What’s in a Grade?

Room to Grow - a Math Podcast

In this episode, we discuss grades in mathematics courses. Although we don’t claim to have a recommendation or even an opinion about what might be the right way to handle grades, we hope to bring up considerations for our listeners to talk about and think through as they reflect on their own grading practices.
We wonder if many grading practices are in place are just legacy practices, handed down and sustained by teacher teams and departments, or schools with prescribed grading requirements, and we recognize the challenges of balancing grades with academic performance as well as other classroom contributions that we value.
We wrestle with what grades communicate to different audiences. What does a grade tell a student? The student’s family? Other school personnel? The student’s next school? How does a student’s participation in the academic work of math class shift based on the value they put on their grade in math class? And we consider the guiding question of “what is the impact of…?” as educators consider the structure and components of their grading practice.
We wrap up by reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on our educator friends. We believe that the last two years have brought incredible challenges to educators already giving everything they have to their students and communities. We are in awe of you, we admire you, and we thank you for all that you do each and every day.

Additional resources to explore:

• Blog Post: “Grading Is Due for an Overhaul” https://www.nais.org/magazine/independent-school/winter-2022/grading-is-due-for-an-overhaul/

Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [e-mail] . Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy

Chapters

1. What’s in a Grade? (00:00:00)

2. The grading process and what are we even doing here? (00:00:55)

3. What is communicated in a grade? What's not? (00:08:35)

4. How can a grade impact a student? (00:20:19)

5. COVID* (00:25:45)