Grading

I know as a new teacher I like to see how other teachers grade and break down their grades, so I thought I would share what is currently working for me.

Grading Policy:
40% Tests
20% Quizzes
20% Classwork/Notebook
20% Homework\

Tests
I grade tests using Standards Based Grading, read about it here. I'm loving it for many reasons, but one I haven't mentioned yet is that I'm much less likely to put off grading. I don't know about you, but I spend a ridiculous amount of time deliberating over how many points to count off for this and SBG has really helped that.

Policies: Students can study and prove they have practiced using my resource website and then I will give them new problems. I am still working on the mechanics of this and would love suggestions on what you do!

Quizzes
Every regular schedule day with no tests we do a daily quiz. I get all my quizzes from Math-Aids. This makes it fast for me and I can also link to the quizzes for my students to practice at home since the problems are randomly generated and they provide answer keys. This is when I can focus on remedial skills like operations with fractions, changing percents to decimals, and operations with decimals that are assumed to be known by our kids but are often forgotten. They are usually 10 questions, 10 points each out of a 100. Sometimes I'll do half credit, but usually it is all or nothing.

These, like test, can be studied and retested. I also will requiz as a class certain quizzes that everyone did poorly.

Once I am in the second half of the course, these quizzes will shift to being review from the previous quarter.

Classwork/Notebook
I have a place on the back of their TOC to record classwork. It is my first time trying this and I am still ironing out the kinks. The last two units I have ended up going around and stamping the classwork the day before a test. I would really like to be more consistent in doing it every day.

Notebooks I am grading at unit tests using a quick rubric of 1 to 4 on 5 items:
- TOC is updated
- Page numbers present
- Pages are titled
- Homework has been corrected
- Everything is attached

I only spend a couple minutes on each notebook. I am already seeing a big change with only the second notebook check with students keeping up with it. My goal is for this to become and awesome resource for them, and I know for some of them it just isn't going to happen unless there is a grade attached. My principal says we "incent what we value". So I am incentivizing keeping the notebook in order.

So far I only have a couple students who aren't keeping up with it well. And now the others are pretty much on autopilot and that can just be a nice grade to help their classwork average.

Homework 
I've decided to not accept any late homework this semester and it is making things so much easier. I wrote a post about my homework process here.

I'm also trying to incorporate one project per unit this year. Projects will be worth two homework grades. Mostly they are going to be on matching multiple representations of the functions we are studying, since that is a huge emphasis in CCSS.


Do you have any grading policies or tips that have really paid off? Share in the comments!

Finally: A Homework Routine that Works for Me!

I feel like homework grading and collection is the bane of most math teachers' existence. I think I have finally done some things to make the whole process much better. 

Background - aka "The Old Way"

-Homework assigned every night

-I would go around and stamp the actual NB page while students worked on something else. If I felt rushed I would say I would check it later in class, sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. 

-I accepted late homework at a unit test. I would take up NB and regrade as they took their test. 

-Since I accepted late homework, I just asked for homework questions and didn't project solutions

-It was hard for students to visualize how their homework grade was progressing. 

"The New Way"

-Students turn in their homework to a tray on my desk with their TOC attached. On the back of the TOC I have blanks for homework and classwork. 

-While they do their daily quiz I stamp their TOC page and might even write a note like "Solve" if they just set up questions or "Work?". I have one stamp for full credit (blue) and one for half (red)

-I don't accept late homework anymore. 

-I go over the homework and project the solutions. Students are supposed to correct them daily and I check at the unit test. Still working on making that go smoothly. But, I hope it will help some students see their answers/work is completely wrong (I feel like before I would have some clueless souls who didn't realize this until a test)

*When not in the process of being graded, their current TOC and homework for the night lives in a pocket we created in the front of the notebook*

I feel like this one thing has helped so much in establishing norms in my classroom and making all of our lives a lot more transparent. 

Now instead of collecting notebooks to record homework/classwork grades, I collect just their TOC on Fridays to add up the points for the week and record. 

What have you found works for you?