Grading Practices for Students with Disabilities

1. Grading Practices for Students with Disabilities Trudie Hughes, Ph.D.

2. Student Performance • What personal biases or opinions do you have that might influence your judgments of student performance????

3. “I see many of you anticipated a pop quiz today.”

4. Purposes for Grading (King-Sears, 1997 • To measure progress toward the achievement of identified goals. • To assure that students have mastered specific content • To identify certain students for special programs or courses • To provide information for planning • To motivate student to continue to perform well or to perform better • To compare performance to that of other students

5. Concerns in Grading • Assigned grades have different meaning to teachers, school counselors, parents, and students • Teachers’ concerns about standards of performance for students with accommodations • Classroom teachers’ concerned that inclusion of students with disabilities in their classroom might result in decreased standards for all students

6. Concerns Cont. • In the 1990s research in secondary schools found 60% students with disabilities were graded using the same criteria as their peers without disabilities • Most students with disabilities are passing their courses, but receiving much lower grades than peers without disabilities • High percentage of students with LD who received poor grades over a period of time, drop out

7. Common Assessment Accommodations Timing Extended time Alter time of day Administer test over several sessions and days Allow frequent breaks Setting Small-group administration Hospital administration Study carrel Separate room Homebound Response Dictate to scribe Sign language assistance Braille writer Word processor Presentation Audiocassette Reading test aloud Large print Repeated directions Sign language assistance Braille Magnification

8. Grading Options • Letter/Number Grades • Most common method • Does not accurately convey the feedback for areas of improvement and how much a student has learned • Progress Checklists • Contain criterion related goals assessing students at a starting point • Provides feedback to parents & students on progress • Can be time consuming • Contracts • Provide feedback on what goals are accomplished • Does not provide feedback when unsuccessful in reaching goals • Work Samples • Accurately displays progress and product but may not show precise growth in process • By itself, will not give a student direction for improvement – need input from teacher

9. Grading Options Cont. • CBAs • Directly assess mechanical skills (rote facts, rules, sequences), tests basic skills not concepts • Effectively show progress by using graphs • Mastery Levels • Divides content into subcomponents with pretests to create a minimum performance standard and posttests to examine mastery • Multiple Grading • All grades are averaged together • Doesn’t give information on how to improve • Portfolios • Contains works in progress • Focus on meaningful, personal learning goals • Rubrics • Provide criteria describing student performance at various levels of proficiency

10. Responsibility with Grading • Be consistent with school policy • Meet the communication needs of the grading process • Reflect the theoretical orientation • Be consistent with the IEP established for the student

11. Sample Grading Report for a Unit Grade: 86 % B Bradley, D. F., & Calvin, M. B., (1998). Grading modified assignment equity or compromise? Teaching Exceptional Children, 31, 24-29.

12. Rubrics

13. Guidelines for Writing Multiple-Choice Items • 1. Write the stem so that it presents a complete question or problem. • 2. The stem should be sufficiently clear that the learner could generate the correct answer even if it were not provided. • 3. Avoid using negative questions or statements in the stem or responses. • 4. Avoid placing grammatical cues that suggest the correct alternative in the stem. • 5. Write the correct response first, then generate between two and four reasonable alternatives. • 6. Write alternative responses of roughly equal length. • 7. Avoid using “none of the above” or “all of the above.” • 8. To assess higher-order thinking, write items that require students to identify metaphors or to answer questions about an extended, detailed scenario or problem. • 9. Avoid establishing a pattern of responses. • 10. Proofread all items carefully. • 11. Place the entire item (stem and al alternatives) on the same page.