Chapter 8 FIAE: Why We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior?

This chapter discusses just why it is that we grade, and the other factors that always seem to be put into final grades, which are essentially really hard to justifiably put into a final grade. Grading is there to be able to gauge the student’s mastery. Therefore, it is hard to be able to incorporate behavior, attendance, and effort into an academic grade. What I learned from this chapter was that participation should never really be involved in an academic grade, unless you know of a special situation where the student is unable to provide the outside work, but they really excel in the classroom to make up for it. Effort and behavior are really tricky when it comes to putting them into the final academic grade. In the book it says, “if we incorporate behavior into the grade, we run afoul of our intent to keep grades as accurate indicators of mastery” (104). This goes to show that if we stay true to grading based on mastery, behavior is not something that involves mastering the content.