How will contract grading impact the amount of passing grades in my 10th grade American History class?

Kimberly Franckowiak


Seminar Title


How will contract grading impact the amount of passing grades in my 10th grade American History class?


Concept/Strategy

Focus of the Research


Alternative grading strategies


Grade Level

Research Was Applied


High School


Relevant Grade Level

Connections


High School


Discipline

Where Research Was Applied


Social Studies


Additional Discipline Areas

I see Application to


Language Arts


Invitation/Commercial


"What's my grade in this class?" This is a question that just crushes me when I have to tell the students that they are currently failing the class because they have zeros in the grade book. I teach high school Social Studies at an Area Learning Center (ALC). There are so many reasons I have to add zeros to the grade book. Even just two zeros in the grade book can pull a student down to a failing grade. My quest for an alternative grading strategy led me to understand the mathematical disaster that a zero will create for a student and gave me the opportunity to try a new grading strategy in my tenth graded American History class. All the research that I found on contract grading came from English classes so I adapted it to fit my Social Studies class. After crunching my data, I was pleased with outcome of the contract grading system I devised for the first quarter of the year. I was so pleased that I decided to carry out the same method for the rest of the semester. So, if you interested in contract grading or alternative grading methods, join me to discuss the crash course I took with my students!


Abstract


Kim Franckowiak Duluth Blended Community kcfran16@smumn.edu The question that has pushed my research is: how will contract grading impact the amount of passing grades in my tenth grade American History class? I have been unsatisfied with the low percentage of passing grades in past years with this class. I don’t have faith in the traditional role of letter grades as a way to say whether or not a student has successfully completed the course. My review of literature had led me down a path of many alternative grading methods. So, as my review of literature continued, I found some very interesting pieces to my ever present grading puzzle. The two most interesting pieces that I discovered is the mathematical disaster a zero in the gradebook creates and how contract grading may really be useful for an alternative setting, in which I work. As I scoured the internet looking for journal articles, I found something very interesting that I had not planned on really looking for. I was looking for alternative grading methods. And I found many. What really blew my mind was the article I found on the impact of zeros in a grade book. Myron Dueck wrote in very specific details about what happens when a zero is placed in a grade book. His view on the zero is that it makes a teacher a liar. Can any teacher really gauge what a student may or may not have learned just because they didn’t submit the assignment? We use the zero as a punitive way to try to get students to do the work. It doesn’t always work. The truth is, a student may have learned a great deal. But if they do not submit anything, we cannot fairly assess them. As teachers we must find flexibility, understanding, and learn how to differentiate our own assessment of our students. This realization brought me to the idea of contract grading. For the first quarter of the year I threw out the traditional 100 percentage scale and instituted a contract grading system. By all accounts of the research I did, teachers who employed this strategy believed it to have a positive outcome. My implementation plan for this action research was rather easy. I suspected I would have a revolt on my hands after looking at their faces when I told them we would try something new. I had the plan laid out on paper and electronically. I spent two days working on explaining and gave examples of how it would work. The students seemed somewhat eager and hopeful once they learned how it would work and possibly benefit them. After crunching the numbers of passing grades from the two previous years of the 1st quarter, I compared them to the current year. I found a slight increase in the amount of passing grades this year compared to the previous two years. In conclusion, I found some positive effects with this grading strategy. There was a small uptick in the amount of passing grades. I believe that I will continue this strategy this year to see data over a longer period of time