Hi, welcome to my rant! Here are some things I don’t like about junior high/high school methods of grading student work.
- arbitrary grading standards
- grading someone’s lecture notes, when everybody takes notes differently and one method of note-taking doesn’t work for all
- grading creativity or artistry
- dropping a grade but not allowing the student to see what made them drop
- grading an assignment down without being able to say exactly what was wrong with it
- grading an assignment down without giving constructive feedback on what should be improved
- automatically not believing the student when they say the teacher made a grading mistake or lost their work
- not allowing students to petition a grade when they believe they have been unfairly marked down
- grading every single student on the same standard
- grading oral participation, when some students may not feel comfortable or safe participating with a particular teacher/class/classmate
- posting grades attached to student names publicly
- handing back tests in order of best-worst scores
- no-exceptions policies on late work
- group projects having one single group grade, with no evaluation of individual effort/contributions
- not allowing students to grade themselves or explain what grade they believe they deserved
- grades that supposedly reflect actual student effort, but do not
- judging a student’s worth or character based on their grades
