Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Adventures in Home Learning: Episode 23

 



Personal note - we’ve finally heard from the school district and been given an appointment for my daughter to go in and get a laptop computer loaded with everything they will be using, and be shown how to use it. I figure it will be good for her to get a chance to meet her teacher before the online teaching begins as well.

Grading in Homeschooling

A friend who is homeschooling posted a question about grading rubrics. She seemed to be feeling a little bit lost as to how to grade her kids. I think she also wants to make sure that she is doing it by the book so the state doesn’t give her any problems at the end of the school year. That’s a very understandable feeling.

When I was taking my teaching degree years ago, the emphasis was on a portfolio assessment, which illustrated the growth of the student in grasping concepts and applying them. Whole language and writers workshop were applied to help students improve their writing and spelling by actually doing a piece of writing, then improving it through editing. They could write about what they loved and therefore were more invested in it. Then came national testing and that seemed to go out the window. Everything had to be quantifiable and a numerical grade assigned. That was most easily done by multiple choice question standardized tests, but teaching by rote memorization does not really help with mastery of information.

Lots of people wrote back to my friend with great advice on how to assess the learning and growth of her children. Here are a few different web sites with good advice and different approaches, in case anyone is trying to grasp this necessary but slippery concept of grading home schooled work.

To Grade or Not to Grade: Assigning Grades to Your Homeshooler – Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

How Do I Evaluate My Student’s Progress? – HLSDA

5 Tips for Grading in Homeschool – Steppingblocks


 

 


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