As a home school teacher, how do you "Grade"?

Question

I need specifics or examples on how to acurately grade for record keeping.

Answer 1

In my state, we are not required to keep records. Instead of grading, we just keep working on something until they get it. Then we can move on to the next thing.

Answer 2

It really depends on the grade level of the child.  I have a fifth grader, and because I require mastery before I consider an assignment "done", I don't really grade him on the percentage right and wrong.  If he gets a number of questions wrong, I find out what he doesn't understand and we go over that until he understands.  Then, he does the assignment again to show mastery.

A lot of what we're working on this year, outside of skill-based work, is diligence, attitude, and independence.  Therefore, if he completes the assignment with a bad attitude, he doesn't get full credit.  His marks are important to him, so he's careful to put his best work in.  Honestly, I'd rather he learn this now, while only a middle school GPA is at risk, rather than years down the road, when admittance to a college program or career opportunity is on the line.

As he gets older, I'll move him more toward traditional grading scales and percentages; he'll need to know how to work within that structure for college classes.  

I don't live in a state that requires evaluations or submission of grades, so I can be a little more free with that; I set goals for him each year and grade him accordingly.  Doing his best work is just plain expected of him, he really doesn't much realize that there's another way to do it, so grading strictly according to averages wouldn't do much for him - it would be the easy way out.  Grading according to skills like diligence, focus, and attitude is much more effective for him at this point in his life.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

I don't grade.

If I did (or had to), I would give little quizzes or tests, or mark worksheets--these are pretty straight forward and give you the ability to go 18/21. I'd use a program like Homeschool Tracker Plus if I wanted different weighting for different types of work; the Basic Homeschool Tracker (which is free!) will do just a straight calculation of all marked work. For a final A, B, C, D grade, I'd use the local standard for percentage-letter marks.

Answer 4

First you must determine how many points you want to make the assignment worth, for example a 10 question quiz is worth 20 pts (2 each).  Then you must decide if you are going to weight categories for example, tests 20%, quizzes 15% ect. (this is how you get the qrt/semester grade).

Another route to go (easier)  is to base grades off of points and for a final grade you would divide the total number pts by the student's points earned (again for qrt/semester grade).

It also depends on the grade level.  If you are teaching at the elementary level it doesn't need to be as complicated.  You are the teacher so you determine the worth of an assignment.  I teach high school and after you do it for awhile you'll get the hang of it.  You might want to invest in  some grading software.  It will do all the work for you and you just determine how much each assignment is worth. Hope this was helpful and not too complicated.

Answer 5

When you create a test for him choose three types of questions based on level of difficulty -

1) Easy

2) Moderately Difficult

3) Difficult

In an average test the distribution of questions is like 60% Easy Questions, 25% Moderately Difficult Questions and 15% Difficult Questions.

You can fine tune the mix gradually as you see your child's performance.

While scoring, give 2 marks for a Easy Question, 4 marks for Moderately difficult question and 6 marks for a Difficult question.

Thus you may create a test with 10 Question which has 7 easy questions, 2 Moderately Difficult Questions and 1 Difficult Question.

The total marks for such a test will be 28 - which is unusual. All you need to do is - normalize the raw score to Percentage. i.e. If the child score 22 out of 28 - he actually get 22/28*100 marks.

Keep a record of all scores. By Normalizing you have a consistent base for comparison.

Keep an eye and a record of how he is performing across the levels of difficulty.

Keep an eye and a record of how many he attempts and how many the child does not attend.

Over a period of time - you will gain valuable insights from this information - that will enable you to take the right decisions for your child - with respect to his teaching plan.

As for Grading you can follow this Pattern: >90 A, >80B, >70 C, >60 D, <60 F

Trust this helps.

Cheers,

Kaushik ( We run an Online Tutoring Service and use these methods with our students)

Answer 6

I don't. We teach until the kid understands, so there is no point in stopping before they know it and grading them on it. They understand the concept of grading, but until high school, it's not important to us.

At that point, depending on the class, I would start at 100% and count off a percentage for each missed question, or for grammar or spelling errors, as well as factual or pragmatic errors.