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| Friday, November 27, 2009 |
| Teacher Interview on Grading Practices |
As I am also interested in the K-12 level, I decided to see what English language instruction was like at a middle school. I visited our classmate, Julie Murray, and interviewed her regarding her English class. Ms. Murray has been a teacher in the Central School District in Rancho Cucamonga, California for the past twenty-six years. Currently, she teaches seventh and eighth grade English Language Arts for English Language Learners. She holds a Bachelors degree in psychology and a multiple subject credential. While she currently works with middle school students, she has also worked in mono and bilingual classrooms at the elementary level.
Ms. Murray's grading policy is clearly structured through percentages. 90-100% is considered an “A,” 80-89% is considered a “B,” and so on. Grading is done using the GradeQuick grading software. She uses a system in which all work done is assigned a number. This is useful because parents and students can access their grades at anytime via the Edline website. Using the website, students and parents can both see what assignments, if any, are missing, have a good or bad grade, and other information. Students at CELDT levels one and two are given modified work and are given full points if they complete their work. If students are unable to complete a particular aspect of the assignment, Ms. Murray may excuse that portion. Due to the fact that some CELDT level one students struggle so much with the school work, Ms. Murray does not believe it is fair to assign them a letter grade. For these students, she will generally assign either a “pass” or “fail” grade based upon their effort. Grades for all students are heavily based upon participation – students are graded more upon their attitude than their aptitude. Ms. Murray reports that while grades motivate most students, it does not motivate them all.
Ms. Murray is very concerned with her students' progress in her classroom. Students that are falling behind are taken note of so that special care will be taken for their success. The focus students, for example, were not keeping up with the class. An intervention in the classroom that Ms. Murray used was to walk over to them at the beginning of the assignment to get them started. After ensuring that the students were aware of what was expected and that they had gotten a start, Ms. Murray would give them time to work and periodically check back on them. Some assignments were modified for these students and after-school tutoring is always offered. This extra attention usually is the key to bringing students up to speed with the rest of the class.
In general, standardized testing is the backbone of the curriculum at Cucamonga Middle School. As the curriculum is based around standards, Ms. Murray states that if students do well on their in-class assignments, they generally do well on their tests as well. However, test scores are not reflected in the grades of students as the schools do not even receive their scores until summer. As with mainstream students, there are some students who do well on their classwork, but do not do well on the test. Likewise, a student who may not be successful in the classroom may do well on the test. Overall, however, a student's performance in-class is reflected in their test scores. |
posted by miffykurara @ 5:22 PM  |
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