Giving Compass' Take:

· Education Dive discusses the implementation of the Elevate model to examine teachers’ beliefs about grading and how they assess student work.

· How are educators taught to grade and assess students? Is there a transparent universal system? What can be done to provide students with clear grading standards?

· Check out this article about the best grading practices for K-12.

Allowing teachers to try new grading procedures in a low-stakes setting and taking a whole-school approach are among the lessons highlighted in a new paper on efforts to change how teachers assess student work.

Focusing on the year-long implementation of a model that the researchers call Elevate, the study provides a window into teachers’ beliefs about grading, as well as the lack of formal preparation they have in this area, the authors write.

“Many teacher educators expect that the schools that hire their students will teach the novices how to grade, or they say they do not have time to cover that topic,” write Brad Olsen of the University of California Santa Cruz and Rebecca Buchanan of the University of Maine. “But public secondary schools rarely have standardized, articulable philosophies of grading or provide induction on the topic.”

The paper also delves into teachers’ reactions when someone challenges practices that have been firmly in place since they went to school — such as reducing a student’s grade for cheating or copying someone else’s work.

Read the full article about recent shifts in teachers' grading practices by Linda Jacobson at Education Dive.