 |  | | Mr. Weinkauff's Chemistry Classes
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Nerinx moved grade reporting and all to PowerSchool in the Fall of 2010. There have been some points of confusion with how I keep, track, and report grades as well as how this all works with PowerSchool since that time. There are some specific questions throughout the year that are still looking for "good" answers. However, I am going to try to explain my grading procedure on this page in more detail that I do on my syllabus, and to explain how I think things work with PowerSchool. This is a great tool but it is not absolutely perfect in all cases, even with the improvements made this past summer.
TO BEGIN: I figure grades using a method of weighted averages as detailed in the syllabus. For me, coming up with a grade before the end of a quarter is really pretty much guess-work. Often my response when a student or parent asks is to just look at a student's test average and say that as long as she does everything else well, her complete grade can only be higher, and depending upon the starting point could increase a whole letter grade or more. In addition, assignments come due at various times during a quarter so they enter the calculations at various times. This possibly results in major changes during the last weeks of the quarter and some surprises (good or bad).
Furthermore, I do offer opportunities for extra credit points for both non-required homework and little "projects." These points are added to a student's quarter average to get a final quarter grade. PowerSchool does not handle these well but I can work around that.
Lastly, PowerSchool continually wants to calculate a quarter/semester (and perhaps a year) grade. The values presented are perhaps indicative of something related to a student's performance but they do not represent a good picture of that student's performance until all the grades are in (especially in the case of a semester grade) and the appropriate weightings, etc. have been applied.
Entered Grades: With PowerSchool there are things that I see as a teacher that appear differently when a student or parent views the same things. This has led to some confusion in some instances. This year (2012-2013) I have decided to take a different approach for entering grades especially for homeworks, laboratories, and tests.
Take, for example, homework grades. Currently, homework is required to be handed in. The option for a grade is either "5 points" for being handed in or "0 points" for not handed in (assuming that she makes a reasonable attempt at trying the problems). It does not make any difference if a girl was sick or just did not hand the assignment in to get the 0. If she subsequently hands it in, she will get some points, but late homework will not get full credit. I have an option of making a notation on my page that a girl was absent, however, what sometimes appears on the student page is that the assignment, etc. is "exempt," which is not the intention to show on my part. What I am going to try to do with any "0" is to make a comment that a girl was sick if such was the case. I may not put down anything else but the "0" if she forgot or otherwise did not hand an assignment in. (See the "Homework" section of the syllabus as well as the "Homework" information page under the Syllabus And Others tab on this website for a more detailed explanation.)
A similar plan will hold for tests and anything that has to be handed in - if it is not in when due, I will enter a "0." In trying this I think it may better represent how work is being done or not done. As my examples may show below, this credits a girl who does her work and does not give an advantage to someone who does not complete her work. It also should be an obvious reminder of a student's status to anyone who looks at the grades, even if the reported grades are not representative of true performance at any one point it time.
EXAMPLES
When I originally set the current weights or the weighted average several years ago, I looked at a random sampling of students and determined a system that seemed (and still seems) to reflect the work of the vast majority of my students if not all. I periodically still tweak the numbers.
POWERSCHOOL: PowerSchool does weight its assignment "categories" in a manner similar to my weighted averages but it does this on a "dynamic" basic as each score is entered. That is, if a category has no grade in it, PowerSchool readjusts the percentages for the other (filled) categories. For example: If tests are 60% and homework is 15% and there are no grades for labs (15%) or participation (10%), the PowerSchool calculates an average based on tests as 80% and homework as 20%. [It gets this by adding 60 + 15 = 75, and determining a new percentage for the specific category.] It does this for each student in a section so the homework numbers might be different for two girls but neither would be penalized because she had fewer required homework assignments. In this instance, this has the effect of putting even more emphasis on test grades. If, on the other hand, there were lab grades then the effective percentages in PowerSchool would be about: tests - 66%, homework - 17%, and labs - 17%.
This is also why one sometimes sees major shifts in grades when one assignment or test is added to the mix. Take, for example, the case where a student has handed in 2 homework assignments, each worth 10 points. Her PowerSchool "final" average is 100%. Say that another student only had to hand in one assignment and she also has a 100% average. (This would be a rare instance.) A third student handed in only 1 of 2 required assignments and she has a 50%. Are any of these grades truly reflective of how the particular student is doing?
Now let us say that each of the girls above takes a test and scores a 70% on it. If the only grades are homework and a test, the first two girls both end up with a 76% average but the third only has a 66% as determined in PowerSchool.
This kind of change keeps happening for each girl throughout the quarter. Since the third student did not hand in a homework, one would expect that her grade at the end of the quarter would reflect that "0" with a slightly lower score even if all three of the students continue to have equal grades for everything else. PowerSchool does not seem to be able to handle the extra credit points I add to grades.
AN EXAMPLE: So what do these words mean in fact? The following is an item by item example for the three "students" described above who could have been in any one of my classes at any time.
Item Possible PowerSchool "Final Grade"
Points Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Points Grade Points Grade Points Grade
Homework #1 10 10 100 10 100 10 100
Lab #1 20 18 93 17 93 18 93
Homework #2 10 10 95 --- 93 0 70
Test #1 100 58 69 58 66 58 61
Test #2 100 65 71 65 70 65 67
Homework #3 10 10 72 10 71 10 68
Lab #2 20 17 73 17 72 17 70
Quarter Report 40 44 78 44 77 44 75
Test #3 100 76 78 76 77 76 75
Written Report 20 20 79 20 79 20 76
Participation 100 90 81 90 80 90 79
My grading system * 82 82 80
(* no extra credit added)
Is there a lot of difference in the end results? Not really, but I hope one can see the trend. However, one can see how a student might have a D+ average for much of a quarter and then end up with a B level average as the latter part of the quarter progresses and if she earned any extra credit points in addition to her regular grades the final grade could be even higher. In any given quarter there can be wide fluctuations in grades.
I certainly do not know the answer because even my grading spreadsheet system is not really good until everything is in and done, but it would seem that the PowerSchool treatment for weighted catagories over compensates for the lack of one homework assignment in this short-term look at grades. Long-term it will not make any difference when there will be a lot of grades but not in the short-term.
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