Evaluating Student Learning
Grading
• Separate grades: differentiating report cards by assigned grades for different grading elements such as effort and progress.
• Differentiated report cards: having individualized provisions for students and families to understand the meaning of their grades
• Changing letter or number grades: adding written comments or symbols or by giving multiple grades which clarifies the grade meaning.
• Grading criteria: standard on which a student’s academic performance is evaluated and graded
• Modified weights and scales: grading adaptation that involves changing the number of point images required to earn a specific grade or changing the weights assigned to different performance areas.
• Improvement grades: giving credit in the evaluation of a student’s performance for any progress made.
• Individualized grading: utilized when the learner has a disability that requires modifications to the instruction.
Strategies
Tests/Assessments
• Chunking: group together (connected items or words) so that they can be stored or processed as single concepts. Students are taught to remember 5-7 key ideas at one time.
• Mnemonics: a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.
• Keyword method: Use of visual imagery to make material more meaningful and easier to remember for students.
• Authentic learning tasks: tasks that are presented within real-world contexts and lead to real-world outcomes.
• Performance-based assessment: provides students with opportunities to demonstrate their mastery of a skill or concept through performance of a task.
• Portfolio assessment: method of evaluation in which a purposeful collection of student work is used to determine student effort, progress, and achievement in one or more areas.
• Rehearsal strategy: test taking strategy that involves saying information out loud, checking it for accuracy, and repeating again.
• Daily activity logs: a written record of how you spend your time; used to create an accurate picture of what you do during the day, and how you invest your time.
• Competency checklists: allow you to quickly document that children demonstrate the necessary knowledge/skill
• Standards-based grading method: to systems of instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on student’s modifications as dictated by their IEP