Education Dive reports on grading practices study by Buchanan

Education Dive reported on a study of grading practices by Rebecca Buchanan, an assistant professor of curriculum, assessment and instruction at the University of Maine, and Brad Olsen of University of California Santa Cruz. The study focused on the implementation in two high schools of a model, called Elevate, that emphasizes the sole purpose of grading as a reflection of a student’s mastery of academic skills, eliminating approaches like adding extra credit points or giving zeros for missing assignments, the article states. “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,” according to the study. “But public secondary schools rarely have standardized, articulable philosophies of grading or provide induction on the topic.” The study reflected teachers’ reactions to the changes in the grading system, and yielded lessons such as allowing teachers to try new grading procedures in a low-stakes setting and taking a whole-school approach, according to Education Dive.