TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION............................................................................... .1

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FOUNDATION....................................................3

2.1 Definition of grading........................................................... 3

2.2 Philosophy of Grading..........................................................3

2.3 Institutional Expectations and Constraint............................4

2.4 Alternatives to Letter Grading.............................................6

2.5 Some Principles and Guidelines

for Grading and Evaluation................................................10

CHAPTER III DISCUSSIONS.............................................................................14

3.1 What is the purpose do grades serve?................................14

3.2 What is the trouble with evaluation of students?...............17

3.3 How to make grading more effecient? .............................21

CHAPTER IV CONCLUSIONS..........................................................................25

REFERENCE.........................................................................................................26

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the justification and rationale of the present topic. It

cover background of the study, purpose of the study and critical questions.

1.1 Background of The Study

For teachers, grading is often the old ball and chain. Teachers, give

assignments and grade the results so as to have something to mark down on report

cards or to truly explore what our students understand and how they are best able

to present their knowledge to us? If our goal is the former than the standard

regime of tests and quizzes should suffice but, if (as is hopefully the case) we are

aiming for the latter, we need to think carefully about how to assess in ways that

accurately measure student learning not just at the end of a cycle of teaching but

throughout; we need to make sure our assessments have real world applications,

and perhaps most importantly we need to ensure that we offer a variety of

assessments to ensure that every student has the opportunity to demonstrate what

they know.

1.2 Purpose of The Study

The purpose of this paper are:

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1. To find out what the purposes do grades serve?

2. To find out how to make grading more efficient?

3. To find out what is the trouble with evaluation of students?

1.3 Critical Questions

1. What purposes do grades serve?

2. How to make grading more efficient?

3. What is the trouble with evaluation of students?

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

This chapter presents theories related to the topic. It covers Definition of

grading, Philosophy of Grading, Institutional Expectations and Constraint,

Alternatives to Letter Grading, Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading and

Evaluation.

2.1 Definition of Grading

Grades in the realm of education are standardized measurements of

varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in

letters (for example, A, B, C, D, or E, or F), as a range (for example 4.0–1.0), as a

number out of a possible total (for example out of 20 or 100), as descriptors

(excellent, great, satisfactory, needs improvement), in percentages, or, as is

common in some post-secondary institutions in some countries, as a Grade Point

Average (GPA).

When we think about grading we tend to focus on tests, quizzes,

homework etc. But in fact you should be examining a wide range of student

performances when you grade. For example, a student who freezes up on tests

might be able to create an excellent model of the science concept you are trying to

teach. Try to grade in ways that reflect the way students would use concepts in the

real world. This is known as Alternative Assessment and can include portfolios of

writing samples, creating a book explaining a math concept for children etc.

2.2 Philosophy of Grading

Gronlund (1998), a widely respected educational assessment specialist,

gave the following advice:

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Grades should represent the extent to which the intended learning outcomes were achieved by students. They should not be contaminated by student effort, tardiness, misbehaviour, and other extraneous factors.... if they are permitted to become part of the garde, the meaning of the grade as an indicator of achievement is lost. (pp.174-175)

Earlier in the same chapter, Gronlund specifically discouraged the

inclusion of improvement in final grades, as it “distrorts” the meaning of the

grades as the indicators of achievement.

Gronlund’s point is well worth considering as a strongly empirical

philosophy of grading. But, not everyone agree with Gronlund. For example,

Grove (1998), Power (1998) and Progosh (1998)all recomended considering other

factor in assessing and grading.

The importance of triangulation, for one, tells us that all abilities of a

student may not be apparent on achievement tests and measured performances.

One of arguments fo considering alternatives in assessment is that we may not be

able to capture the totality of students’ competence through formal test; other

observations are also significant indicators of ability. Nor should wediscount most

teachers intuition, which enables them to form impressions of students that cannot

easily be verified empirically. These arguments tell us that improvement,

behavior, effort, motivation, and attendance might justifiably belong to a set of

components that add up to a final grade.

2.3 Institutional Expectations and Constraint

A consideration of philosophies of grading and of procedures for

calculating grades is not complete without a focus on the role of the instituation in

determining grades. The insights gained by the ALI teachers described above, for

example, were spurred to some extent by an examination of institutional

expectations. In this case, an external factor was at play: all the teachers were

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students in, or had recently graduated from, the Master of Arts in TESOL program

at San Francisco State University.

Typical of many graduate programs in America universities, this program

manifests a distribution of grades in which As (from A+ to A-) are awarded to an

estimated 60 percent to 70 percent of students, with Bs (from B+ to B-) going to

almost all of the remainder. In the ALI context, it had become commonplace for

the graduate grading expectations to “rub off” onto ALI courses in ESL. The

statistics bore that out.

Transcript evaluators at colleges and universities are faced with variation

across institutions on what is deemand to be the threshold level for entry from a

high school or another university. For many institutions around the around the

world, the concept of letter grades is foreign. Point systems (usually 100 points or

percentages) are more common globally than the letter grades used almost

universally in the United States. Either way, we are bond by an established,

accepted system.

Some institutions refuse to employ either a letter grade or a numerical

system of evaluation and instead offer narrative evaluations of students (see the

discussion on this topic below). This preference for more individualized

evaluations is often a reaction to the overgeneralization of letter and numerical

grading.

Being cognizant of an institutional philosophy of grading is an important

step toward a consistent and fair evaluation of your students. If you are a new

teacher in your instituation, try to determine what its grading philosophy is.

Sometimes it is not explicit; the assumption is simply made that teachers will

grade students using a system that conforms to an unwritten philosophy. This has

potentially harmful washback for students. A teacher in an organization who

applies a markedly “tougher” grading policy than other teachers is likely to be

viewed by srundents as being out of touch with the rest of the faculty. Thr result

could be avoidance of the class and even mistrust on the part students.

Conversely, an “easy” teacher may become a favorite or popular teacher not

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because of what students learn, but because students know they will get a good

grade.

2.4 Alternatives to Letter Grading

Few artifacts of formal learning are as iconic as the letter grade.

What can I do to get an A?

She’s a C student.

He’s always gotten As and Bs in all of his classes.

Then we turn the letters into numbers–letter grades become averages of

letter grades, which, when calculated, determined whether or not a learner

qualifies to play sports, get into college, or thinks of him or herself as “smart.”

She has a 4.0 GPA.

You’re not getting into Stanford with that GPA.

It is an incredibly powerful symbol that isn’t going to be erased by long-

winded rhetoric. Learners and families–far and away the most vested stakeholders

in education–understand them. They “get” what a B means, and what an F means.

The issue is, in all honesty they probably don’t.

A. The Failure of the Letter Grade

The letter grade fails because its job–to communicate learning results to

learners and families—cannot possibly be performed a single symbol.

Further, the letter grade “pauses” learning–basically says that at this point,

if I had to average all of your understanding, progress, success, and performance

into a single alphanumeric character, it’d be this, but really this is over-

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simplifying things because learning is messy and understanding is highly

dynamic.

While standards-based grading is one attempt to reduce how subjective

letter grades are–measure and report proficiency based on standards as “grades.”

This is a step in the right direction–at least parents know what a grade is based on,

but they still don’t know any more about their son or daughter.

The ideal “response” here isn’t a single change, but a total merging of schools

and communities. But until that happens, there are options.

B. 12 Alternatives to Letter Grades

1. Gamification

A comprehensive systems of badges, trophies, points, XP,

achievements. This uncovers nuance and is capable of far more resolution

and precision than a letter.

2. Live Feedback

Here, students are given verbal and written feedback immediately–as

work is being completed. Live scoring without the scoring and iteration.

No letters or numbers, just feedback.

3. Grade–>Iterate–>Replace

In this process, work is graded as it traditionally has been, then,

through revision and iteration, is gradually improved and curated.

Eventually “lesser” performance (as determined by students, peers,

families, and teachers) is replaced by better work, but without the grades.

Grades jump-start the revision process, and that’s it.

4. Always-on Proving Grounds (Continuous Climate of Assessment)

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In this model, assessment never stops–the result of one assessment is

another. Not tests, but demonstrations. It doesn’t stop, so rather than

halting the process to assign a letter, the process continues on.

5. Standards-Based Reporting

This one replaces letters with numbers, so it’s really not much better,

but it can reduce the subjectivity of grading.

6. “So? So What? What Now?”

Here, students are asked–and ask themselves–at the end of every

assignment–So, So What? What Now? This is similar to #4 above, but

leaves the next step up to the student. Okay, you’re “finished” with this

work. Now:

So: What did you “do”? Summarize details and big picture

So What? Why was this work important?

What now? What is the logical next step with this assignment, idea, or

topic?

7. Metacognitive Action/Reflection/Narrative/Anecdotal

This approach dovetails behind #6. Rather than halting the learning

process with a letter-as-performance-indicator, instead learners are tasked

with reflecting on their thinking process–not as a patronizing “tell the

teacher what they want to hear” activity on an exit slip walking out the

door, but as a measure of their understanding and intellectual growth. This

can be based on metacognition, reflective on the progression through the

content, or more anecdotal about the learning process itself.

8. Curating the Highlights

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A variation of the reflective and anecdotal approach, curating the

highlights amounts to the student and teach getting together to extract the

highlights of an assignment, or the process of project-based learning.

9. Pass/Fail

No letter grade–you either pass or fail. Not a great solution to anything

other than the shades of grey between an A and a D, but an alternative

nonetheless.

10. P2P, S2S, or Mentor Celebration

Gather with peers within and across schools to celebrate academic and

learning success. No grades necessary–just planned visibility from the start

of the project with a diverse groups of peers. Peer response can also be

embedded throughout a lesson or unit by design, rather than only at the

end as a summative evaluation.

11. Non-points-based Rubrics

This is much like the current systems–student performance is still

evaluated against a rubric, but not grade or points are ever assigned. It is

up to the student and their family to determine “how they did.” The goal of

the teacher is not to grade students, but rather to support learners. Students

will wiggle and writhe trying to turn the rubric’s assessment into a letter

grade, and that’s fine. As a teacher, you’ve moved on to taking data from

that performance to plan the next steps.

12. Publishing

Make all learning public. Publish it. It can by anonymous if necessary,

but it’s visible to families, peers, and communities. Peers can collaborate

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on revisions, families can respond, communities can celebrate or scoff, but

the process has been decentralized and, in a way, democratized.

This approach won’t work for every student every time, but the idea is

sound–return the stakeholding to the stakeholders.

2.5 Some Principles and Guidelines for Grading and Evaluation

To sum up, we hope you have become a little better informed about the widely

accepted practice of grading students, whether on a separate test or on a summative

evaluation of performance in a course. We should now understand that ;

Grading is not necessarily based on a universally accepted scale,

Grading is sometimes subjective and context-dependent,

Grading of tests is often done on the “curve”,

Grading reflect a teacher’s philosophy of grading,

Grading reflect an institutional philosophy of grading,

Cross-cultural variation in grading philosophies needs to be understood,

Grades often conform, by design to a teacher’s expected distribution of

students across a continuum,

Tests do not always yield an expected level of difficulty,

Letter grades may not “mean” the same thing to allpeople, and

Alteernatives to letter grades or numerical scores are highly desirable as

additional indicators of achievement.

With those characteristics of grading and evaluation in mind, the following

principled guidelines should help you be an effective grader and evaluator of

student performance.

There the interconnection of assessment and teaching was first

highlighted; in contemplating grading and evaluating our students, that co-

dependency is underscored. When you assign a letter grade to a student, that letter

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should be symbolic of your approach to teaching. If you believe that a grade

should recognize only objectively scored performance on a final exam, it may

indicate that your approach to teaching reward end product only, not process. If

you base some portion of a final grade on improvement, behavior, effort,

motivation, and/or punctuality, it may say that your philosophy of teaching values

those affective elements. You migh be one of those teachers who feel that grades

are necessary nuisance and that substantive evaluation takes place through the

daily work of optimizing washback in your classroom. If you habitually give

mostly As, a few Bs, and virtually no Cs or below, it could mean, among other

things, that your standards (and expectations) for your students are low. It could

also mean that your standards are very high and that you put monumental effort

into seeing to it that student are consistently coached throughout the term so that

they are brought to their fullest possible potential.

As we develop our own philosophy of grading, make some attempt to

conform that philosophy to our approach to teaching. In a communicative

language classroom, that approach usually implies meaningful learning,

authenticity, building of student autonomy, student-teacher collaboration, a

community of learners, and the perception that our role is that of a facilitator or

coach rather than a director or dictator.

Just as there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty

research, there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty teaching.

However, by thinking carefully about the purposes of evaluation, and by crafting

multiple methods of evaluation that suit those purposes, one can devise evaluation

systems that are reliable, valid, and fair. Equally important, the process of

discussing and crafting evaluation systems focuses attention on the practice of

good teaching and helps to create a culture in which teaching is highly valued.

Some Principles of Teaching Evaluation

1. Multiple methods.

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The most important consideration in teaching evaluation, both for

improvement purposes and for personnel decisions, is the use of multiple

methods of teaching evaluation involving multiple sources of data.

2. Faculty, departmental and school responsibilities.

To ensure that the evaluation system adopted is credible and acceptable,

faculty members must have a strong hand in its development. Before

departments and schools adopt teaching evaluation systems, the faculty

members should determine their criteria for effective teaching.

Departments and schools can then take responsibility for developing their

own evaluation methods and evaluation criteria. Since different disciplines

require different methods and settings for instruction, they require

different methods and criteria for evaluation. This is also true for

interdisciplinary instruction. Teaching evaluation systems can be flexible

to accommodate diversity in instructional methods (e.g., lecture,

discussion, lab, case study, small group interaction, practicum, studio,

field work, clinical work, etc.). To promote compatibility within the

university, standards should be reviewed, understood, and accepted by all

groups involved in the promotion and tenure review process.

3. Individualizing teaching evaluation.

Effective teaching evaluation must be individualized. A uniform system

discriminates against some individuals, so a plan sensitive to individual

variation should be developed. A faculty member should provide

information about his/her contributions and accomplishments as a teacher

on a longitudinal basis over his/her teaching career. Consideration can

then be given to changes in emphasis and interest that will naturally occur

in an academic career.

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4. What may be assessed.

Teaching evaluation has as its central element the assessment of the

quality of classroom instruction. Since teaching includes activities broader

than classroom instruction, evaluation of teaching must assess more than

classroom performance. While departments and schools may identify

additional items, among the teaching activities that may be assessed are

the following:

a. Quality, amount, and level of classroom instruction (including shared

instruction)

b. Development of curricula, new courses, and classroom materials;

c. Supervision and mentoring of graduate students, including chairing of

dissertations;

d. Service on graduate examination and dissertation committees;

e. One-on-one consultation with students, including supervision of

independent study and readings courses;

f. Supervision of teaching assistants in undergraduate courses;

g. Conduct and supervision of laboratory instruction;

h. Supervision of undergraduate and graduate research;

i. Advising students in the major;

j. Supervision of field work; and

k. Supervision of clinical and practicum experiences.

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CHAPTER III

DISCUSSIONS

2.5 What is the purpose do grades serve?

What is the purpose or function of grades in education? Measurement

experts such as Peter Airasian (1994) explain that educators use grades primarily

(1) for administrative purposes, (2) to give students feedback about their progress

and achievement, (3) to provide guidance to students about future course work,

(4) to provide guidance to teachers for instructional planning, and (5) to motivate

students.

1. Administrative Purposes

For at least several decades, grades have served a variety of administrative

functions (Wrinkle, 1947), most dealing with district-level decisions about

students, including

Student matriculation and retention.

Placement when students transfer from one school to another.

Student entrance into college.

Airasian (1994) further explains that "administratively, schools need

grades to determine such things as a pupil's rank in class, credits for

graduation, and suitability for promotion to the next level" (p. 283).

Research indicates that some districts explicitly make note of the

administrative function of grades. For example, in a study of school board

manuals, district guidelines, and handbooks for teaching, researchers Susan

Austin and Richard McCann (1992) found the explicit mention of

administration as a basic purpose for grades in 7 percent of school board

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documents, 10 percent of district guidelines, and 4 percent of handbooks for

teachers. Finally, in a survey conducted by The College Board (1998), over

81 percent of the schools reported using grades for administrative purposes.

2. Feedback About Student Achievement

One of the more obvious purposes for grades is to provide feedback about

student achievement. Studies have consistently shown support for this

purpose. For example, in 1976, Simon and Bellanca reported that both

educators and noneducators perceived providing information about student

achievement as the primary purpose of grading. In a 1989 study of high

school teachers, Stiggins, Frisbie, and Griswold reported that this grading

function—which they refer to as the information function—was highly

valued by teachers. Finally, the study by Austin and McCann (1992) found

that 25 percent of school board documents, 45 percent of district documents,

and 65 percent of teacher documents mentioned reporting student

achievement as a basic purpose of grades.

3. Guidance

When used for guidance purposes, grades help counselors provide

direction for students (Wrinkle, 1947; Terwilliger, 1971). Specifically,

counselors use grades to recommend to individual students courses they

should or should not take and schools and occupations they might consider

(Airasian, 1994). Austin and McCann (1992) found that 82 percent of school

board documents, 40 percent of district documents, and 38 percent of teacher

documents identified guidance as an important purpose of grades.

4. Instructional Planning

Teachers also use grades to make initial decisions about student strengths

and weaknesses in order to group them for instruction. Grading as a tool for

instructional planning is not commonly mentioned by measurement experts.

However, the Austin and McCann (1992) study reported that 44 percent of

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school board documents, 20 percent of district documents, and 10 percent of

teacher documents emphasized this purpose.

5. Motivation

Those who advocate using grades to motivate students assume that they

encourage students to try harder both from negative and positive perspectives.

On the negative side, receiving a low grade is believed to motivate students to

try harder. On the positive side, it is assumed that receiving a high grade will

motivate students to continue or renew their efforts.

As discussed later in this chapter, some educators object strongly to using

grades as motivators. Rightly or wrongly, however, this purpose is manifested

in some U.S. schools. For example, Austin and McCann (1992) found that 7

percent of school board documents, 15 percent of district-level documents,

and 10 percent of teacher documents emphasized motivation as a purpose for

grades.

Then, which is the most important purpose? According to the research cited

in the previous sections, each of the five purposes for grading has some support

from educators. A useful question is which of the five purposes is the most

important or, more generally stated, what is the relative importance of the five

purposes? depicts the results of the Austin and McCann (1992) study compared

with an informal survey we undertook in preparing this book. If one uses the

average rank (the last column) from the two studies as the criterion, indicates that

using grades to provide feedback about student achievement should be considered

the primary function of grades. Guidance is ranked second, instructional planning

and motivation are tied for third, and administration is last. However, to obtain the

most accurate picture of the opinions about the various purpose of grades, it is

important to notice the variation in responses.

In this section we've looked at the basic purpose of and the point of reference

for grades. Out of five potential purposes, feedback was identified as the most

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important. Out of three possible points of reference, specific learning outcomes

was deemed the most compatible with feedback as a purpose.

2.6 What is the trouble with evaluation of students?

In the world of education, assessment and evaluation would have been

done in the learning process. Assessment and evaluation aimed to determine the

ability of the learner is to meet the Graduate Competence Standard (SKL) or not.

Graduate Competence Standard (SKL) is a classification of graduate capabilities

that include attitudes, knowledge and skills. Graduate Competence Standard

(SKL) is used as a guideline in determining the graduation of students from

psendidikan unit. Besides the evaluation aims to determine the extent of

absorption of the product discussion learners that educators apply. There are

several types of tool evaluation, namely: a test written and unwritten. If we look at

the world of education, we will know that any type or form of education at certain

times during the period of education is always an evaluation, which means that at

certain times during the period of education has always held an assessment of the

results achieved, either by the educated and the educators.

By examining the achievement of objectives of teaching, teachers can

determine if the learning process is done quite effectively give good results and

satisfactory or otherwise. So it is clear that teachers should be able to carry out

assessments and skillful, because the assessments teachers can find out the

achievements of his students after implementing the learning process.

Professionalism became teachers in their work demands. Moreover, the teaching

profession handle the day-to-day life objects such as children or students with the

characteristics of each are not the same. Teacher's job becomes more severe when

on increasing the ability of their students, while her abilities stagnant. And seen in

education today is the problem is the failure of teachers in teacher evaluation.

In its function as assessors of student learning outcomes, teachers should

continue to follow the learning outcomes achieved by students from time to time.

The information obtained through this evaluation is feedback (feed back) to the

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teaching and learning process. This feedback will be used as a starting point to

improve and enhance the learning process further. Thus, the learning process will

continue to be improved to obtain optimal results.

In other subjects sometimes held at the end of the lesson, and there is also

during the process of teaching and learning takes place. When the time of the

evaluation is not a problem for teachers is most important in one session he has

conducted an assessment of the students in the class.

But there are also teachers who are reluctant to carry out an evaluation at

the end of the lesson, because of time constraints, they thought better explain all

of the subject matter to the bitter end to one meeting, and at the next meeting at

the beginning of the lesson students are given a task or questions related to the

material .

There are also teachers who say that assessment at the end of the lesson is

not absolutely the written test. It could also oral test or question and answer. Felt

more practical activities for teachers, because teachers do not have to take pains to

correct the results of the evaluation of children. But these activities have the

disadvantage that children who are nervous even though he knew the answer to

that question, he could not answer precisely because of her nervousness was. And

other weaknesses oral tests take too much time, and the teacher must have a lot of

inventory problems. But there are also teachers who represent some of the smart

kids, kids who are less and some children who were its ability to answer the few

questions or problems relating to that subject matter.

Every teacher in conducting the evaluation should be familiar with the

purpose and benefits of the evaluation or assessment. But there are also teachers

who do not bother about this activity, which is important he entered the

classroom, teaching, he would carry out an evaluation at the end of the lesson or

not is his business. What is clear at the end of the semester he had reached the

target curriculum. This is a problem in education today.

What causes this happen? There are some things that might cause this to happen,

such as:

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1. Teachers are less mastering the subject matter, so in presenting the

subject matter to children often disjointed sentence or convoluted that

cause the child to be confused and difficult to digest what was said by the

teacher.

Of course at the end of the lesson they are overwhelmed or unable to

answer questions given task. And finally, the value obtained is far from

what was expected.

2. Teachers did not master class. Teachers who are less able to control the

class challenged in delivering the subject matter, this is because the

atmosphere of a class that does not support the child who really want to

learn to be disturbed.

3. Teachers are reluctant to use visual aids in teaching. Habits of teachers

who do not use props to force children to think verbal thus making it

difficult to understand the child's learning and automatic evaluation at the

end of a lesson in the value of the child to fall.

4. Teachers are less able to motivate children to learn, so as to convey the

subject matter, children are less concerned about the material presented

by the teacher, so that the knowledge contained in the material presented

it slip away without any special attention from students.

5. Teachers menyamaratkan child's ability in absorbing the lessons.

Each of the students has a different ability to absorb the material.

Teachers are less caught not knowing that there are children didinya

absorbance below average have difficulty in learning.

6. Teachers' lack of discipline in managing time. Time is written in the

timetable, not in accordance with the practice of implementation,. Time

to start learning is always late, but the time off and hours of home is

always on or never late.

7. Teachers are reluctant to make preparations to teach or at least prepare

the teaching, which are accompanied by provisions lesson time to start,

time to process activities and the provision of time for the end of the

lesson.

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8. Teachers do not have any progress to add or gain knowledge, such as

reading a book or exchange ideas with fellow teachers more senior and

professional insights to add.

9. In the oral test at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked a question to the

less skilled students, so that students do not understand what is meant by

the teacher.

10. Teachers always put the achievement of the curriculum. Teachers rarely

notice or analyze what percentage absorption of children to the subject

matter

Another issue in the assessment and evaluation in education, especially in

Indonesia, is a matter of national examinations. National Examination is one of

the government's national assessment to measure student success. In recent years,

its presence into the public debate and controversy. On the one hand there who

agree because they can improve the quality of education.

With the national examinations, schools and teachers will be encouraged to

provide the best possible care so that the students can take the exam and get your

exam results are the best. Likewise, students are encouraged to study seriously so

that he can pass with the best possible outcome. Meanwhile, on the other hand is

also not a few who feel not agree because it assumes that the National

Examination as something very contradictory and counterproductive to the spirit

of reform that we are learning to develop.

However, the development of national examinations is often used for the

benefit of outside education, such as the political interests of the holders of

educational policy or economic interests of a few people. Therefore, no wonder its

implementation irregularities are found, such as the case of leakage problems, a

systemic and deliberate cheat, manipulate the results of student work and other

forms of cheating. This makes the problem of assessment and evaluation of

learning, because teachers assess and evaluate students' final grades based on the

results of the national examinations.

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This is done by government policy to implement the system UNAS (National

Examination) and NEM (NilaiAkhir Pure) it. So the assessment of the results of

the tests can not show the ability or competence of each learner, whether they

have mastered the subject or not. The scoring system adopted affect the

implementation of the learning process in the classroom. Assessment is more

focused on the assessment of learning outcomes led to an assessment of the

learning process is neglected. The learning process should be ongoing no. Finally

learning activities in our schools many issues covered by the low level of

understanding of students, including in mathematics learning.

In the national exam, with more emphasis on the assessment of learning

outcomes (products) are likely to only assess the cognitive abilities, and

sometimes reduced in such a way through a test objective. Meanwhile, the

assessment of the affective and psychomotor aspects often overlooked. As a

result, a lot going on complaints from the public and the school itself about the

low quality courtesy and responsibility of our students because the assessment is

generally focused on activities related to academic achievement and less mnaruh

attention to activities related to the behavior and attitudes.

2.7 How to make grading more effecient?

Grading is tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating. Many of would teach

for free, but we must be paid to grade. A rubric clearly defines what a student

needs to do in order to receive a specific grade. A rubric will help you to grade

more quickly and painlessly while providing students with useful feedback on

their performance.

To create a rubric, you must first spell out an assignment's goals. Be

explicit. For example, when you ask your students to write an essay, what skills

do you want your students to be able to demonstrate? You might, for example,

want them to:

1. Construct an argument that is novel, plausible, and sophisticated.

2. Support their argument with compelling lines of reasoning and persuasive

examples.

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3. Demonstrate an ability to analyze complex ideas and counter-arguments.

4. Structure a paper that is focused and logically organized.

5. Vary sentence structure and use words with precision.

There are some strategies that we can use to make the grading process

more efficient. Although all of the materials are designed to help you with

consistent, fair, and efficient grading, there are some additional tips on efficiency

as well as tips mentioned elsewhere that are worth emphasizing.

At the very beginning

Consider the course grading policies. You can save a lot of time by

discouraging superfluous regrade requests and late work.

Consider the assignment design. Clearly worded assignments and clear

learning objectives will greatly improve grading efficiency. Make sure that

exam questions are vetted thoroughly prior to the exam.

Before you grade

Spell out the criteria you will be using as specifically as possible, and

come to an agreement with your instructor or fellow GSIs about how

grades will be determined. Try creating a rubric, or grading scale, and test

it out on a sampling of papers. It may also be helpful to look at a

representative sampling of student work to get a sense of the common

errors prior to creating your rubric.

Always use the minimum number of gradations consistent with the

learning objectives. Why grade on a six-point scale when pass/not pass

would be sufficient (and significantly more efficient)?

Ask yourself: Is this rubric fair? Does it appropriately weight the

understanding the students exhibit? Does it reflect the assignment’s

learning objectives and the assignment prompt?

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Making your grading criteria more explicit both enhances student learning

and reduces the time you spend determining and justifying grades.

While you are grading

Grade while you are in a good mood.

Grade with company! In addition to being more fun, the other GSIs are a

resource for grading questions. Also, if you are grading a large lecture

course, it can streamline the grading consistency checks. To ensure

consistency, exchange a few papers in each score range with the other

GSIs, and grade them independently. Compare the scores and take

corrective action if necessary.

Time yourself. Try to limit how long you spend grading each assignment

(e.g., I want to grade on average 20 problems per hour). If you find

yourself puzzling over a particular paper, set the paper aside to grade last,

when your sense of all of the students’ work has been fully developed.

If you are blind grading, keep your grades in a file organized by student ID

number (SID), separate from the file that matches the SIDs to names. This

ensures objectivity. Or, less formally, you can just make it a practice not to

look at student names while grading.

If the assignment has disjoint parts, grade each part separately (e.g., if an

assignment consists of three problems, grade the first problem for the

entire class before you proceed to grading the second problem, etc.). This

will help you grade consistently as well as efficiently.

When you are finished grading, look again at the first few assignments you

graded to see if you still agree with yourself.

Commenting on Student Work

Identify common problems students had with an assignment and prepare a

handout addressing those problems. This helps you to avoid having to

write the same comments multiple times. It also enables you to address the

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problem in more detail and helps students realize that others share the

same problems.

Type your comments. This has a number of advantages. It allows you to

keep a computer record of each student’s progress over the semester;

comments can be more detailed; longer comments on common problems

can be cut and pasted from one assignment to another; and it is easier for

the students to read what you have written.

Do not comment on every problem or point. Focus on a couple of major

points. This not only helps you to grade more efficiently, it also avoids

overwhelming the students. It enables them to focus more effectively on

the areas of their work that most need improvement.

Consider asking students to turn in a cover page with their own evaluation

of their work’s strongest and weakest points as well as the students’

thoughts on how they could improve the work.

After You’ve Graded

If appropriate for your course or section, use a spreadsheet or the Space

Grading feature to calculate grades. It may take a little time to learn how to

use these if you are not familiar with them, but the savings in time can be

considerable if you are working with grade points or differently weighted

letter grades. Back up all electronic records!

If a student consistently turns in unsatisfactory work, meet with him or her

to figure out why and develop a plan of action. Often a student just needs a

more efficient study strategy.

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS

4.1 Conclusions

Finally we can concluded that there the interconnection of assessment and

teaching was first highlighted, in contemplating grading and evaluating our

students, that co-dependency is underscored. When you assign a letter grade to a

student, that letter should be symbolic of your approach to teaching. If you believe

that a grade should recognize only objectively scored performance on a final

exam, it may indicate that your approach to teaching rewards end products only,

not process. If you base some portion of a final grade on improvement, behavior,

effort, motivation, and punctuality, it may say that your philosophy of teaching

values those affective elements.

As you develope your own philosophy of grading, make some attempt to

conform that philosophy to your approach to teachin. In communicative language

calssroom, that approach usualy implies meaningful learning, authenticity,

building of students autonomy, student-teachers collaboration, a community of

leraner, and the perception that your role is that of a facilitator or coach reader

than a director or dictator. Let your grading philosophy be consonant with your

teaching philosophy.

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REFERENCE

Brown, H. Douglas. Long man (2003). Language Assessment; Principles And

Classroom Practice. San Francisco : State University.

Walvoord, B. & V. Anderson (1998). Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and

Assessment . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

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