other changes the ultimate grade. Most of the time, I've found it really doesn't matter, but the few times it has, I again take intangibles into consideration (attitude, work ethic, did I really prepare my kids well for the test or would they have done better with a better teacher--as someone said above, part of all this is *my* learning effective teaching methods too, and sometimes I feel that needs consideration as I look at the grade and whether earning back points was warranted.)

 

Tests and papers are not the sum of the grade for most classes. 

 

I consider (depending on the subject):

 

Daily work (reading, note-taking, written answers to questions for things like a history or science text, maybe grammar work or advanced vocabulary etc...)

Analysis and discussion (lit guides done orally and in writing, daily or bi-weekly discussions for many subjects)

papers and presentations, or tests

midterms/finals if we do these

science labs/ lab reports

 

Usually I divide a subject into thirds or fourths, depending on what the subject is, and each area for consideration counts towards that percentage of the grade. 

 

For daily work, they should be doing all daily work thoroughly and with a good attitude (doesn't mean they like it but that they have a good work ethic and are willing to learn). If there's a discussion grade, again they should be actively engaged, making connections, thinking about things in depth etc...  These are the two areas where "working to mastery" definitely comes into play for us--I really expect this whether it's a good subject for them or not, and I try to stretch them through our discussions and with note-taking and daily assignments (discuss nuances even if their answer isn't "wrong" for example--you can get into a lot more depth that way).

 

You know your student, what he or she is capable of, whether he or she is working hard or barely putting in the effort. 

 

I keep grades of tangible work throughout the year, and then do a final grade with things like discussion or credit for daily work included and taking the student's overall performance into consideration as I tally, and then enter transcript grades yearly. I don't want to have to remember senior year how they did in Spanish 1 or what they did English 9! Usually it only takes me a couple of hours to pull the info from my binder, write up a rough draft course description with books listed (and any movies, field trips, activities that relate), papers/projects done and those grades, tests and those grades, and then a grade for discussion or daily work, my grading basis (I always record for my info if I did 1/3 or 1/4 areas & how I figured things--handy when the next kid comes along or you are doing a similar subject the next year!), and then fill in the transcript. 

 

It sounds more complicated than it seems as I'm doing it, LOL!

 

I think the most important thing is just for you to decide your grading basis, what you think is fair and accurate, and then keep some kind of record reflective of that. 

[Gratia271]

But he will have DE grades won't he? Even if you choose not to grade at all (hypothetical scenario), he will still have the grades from the DE classes he takes to show quality/ level whatever.

 

It felt natural for us to use the mastery method too. But DS also has DE grades in every single subject area that further substantiate the A's I gave him at home. The mastery approach did not teach him any bad habits at all. I explained some of it in the school profile but wish I had worded it as well as Kai did.

 

.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Gratia271

[SparklyUnicorn]

JMHO, but it seems to me that at some point children need to learn that if they turn in a half-baked assignment, they're going to get the grade they deserve right then. There will be no do-overs in college, there will be no do-overs at work. They need to learn to give it their best shot from the beginning, and to own the consequences if it is not what it should be.

 

I say this as a very relaxed homeschooler.

 

He is already taking college courses.  He doesn't seem to have trouble understanding that fact. 

 

It crossed my mind, but so far it's working out fine. 

 

I think part of the difficulty is that there isn't this list of skills out there, that I know of, that schools all follow or must follow.  So not every student is being taught the exact same information.  I know that is part of the attempt with Common Core, but it still isn't exactly like that.  So it's not like I have this list where I say yes he mastered this skill, that skill, etc., but not this other skill so he has mastered 90% and is graded accordingly.  Grades communicate something to certain people, but what are my grades communicating if I'm not playing by the same rules?  KWIM? 

 

And I already know that not much stock will be put into my grades without some sort of outside validation. 

 

And then part of homeschooling to me is getting to think outside the box.  If I operate exactly like a public school, why not just send my kid to a public school? 

[SparklyUnicorn]

But he will have DE grades won't he? Even if you choose not to grade at all (hypothetical scenario), he will still have the grades from the DE classes he takes to show quality/ level whatever.

 

It felt natural for us to use the mastery method too. But DS also has DE grades in every single subject area that further substantiate the A's I gave him at home. The mastery approach did not teach him any bad habits at all. I explained some of it in the school profile but wish I had worded it as well as Kai did.

 

Yes

 

And you know when I brought him down to the school they did not care about what courses we did in our homeschool or how I said he did at them.  They asked him to do a placement test.  I could have made an issue out of it since he isn't matriculated, but I thought it was a reasonable request.  The good news was his results matched what I told them!

[quark]

 

I think part of the difficulty is that there isn't this list of skills out there, that I know of, that schools all follow or must follow.  So not every student is being taught the exact same information.  I know that is part of the attempt with Common Core, but it still isn't exactly like that.  So it's not like I have this list where I say yes he mastered this skill, that skill, etc., but not this other skill so he has mastered 90% and is graded accordingly.  Grades communicate something to certain people, but what are my grades communicating if I'm not playing by the same rules?  KWIM? 

 

And I already know that not much stock will be put into my grades without some sort of outside validation. 

 

And then part of homeschooling to me is getting to think outside the box.  If I operate exactly like a public school, why not just send my kid to a public school? 

 

State laws are one part of the picture (i.e. for requirements) but you will also have a chance to explain your homeschool philosophy in your school profile. You can explain why you homeschool, what your goals are, what methodology you use, etc. You can also leave some of that out if it doesn't fit (e.g. I didn't mention a specific methodology although it was probably quite clear from what I wrote that we were distinctly student-directed).

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by quark

[regentrude]

In addition to DE and AP, we have our children take SAT subject tests in every discipline to substantiate Mommy grades.  As a homeschool mom who is also an attorney by training, I realize everything I do must be substantiated to remove any doubt about plausibility.  I have been told by too many people that mommy grades are suspect, so I remove all doubt by substantiating everything. 

 

Actually, you don't really need to substantiate everything. If a student has outstanding test scores in a subset of varied subjects, people will find it very plausible that this student also excels in the other subjects for which there is no direct proof. It is simply statistics - top students tend to be top students across the board.

 

For a student whose ACT or SAT score is in the top percentiles, it is plausible that this student would have grades of A in his high school subjects.

 

We chose to substantiate a subset with SAT subject tests, and another subset with dual enrollment grades. Nobody is going to doubt that a student who has top scores and university As will also have managed As in the remaining home taught subjects.

[teachermom2834]

We do mostly outsourced classes (online and co-op) and DE.  I give whatever grade is given by the teacher of the course.

 

For the few truly homeschooled classes (usually 1-2 per year) I have a very difficult time grading.  These are also the classes that get fit in around the other classes so the workload is sporadic.  These tend to be classes we are just "checking a box" and we have carefully selected more rigorous outsourced classes for the more important subjects.  There is not always the time and/or  inclination to work to mastery in every subject in our homeschool. So, for such homegrown classes I will admit my grading scale is kind of like this:

 

Good effort/ minimal nagging/ high quality output = A

Sub par effort/ phoning it in/ average output = B

 

I wouldn't accept anything I didn't think would earn a B in a standard (non-honors) public high school course.  

 

My kids' transcripts have had As and Bs.  More As than Bs but there certainly are Bs on there.  Once they are weighted for DE courses those Bs don't hurt the GPA.  My kids will have a good enough GPA for whatever merit awards their ACT qualifies them for.  

 

That said, my kids do not apply to highly selective schools and tend to collect the merit aid that is just available based on ACT scores and weighted GPA.  

 

I am really not sure the grades matter so much.  A high GPA won't get you anywhere if you don't have test scores to back it up.  I would be careful not to grade so harshly as to disqualify a kid for merit aid that a test score would qualify him for.  

 

 

[Gratia271]

Actually, you don't really need to substantiate everything. If a student has outstanding test scores in a subset of varied subjects, people will find it very plausible that this student also excels in the other subjects for which there is no direct proof. It is simply statistics - top students tend to be top students across the board.

 

For a student whose ACT or SAT score is in the top percentiles, it is plausible that this student would have grades of A in his high school subjects.

 

We chose to substantiate a subset with SAT subject tests, and another subset with dual enrollment grades. Nobody is going to doubt that a student who has top scores and university As will also have managed As in the remaining home taught subjects.

 

.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Gratia271

[mschickie]

I give grades but also work towards mastery.  I have the policy that any corrections that are done get 1/2 credit if they are done correct.  If they are not correct we still work on it till it is correct but I do not give credit at that point.  I normally do not give a grade of every day work just tests, quizzes, essays or projects.  The day to day work is the time to get things wrong and learn from your mistakes.  This is what I did with sd in high school and am doing now with dd in 8th grade. I have to keep grades to get a gpa for her honor society.  I do not put those grades on my quarterly report, I do not start doing that until high school.

[MerryAtHope]

I think part of the difficulty is that there isn't this list of skills out there, that I know of, that schools all follow or must follow.  So not every student is being taught the exact same information.  I know that is part of the attempt with Common Core, but it still isn't exactly like that.  So it's not like I have this list where I say yes he mastered this skill, that skill, etc., but not this other skill so he has mastered 90% and is graded accordingly.  Grades communicate something to certain people, but what are my grades communicating if I'm not playing by the same rules?  KWIM? 

 

Your grades communicate how well you think he learned the content and skills or how well he met the goals of your course. It's not like 2 teachers at the same school even teach the same things (or grade in the same way for that matter). From that vantage point, you are playing by exactly the same rules, even moreso than you realize. You get to determine what classes (obviously meeting any state requirements, potential college requirements if your student is college-bound, as well as your personal educational requirements and your student's interests/goals), how rigorous those classes are, what kind of curriculum to use (if any), and what kind of outcome you want. Sometimes the curriculum makes that somewhat obvious (if it includes tests, that's one measure but certainly not the only one and not always the best one). You have a lot of freedom here. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

State laws are one part of the picture (i.e. for requirements) but you will also have a chance to explain your homeschool philosophy in your school profile. You can explain why you homeschool, what your goals are, what methodology you use, etc. You can also leave some of that out if it doesn't fit (e.g. I didn't mention a specific methodology although it was probably quite clear from what I wrote that we were distinctly student-directed).

 

Well state laws basically say my kid cannot earn a high school diploma from my homeschool.  So in their eyes I can do whatever and they don't care.

 

I

[SparklyUnicorn]

Your grades communicate how well you think he learned the content and skills or how well he met the goals of your course. It's not like 2 teachers at the same school even teach the same things (or grade in the same way for that matter). From that vantage point, you are playing by exactly the same rules, even moreso than you realize. You get to determine what classes (obviously meeting any state requirements, potential college requirements if your student is college-bound, as well as your personal educational requirements and your student's interests/goals), how rigorous those classes are, what kind of curriculum to use (if any), and what kind of outcome you want. Sometimes the curriculum makes that somewhat obvious (if it includes tests, that's one measure but certainly not the only one and not always the best one). You have a lot of freedom here. 

 

What state requirements?  In order for me to meet state requirements, I'd have to send my kid to school.

 

If you are talking about homeschool requirements, there are no requirements that I grade stuff.  I must cover certain subjects (requirements are far lower than most colleges would want to see) and I must basically state there is progress.  And then submit a standardized test score.  In the end I won't get any recognition from the state of any kind.

 

 

[Julie of KY]

I think teaching to mastery is fine and then awarding the grade A (for mastery). This is what I do. I also don't have any problem with giving lower grades if that is what is deserved.

 

I don't grade on attitude. In public high school, the student's attitude can be horrible, but it they turn in an A paper then it's an A.

 

The only area I would really struggle giving my oldest an A was in English. He has a horrible time writing. I started outsourcing his writing to Brave Writer. Not only did they do amazing things with his writing, but he received A's in their classes. Some of the classes seemed to be more graded on effort and improvement and others were very strictly graded. He can now produce amazing papers, though it still takes a ton of effort.

[BlsdMama]

If you work to mastery, that means the student has to continue working until he satisfies all requirements, i.e. gets an A. That's fine. Give the A for the paper.

 

I grade very little. Final exam in math, monthly tests in physics and chemistry, longer writing assignments in humanities. Daily work is done until correct and complete. No busy work. 

You only need one final grade per course for a transcript. 

 

Yes.

[mschickie]

What state requirements?  In order for me to meet state requirements, I'd have to send my kid to school.

 

If you are talking about homeschool requirements, there are no requirements that I grade stuff.  I must cover certain subjects (requirements are far lower than most colleges would want to see) and I must basically state there is progress.  And then submit a standardized test score.  In the end I won't get any recognition from the state of any kind.

 

 

The regs actually state that you need to submit either a grade or a written narrative evaluating the child's progress in each subject.  I think most folks I know go with a grade for the older kids because it is just easier to then apply that to a transcript.

[MerryAtHope]

What state requirements?  In order for me to meet state requirements, I'd have to send my kid to school.

 

If you are talking about homeschool requirements, there are no requirements that I grade stuff.  I must cover certain subjects (requirements are far lower than most colleges would want to see) and I must basically state there is progress.  And then submit a standardized test score.  In the end I won't get any recognition from the state of any kind.

 

I never said there were requirements for grading things--above I said:

 

You get to determine what classes (obviously meeting any state requirements, potential college requirements if your student is college-bound, as well as your personal educational requirements and your student's interests/goals), how rigorous those classes are, what kind of curriculum to use (if any), and what kind of outcome you want. Sometimes the curriculum makes that somewhat obvious (if it includes tests, that's one measure but certainly not the only one and not always the best one). You have a lot of freedom here. 

 

 

meaning the classes are based on any requirements you have to meet. Once you decide what classes, how rigorous those classes are, and what curriculum to use, then you determine what outcome you want (in other words, your basis for grading. Do you want your student to know certain things, and how well do you want your student to know them? How do you want the student to demonstrate that knowledge?). Grading is based first on the choices you make in the first three steps. 

 

This is the same thing a classroom teacher is doing. Yes, they have to follow mandates handed to them by various dictates--common core, school board, principal, department head, any other dictates--and maybe even what they personally find important--but there isn't a standardized measure for how to grade a student. They have to decide how to evaluate their students just like you do, and the classes can have quite a bit of variance in what they cover (certainly from district to district, and often from teacher to teacher in the same school and depending on all kinds of factors).There's a subjective nature to ALL of it--for public school teachers too--is what I meant when I said we're basically playing by the same rules. 

 

Create classes you are proud of. Evaluate your student in some way. Give grades you are confident in giving but that also are fair in the context of making your student competitive for college (don't grade harder than would be fair, thus lowering your child's ability to compete with other students for scholarships, but don't give out easy grades the student hasn't earned either). 

 

[vonfirmath]

We start using grades in middle school. We don't grade everything either.

 

That being said, my 14 year old daughter just totally bombed a history test yesterday. We are studying together and she is taking it over today. Lol

 

My son is in 4th grade. When they completely bomb a test, paper, homework assignment, they are expected to redo it. But the highest grade they can get on the redo is a 70. (If they get over a 70 on the redo, a 70 is writen down in the gradebook.)

 

Edited October 12, 2016 by vonfirmath

[GoodGrief]

We worked for mastery as well. So my kids always got "A"s from me. They did have some outside classes with transcripts that were graded by others, and we did standardized testing to validate my grades. Neither has really had difficulty with college coursework; my college senior has a 3.6-something GPA. I guess it's early to tell for the freshman, but she has been doing A-work thus far.

 

There's at least one charter school here in town that handles grades the same way. You don't pass onto the next class until you have reached a certain level of mastery (though their standard is lower than "A", probably for practical purposes, but no kid leaves a class with lower than a "C".)

 

Reading some of the responses now, and I want to add that we did not validate every grade with testing or dual enrollment; I saw no need for that. SOME testing and dual enrollment, yep! But not for everything.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Gr8lander

[SparklyUnicorn]

The regs actually state that you need to submit either a grade or a written narrative evaluating the child's progress in each subject.  I think most folks I know go with a grade for the older kids because it is just easier to then apply that to a transcript.

 

Ah yes.  I always just write: "progressing at a satisfactory level or better in all subject matter".  Then I list out stuff covered.  And of course the blip about the hours.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I never said there were requirements for grading things--above I said:

 

 

 

No, I figured as much, but there are no specific requirements other than I cover certain subjects and submit pointless paperwork.  And ultimately what we do means nothing to the state.  All this is to just keep one legally able to not have their kid enrolled in a school.

[Nan in Mass]

This assumes that if a child turns in a half-baked assignment, it is because they have chosen to slack off and that they actually know how to do better. Since I was making up the homeschooling thing as I went along, I felt the fairest thing was for me to assume when my son produced a poorly done assignment was that it was *my teaching* that was lacking and that my student was trying to produce work as best he could. While I didn't tell colleges this, "working to mastery" was often as much a case of *my* mastering teaching as it was of his mastering the material.

This.

I didn,t grade. I tried writing tests. I was rotten at it. I wasn,t much better at coming up with assignments. The most successful assignments were ones where my children started with a blank page and very little direction from me or problem sets from a text book. My teaching was horrible. (I can explain things well but I,m bad at all the teachery stuff. Thank goodness for TWTM, which mostly chopped that part out, the way we applied it.) We muddled along somehow with tons of feedback from my children. There was no way I was going to give grades based on my incompetence. I said as much in the school profile I gave to colleges. My children had community college classes and I used those grades for their gpa on the transcript. Two colleges asked for some sort of assessment so I gave them the progress reports I wrote for the school system at the end of every year. They got all the gory details then, including how the milk went sour mysteriously for a few weeks because unbeknownst to us, youngest used the refridgerator as a sound proof box for an experiment he came up with and forgot to turn the thermostat back up. Nobody turned down any of their applications. My children applied to a variety of schools, from private to state flagships, including polytechnics. (One polytechnic wanted only SAT and transcripts, the other wanted everything we could give them, including an interview.) I organized their transcripts by subject - no grades unless a class was taken at the community college and no dates. I gave most of the colleges course descriptions, but I think most of them probably just looked at their transcript, said well they,ve done some interesting things but can they survive in a college classroom, then looked at their community college classes and said guess so, and accepted them. I assumed my grades would not have counted much?

 

Nan

[SparklyUnicorn]

This assumes that if a child turns in a half-baked assignment, it is because they have chosen to slack off and that they actually know how to do better.  Since I was making up the homeschooling thing as I went along, I felt the fairest thing was for me to assume when my son produced a poorly done assignment was that it was *my teaching* that was lacking and that my student was trying to produce work as best he could.  While I didn't tell colleges this, "working to mastery" was often as much a case of *my* mastering teaching as it was of his mastering the material.

 

I do often see it this way.  My kid always turns in the stuff I give him.  Occasionally, there are times where I can't necessarily tell if he sluffed off or if the assignment was a lousy one or something else.  I am sure even "real" classroom teachers go through this when they aren't as experienced.  At the end of the day though I just want my kid to learn the stuff.  I do not care about whether or not I can manage to get him to jump through my hoops. Best I can do is give him tips for college.  "You may be asked this.  You may be tested on this in that way.  Some teachers will clearly spell out what they want.  Some, not so much.  Come up with ways that work for you to study different types of material.  Here are some ways I study this type of material verses that type."

 

PLUS a big one is he can't get away with anything.  In a classroom you aren't going to be called on to answer every single question.  You are going to be compared to your classmates when you hand in assignments.  In a homeschool situation you must answer ALL of the questions.  The "teacher" isn't going to compare your stuff to anything and will likely strive to have it be as perfect as possible.  Teachers often don't make students redo most things.  I make my kid redo EVERYTHING. 

[Nan in Mass]

Elaborating a bit further...

 

Most of my assignments in high school (other than the ones where we worked through a textbook to learn a skill like sightsinging or trigonometry) were meant to practise an adult academic skill. Read this book. Work your way through this math book. Design an experiment. Keep a journal. Draw something. Write an essay. They started with a blank piece of paper and ended with an attempt at something adults do for work. A good teacher knows what an age appropriate attempt looks like. A good teacher can predict how long a task is going to take a student of a certain age and set a reasonable due date. I can only judge something compared to how well I can do it. I have no idea what a good ninth grade essay looks like or a good beginning drawing. Some of the stuff I learned along with my children. I could critique it and offer suggestions for improvement, or find someone qualified to do so, but finding someone qualified to compare their attempts to other STUDENT attempts, the way a high school teacher does, wasn,t something I could do easily. So many of their assignments were things that one can spend a lifetime getting better at doing... I think this is one of the reasons people give up on TWTM. As an educational method, it is truly awesome - simple, interesting, flexible, doable, highly effective, and the student can continue to use it to learn anything in an academic way for the rest of his or her life, but... it is not easy to produce age-appropriate grades based on the same criteria schools do unless one has a lot of experience with students that age attempting the same sort of assignments. So I didn,t give grades. I just relied on my children to work hard, to want to learn something either for its own sake or to keep me from worrying too much, if it was something they couldn,t predict a need for at that age. (I,ve gotten many thank you,s since. : ) ) I also relied on my children to survive continual feedback on how to improve. We didn,t work to mastery because half the stuff they tried would take a lifetime to master. That doesn,t mean they didn,t learn a ton, though. And some things they did "master", at least well enough for their purpose. Youngest, a senior in college now, called last week to thank me for making him write 5 paragraph essays until he could do it fast and painlessly (a skill I considered essential for college survival). I still feel a bit sick when I think of the amount of effort that took. Most things they just practised until they left for college, coming no where near "mastering".

 

Nan

 

PS We coached them carefully through their first carefully selected cc classes because I realized that my children didn,t have classroom skills.

[Nan in Mass]

SparklyUnicorn - we were posting at the same time. You said it better than I. Grin.

 

Nan

[SparklyUnicorn]

Elaborating a bit further...

 

Most of my assignments in high school (other than the ones where we worked through a textbook to learn a skill like sightsinging or trigonometry) were meant to practise an adult academic skill. Read this book. Work your way through this math book. Design an experiment. Keep a journal. Draw something. Write an essay. They started with a blank piece of paper and ended with an attempt at something adults do for work. A good teacher knows what an age appropriate attempt looks like. A good teacher can predict how long a task is going to take a student of a certain age and set a reasonable due date. I can only judge something compared to how well I can do it. I have no idea what a good ninth grade essay looks like or a good beginning drawing. Some of the stuff I learned along with my children. I could critique it and offer suggestions for improvement, or find someone qualified to do so, but finding someone qualified to compare their attempts to other STUDENT attempts, the way a high school teacher does, wasn,t something I could do easily. So many of their assignments were things that one can spend a lifetime getting better at doing... I think this is one of the reasons people give up on TWTM. As an educational method, it is truly awesome - simple, interesting, flexible, doable, highly effective, and the student can continue to use it to learn anything in an academic way for the rest of his or her life, but... it is not easy to produce age-appropriate grades based on the same criteria schools do unless one has a lot of experience with students that age attempting the same sort of assignments. So I didn,t give grades. I just relied on my children to work hard, to want to learn something either for its own sake or to keep me from worrying too much, if it was something they couldn,t predict a need for at that age. (I,ve gotten many thank you,s since. : ) ) I also relied on my children to survive continual feedback on how to improve. We didn,t work to mastery because half the stuff they tried would take a lifetime to master. That doesn,t mean they didn,t learn a ton, though. And some things they did "master", at least well enough for their purpose. Youngest, a senior in college now, called last week to thank me for making him write 5 paragraph essays until he could do it fast and painlessly (a skill I considered essential for college survival). I still feel a bit sick when I think of the amount of effort that took. Most things they just practised until they left for college, coming no where near "mastering".

 

Nan

 

PS We coached them carefully through their first carefully selected cc classes because I realized that my children didn,t have classroom skills.

 

Excellent points.  I also see grading one student as rather pointless.  Aren't grades what they are in large part because it is a comparison of more than one student?  I have had teachers adjust grades if the majority of the grades were very low.  And grades are a means of communicating using a language that is defined and understood in a specific context.  I do not have that context.  I can define my grading system, but it may be completely incomparable to the high school up the street.  And this happens from district to district in the US.  Schools are ranked.  Students are ranked.  This on top of grading.  This is to show how each student/school compares because not all schools are the same.  Ideally they would be, but they are not.  I don't run a school at all. 

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

SparklyUnicorn - we were posting at the same time. You said it better than I. Grin.

 

Nan

 

I appreciate your posts.  I feel like you "get" what I'm saying about this.

[regentrude]

We didn,t work to mastery because half the stuff they tried would take a lifetime to master. That doesn,t mean they didn,t learn a ton, though. And some things they did "master", at least well enough for their purpose. ..Most things they just practised until they left for college, coming no where near "mastering".

 

When I said we teach "to mastery", I was referring to the level of mastery that I consider appropriate for grade and age. I would not require a 9th grader to write at the level of a literature professor, but I have certain expectations, and we work until my expectations are met and the skill is "mastered" at the level that I deem suitable.

For other subjects, mastery means solving problems whose complexity and difficulty is appropriate for the student's stage. So I expect my 9th grader to master physics problems of a certain difficulty that I consider suitable, but that are below the level of complexity I assign to my STEM majors in college, or that I would expect of graduate students.

 

Basically, when I use the phrase, it is short for explaining my philosophy that I consider it pointless to accept, and give a low grade for, work that is below my standards (whatever those are). I see absolutely no benefit in telling my homeschooled student "you did not do good work and clearly don't understand this concept, but hey, let's move on to the next thing".

If I want them to learn xyz, we work on it until I am satisfied with the result, while always keeping in mind the amount of time we can devote to the subject, the student's developmental level, and the importance I give to xyz. A "C" in math is ridiculous; if the student did not understand a concept, why would I think of moving to the next level? Schools may have to, out of necessity, but in a home school, I can stay on a topic until the student is actually ready to move on.

 

Does that make sense?

[Nan in Mass]

Excellent points. I also see grading one student as rather pointless. Aren't grades what they are in large part because it is a comparison of more than one student? I have had teachers adjust grades if the majority of the grades were very low. And grades are a means of communicating using a language that is defined and understood in a specific context. I do not have that context. I can define my grading system, but it may be completely incomparable to the high school up the street. And this happens from district to district in the US. Schools are ranked. Students are ranked. This on top of grading. This is to show how each student/school compares because not all schools are the same. Ideally they would be, but they are not. I don't run a school at all.

 

 

Yes! No context. Well, I did actually have context and a "school". I often taught two very different sons 4 years apart in age the same thing at the same time. And that WAS very useful, for us all. We did it a lot. It was a little rough on the older one when the younger one was better at something, but it wasn,t as if we didn,t all know that to begin with, and know that youngest will struggle in ways the older one never will have to. We just ignored all that and did it anyway. It just wasn,t a context that would be useful to colleges for comparison purposes. "This assignment gets an A because the student actually managed to do it half as well as his four years younger brother." Lol. Nope. And this isn,t much better - "This assignment gets an A because it about half as good as the job I think I remember his talented older brother doing at his age four years ago." Somehow, I don,t think colleges would appreciate that. I think the ones that actually cared preferred to read "student understood the material and discussed it in his essays but still struggles with French grammar" or "student,s problem solving skills took a leap this year".

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

When I said we teach "to mastery", I was referring to the level of mastery that I consider appropriate for grade and age. I would not require a 9th grader to write at the level of a literature professor, but I have certain expectations, and we work until my expectations are met and the skill is "mastered" at the level that I deem suitable.

For other subjects, mastery means solving problems whose complexity and difficulty is appropriate for the student's stage. So I expect my 9th grader to master physics problems of a certain difficulty that I consider suitable, but that are below the level of complexity I assign to my STEM majors in college, or that I would expect of graduate students.

 

Basically, when I use the phrase, it is short for explaining my philosophy that I consider it pointless to accept, and give a low grade for, work that is below my standards (whatever those are). I see absolutely no benefit in telling my homeschooled student "you did not do good work and clearly don't understand this concept, but hey, let's move on to the next thing".

If I want them to learn xyz, we work on it until I am satisfied with the result, while always keeping in mind the amount of time we can devote to the subject, the student's developmental level, and the importance I give to xyz. A "C" in math is ridiculous; if the student did not understand a concept, why would I think of moving to the next level? Schools may have to, out of necessity, but in a home school, I can stay on a topic until the student is actually ready to move on.

 

Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Thank you for explaining. I still can,t say I teach to mastery in most subjects because I have no idea what developmentally appropriate is, not being a good teacher, but I see what you mean. How I envied people with teaching experience! And by your definition, there were subjects that I taught to mastery. Math was one of them. With a math book on my lap, I knew what was developmentally appropriate and time constraints were irrelevant because math (and writing) were my top priorities during high school and we just did it until it was understood.

 

Nan

[regentrude]

! And by your definition, there were subjects that I taught to mastery. Math was one of them. With a math book on my lap, I knew what was developmentally appropriate and time constraints were irrelevant because math (and writing) were my top priorities during high school and we just did it until it was understood.

 

Actually, even in math, I do take time constraints into account, for example when I decide whether we work every single problem in AoPS, or do only select challenge problems, or do none. That decision depends on where my student is headed with math, what her or his goals are, how much further math will be required. So my expectations for mastery are slightly different for a student headed for a physics major and a student who plans to be a professional athlete - both will study calculus, but to different depths.

[Nan in Mass]

Actually, even in math, I do take time constraints into account, for example when I decide whether we work every single problem in AoPS, or do only select challenge problems, or do none. That decision depends on where my student is headed with math, what her or his goals are, how much further math will be required. So my expectations for mastery are slightly different for a student headed for a physics major and a student who plans to be a professional athlete - both will study calculus, but to different depths.

I guess I did, too. We did the odd problems, and i skipped a few optional chapters for the non-engineer. My definition of "understood" varied, too. And the end point I was aiming for because the beginning point was different and one had to start math at the beginning in fifth grade and went galavanting around during the school year. We did well to get him through pre-calc (leaving calc for college), I think. And when I did Singapore PM5 with my extra kid so she could go to the community college, I definately took into account time constraints and abilities and starting points.

 

Nan

[JoJosMom]

We worked to mastery too.  I wrote this in my school profile to explain why my son's homeschool grades were so high:

 

All home-based courses were taught to mastery, meaning that assessment was done only after [the student] had mastered the material through discussion and practice. Because meeting expectations was not optional—and expectations were to produce excellent quality work—[the student's] grades in his home-based courses are uniformly high.

 

 

JMHO, but it seems to me that at some point children need to learn that if they turn in a half-baked assignment, they're going to get the grade they deserve right then. There will be no do-overs in college, there will be no do-overs at work. They need to learn to give it their best shot from the beginning, and to own the consequences if it is not what it should be.

 

I say this as a very relaxed homeschooler.

 

I think these two posts excellently frame the issue; thank you, ladies!

 

I've been concerned about grades and transcripts, and this thread has been a great help to me to sort out my thoughts.  I think we will continue to work to mastery on our home-based subjects (and I will totally steal EKS' school profile for the transcript!) and allow outsourced/dual enrollment courses to handle the concerns raised by Ellie.

 

Great thread, OP!  Thanks.  :thumbup1:

[MerryAtHope]

Excellent points.  I also see grading one student as rather pointless.  Aren't grades what they are in large part because it is a comparison of more than one student?  I have had teachers adjust grades if the majority of the grades were very low.  And grades are a means of communicating using a language that is defined and understood in a specific context.  I do not have that context.  I can define my grading system, but it may be completely incomparable to the high school up the street.  And this happens from district to district in the US.  Schools are ranked.  Students are ranked.  This on top of grading.  This is to show how each student/school compares because not all schools are the same.  Ideally they would be, but they are not.  I don't run a school at all. 

 

I think grades *can* be done that way (there just to show comparison between students), but don't *have* to be that exclusively. I prefer to think of A-D in terms of "excellent, good, fair, poor..." And I probably tend to compare in several ways--to my own child (is this my student's excellent work?), to other students I know of varying abilities (not just to "the best" or "the struggling" students I know), to my expectations (is this what I hoped my student would learn--but here I might need to make adjustments to the teacher!), and to the material (did my student do an excellent job with any tests or other work)? 

 

Still subjective (especially if you are thinking about discussions, though even that you can come up with a kind of "rubric" either in your mind or specifically written), but can be done in a class of 1. 

[happypamama]

I really am enjoying this helpful thread. I love EKS's perspective about teaching to mastery and it being as much about the teacher as the student.

 

I have seen less than stellar grades on biology tests (one per chapter so 40 tests). Some of it I think is the student and effort, but I think some of it is that I need to adjust some teaching methods. If I do, and grades improve, I think I'll be inclined (especially if exam grades are good) to count the later scores more than the earlier ones. Does that sound reasonable?

[GoodGrief]

I really am enjoying this helpful thread. I love EKS's perspective about teaching to mastery and it being as much about the teacher as the student.

 

I have seen less than stellar grades on biology tests (one per chapter so 40 tests). Some of it I think is the student and effort, but I think some of it is that I need to adjust some teaching methods. If I do, and grades improve, I think I'll be inclined (especially if exam grades are good) to count the later scores more than the earlier ones. Does that sound reasonable?

 

And I would not even concern myself with the earlier scores at all in my homeschool. It was about a process, and about gaining knowledge on a topic for us, so we look at the end result, not what happened along the way. And if it takes longer to get to the end result/level of knowledge expected from a course, so be it.

 

And truthfully, I did very little teaching. Learning how to learn was huge here, and I think it's something we did very successfully.

 

Some personalities really need rules and checkboxes, and for those people, I do think they find it reassuring to have some sort of specific grading rubric. The Well Trained Mind was very reassuring/helpful for me in getting started, because it provided a framework. Gradually I become confident enough to form my own ideas and do my own thing.

 

It's also been helpful to have had some experience with the building-based school system and to see that grading is not at all black and white. That applies to colleges as well, where curving grades is common practice. An "A" may simply mean you knew more than anyone else on the topic, not that you knew all the material.