Carly Pruszinske 

Erin Pepelnjak 
EDSE 4525 
20 Oct 2019 
 
Philosophy 
 
Grades in my classroom are intended to measure student success in 
demonstrating understanding of learning targets that I will put in place. These 
targets are all derived from the state standards and function in conjunction 
with them. I also intend for grades to be a tool for students to be aware of their 
own growth and take responsibility in it.  
 
Scholar and teacher Donalyn Miller stresses the need for a student’s sense of 
responsibility in their own learning, writing that when a student feels in 
control of what they write, read, and learn, and know their instructor values 
their needs and preferences, students are much more likely to wholly 
participate and willingly learn (Miller 81)​. 
 
  In order to encourage the taking of responsibility of one’s own success in the 
classroom, I believe that student grades should always be available to them for 
progress check-in at any time. It is this idea that guides my grading as well: my 
aim with assigning grades is to help students understand how close they are to 
achieving the established learning goals and to support them as they get closer 
to being on target.  
 
Policies 
 
1) What will be factored into a student’s grade and what will not? 
a. Compliance versus achievement grades -- (how will you be grading 
behaviors and/or academic achievement) 
 
Both responsibility and content are important facets of what I want to teach in 
my classroom, but admittedly, it isn’t fair to let dispositions bring down the 
grade of a student who demonstrates mastery of the standards. One study 
showed that “by continuing the practice of grading knowledge and skill 
alongside behavioral components with no relationship to the subject, 
instructors may be contributing to the endemic problem of grade inflation” 
(Johnson 76), so I opt to measure content and dispositions separately. 
  
 
For this reason, I have adopted a grading system that caps the amount of 
damage late work, absences, and preparedness can have on a student’s grade. 
85% of student’s final letter grade will be calculated through sole 
understanding of content. When an assignment is turned in, it is ​always g ​ raded 
wholly through the lens of understanding; no points are deducted f​ rom the 
assignment’s total worth​.  
 
However, the fact that the assignment is late ​will b
​ e recorded. That’s what the 
other 15% of the overall grade is for: the calculation of dispositions. The 15% 
will be divided by the number of assignments given in class, with the 
punctuality of each assignment being worth the quotient. For example, if I 
assign 15 assignments throughout the course of the quarter, the punctuality of 
each is worth 1% of their grade. This is because, though I don’t want to 
disadvantage anyone, I want students to put value on completing the 
homework and coming to class intellectually and organizationally prepared.  
 
This also is only policy for assignment-based formative assessments. Bigger 
projects​ have their due dates announced at the beginning of each unit so that 
students know and can plan. For project-based summative assessments, 
students must turn in a project by the due date in order to receive full credit. 
Each school day past the due date that the project is not turned in results in an 
incremental grade decrease of 10%. Revision and resubmission options are still 
available to projects. 
 
Preparedness works a little differently, as I don’t want to penalize students 
who have multiple homes or no homes. For this reason, preparedness will not 
be counted toward the final grade, but will be recorded, measured and 
discussed at conferences. My goal is to set up disposition-based classroom 
procedures that are followed every day in order to get students in a routine, 
somewhat organized, and to ensure they know what needs to be in class every 
day. 
 
This helps to ensure that students who know the content are accurately 
graded, even if they forget an assignment at home. It also rewards students 
who are able to turn in their assignments on time, without profoundly 
penalizing students who might struggle with that. It offers incentive to be 
punctual with assignments, but little harsh recourse for mistakes late work. 
 
2) Summative versus formative grades – what weight will each type of 
assessment be given? 
 
Summative assessments are going to bear the most weight grades-wise, while 
formative assessments are graded on if they are completed/handed in. I hope 
to use formative assessments to measure my own success in teaching; if a 
student doesn’t do so well on a formative assessment, I will make adjustments 
to the material rather than penalize them. It’s my job to loop back to students 
who are struggling to ensure that the understanding eventually takes hold; 
formative assessments are a tool for this. 
 
3) Homework, daily work, etc. – what will this look like in your class and how 
will it be assessed and/or graded? 
 
Homework is always graded holistically and o ​ nly within the parameters of the 
assignment​. This means that I could receive any assignment on any day from 
any student and I would grade the assignment’s content the same. I intend not 
to slash point values for late work.  
 
Daily in-class activities are typically collected at the end of class. Not for 
points, but for me to peruse in order to pinpoint where students are with the 
material I’m teaching. These are a form of formative assessment, however, the 
in-class assignments are typically ​not g​ raded for completion, they are just for 
record-keeping and instruction adaptation. 
 
I like the idea of having a notebook for this purpose that just stays in the 
classroom unless students specifically want to write or study in the notebook 
at home. I plan to look at these notebooks to gauge understanding and witness 
the growth of their writing. There will be protocol set up surrounding the 
notebook, such as the rule that if students clearly specify that they would like 
me not to read an entry, I won’t. My hope in establishing these notebooks is to 
open a space for students to make writing and record-making a personal tool.  
 
Nancie Atwell writes about the value of opening a space like this for students in 
her book ​The Reading Zone​. She asserts that giving students a space to write 
about what they’re learning, reading, and experiencing will help them ground 
their knowledge to their own personal experience. In Atwell’s classroom, 
students write letter-essays to her concerning readings and concepts that are 
studied in class, and when the notebook is turned in, she replies to these 
(Atwell 262). ​I am interested in using this mode of assessment in my 
classroom.  
 
Students are expected to complete homework from days they have been 
absent, and are expected to turn those assignments in within the same time 
period that the assignment was assigned for everyone else. For example, if 
Alexis was absent on Monday, when an assignment due for Wednesday was 
assigned, and she returns on Tuesday, Alexis has until Thursday to complete 
and hand in the assignment to get the assignment’s disposition credit.  
 
If a student is present on the day the assignment was assigned, but absent on 
the assignment’s due date, the assignment is due upon the student’s return in 
order for full dispositional credit. 
 
I have been wrestling with the decision of asking absent students to complete 
the in-class work from the day they were absent. I decided that I would give it 
to them to complete, but not entirely require it. This is because I think it’s 
important to show them the value of practice and learning for learning’s own 
sake, but since no other students are being graded on their completion of the 
in-class work, it wouldn’t be fair to require absent students to turn in 
classwork from when they were gone. 
 
4) Quizzes, tests, projects, etc. -- what will this look like in your class and 
how will it be assessed and/or graded? 
 
Quizzes are always forewarned-- students will always see them coming, 
because it’s important to me to have a shared sense of trust with students. ​This 
is because, empirically, a socially safe environment where students feel in 
control and respected has the utmost positive implications for learning (Beers; 
Miller 80; Zull 52).​ I have even dabbled in the idea of making a unit schedule to 
share with students so they know what’s due on each day of a given unit, 
similar to the way college course syllabi are built. There will be both graded and 
ungraded quizzes in my class.  
 
Graded quizzes are likely to follow a reading assignment to incentivize student 
participation/interaction with the text. Reading quizzes are going to be 
designed to cover big ideas in the text, rather than “gotcha” inspired quizzes 
about details, as those can sometimes stump even students who have actually 
read the text. I also hope to design quizzes and assessments in a way that 
measure c​ omprehension​ of the text rather than ​completion​ of the reading.  
 
Exams are going to be forewarned and well-scaffolded. A study guide will be 
provided to them, but it is only an outline of what will be on the test-- the 
actual content information will be drawn from their notes and any in-class 
review we do. All in-class slides, notes, and handouts that I lecture with will be 
posted on the class website for study purposes. This is because I want to 
provide as much access to class material as I can. Though some teachers might 
figure providing the notes online might discourage student attentiveness or 
attendance, I figure that it’s up to me to make class worth being physically and 
mentally present despite the accessibility of in-class material. I also encourage 
students to pool information and study resources, perhaps building study 
collaboration into the end of a unit as a means of exam prep.  
 
Exams will be difficult, but not unfair. I want to challenge students and I want 
them to feel proud of the way they demonstrated their knowledge. 
 
5) Late work and incomplete work – will it be accepted? If so, when, how and 
for how many points? 
 
Late work will be accepted for full credit of the a
​ ssignment​, but the points 
available for turning the work in on time will have been forfeited. ​See the above 
section for more examples and explanation. 
 
Incomplete work will not be accepted because students can hand in completed 
late work for full credit. There should be no reason an assignment is not 
completed to the best of student ability. If a student is struggling with a 
portion of the assignment, they should confer with me and we can work out a 
solution to ensure their success. 
 
6) What is your policy on redoing formative assignments/work? Will you 
offer revision/redo options and if so, how much/many points can be earned 
back? 
 
Revision is invited and encouraged for formative work. Work can be redone and 
completed at any time for full credit. The only thing I will not accept is 
incomplete work, as there is no reason you should hand in something that is 
unfinished if you have unlimited time to complete it. If a student is struggling 
to complete an assignment, I will confer with them in order to get the 
understanding they need in order to be on target. 
 
7) What is your policy on retaking or redoing summative work (quizzes, tests, 
projects)? Will you offer retake/revision options and if so, how many points 
can be earned back? 
 
Revision is encouraged and available to anyone who is not satisfied with their 
grade. When papers and projects are handed back, students have until the end 
of the semester to revise and resubmit as many times as they’d like for a full 
fair reassessment. For example, if a student’s initial submission earned a C, 
and their resubmission was B+ work, their grade is updated to a B+ because 
they demonstrated an understanding closer to the target. The date that all 
resubmissions are due by is explicitly communicated to students from the first 
day of class when policies are outlined, and continually referenced and 
reminded throughout the semester. 
 
8) What will your grading scale be? Will you give zeros on a 
one-hundred-point scale? If you use a 4-point scale, what will each level 
mean? 
 
In all honesty, I love the traditional grading scale simply for its familiarity and 
aesthetic ease of use. However, many scholars agree that it is not best practice. 
A study in the scholarly journal ​College Teaching​ mentions that though the 
traditional grading scale is widely used, “grading practices based on 
accumulation of points/percentages relative to pre-identified grade ranges… 
vary widely among instructors and mix academic achievement with factors 
such as attendance and participation” (Buckmiller 151). For this reason, I have 
opted to use standards-based grading. The completion of each given learning 
goal or student objective is individually assessed and assigned a number one 
through four, with one being the lowest level of understanding and the 
furthest from on-target. This means my class is going to rely on a lot of 
rubrics, but I don’t mind that: it’s a good way to show students visually where 
they are with the learning objectives. 
 
9) Will you offer extra credit? Why or why not? If so, what will it look like? 
 
Extra credit is offered and encouraged. All extra credit, however, is content 
based. Extra credit assignments will be based in the content and are intended 
to extend student interest and practice. The extra credit assignments are 
designed to reward student inclination to learn more and learn for learning’s 
sake. However, the grading scale for extra credit is designed to be subtle 
enough in the gradebook that it d ​ oes not​ disadvantage anyone or ultimately 
decide the grade of a student.  
 
My hopes in setting up extra credit this way is to incentivize students to take 
their research into their own hands and connect learning to their own 
interests. One study on incentivization found that between volunteers and 
employees doing the same task, the volunteers put more value on the work 
they were doing and in turn put more effort into doing the task to the best of 
their ability. The same study found that volunteers found more satisfaction in 
the completion of the task. Mugumi Omori and Heather Feldhaus write that 
though researchers “did not find a significant difference in intrinsic 
motivation (interest in job, enjoyment of doing the work, etc.) between the 
two” they did “[find] a significant difference in service motivation (a chance to 
make a real contribution, identification with the mission of the organization, 
etc.) with volunteers” (Omori 17). Research like this is what grounds my extra 
credit policy: I want to give students the chance to be rewarded for pursuing 
their own learning and taking the responsibility of their learning into their 
own hands.  
 
One study confirms that “extrinsic motivation can promote successful 
learning and productive behavior,” admitting that there are also considerable 
drawbacks, such as the diminishment of the recognition of the intrinsic reward 
of knowledge (Lei 15). Scholar and neuroscientist James Zull agrees with this 
evaluation of intrinsic motivation, writing in his book​ The Art of Changing the 
Brain​ that intrinsic motivation has the most important implications in the 
classroom, pointing out that “the first thing our controlling brain sees in a 
reward or punishment is loss of control”--something I ​don’t​ want students to 
feel (Zull 53).  
 
Like I’ve said earlier​, one primary aim of my grading philosophy is to put 
power and responsibility concerning knowledge back in the hands of the 
learner. However, knowing all this, I have still opted (at least for now) to offer 
extra credit. I do want to promote the recognition of the intrinsic reward of 
knowledge because of the multiple long-term implications and benefits it 
fosters for the learner, but I also want to reward students who are willing and 
zealous to pursue knowledge, and it is that opportunity that drives my decision 
to leave extra credit opportunities open to students. 
 
10) Group grades – if students complete a group assessment, how will you 
assign grades to each member of the group? 
 
Any group projects and activities that I plan on grading will be designed in a 
way that requires the completion of ​solo work​ that aids in the completion of 
the group project. For example, assignments like brainstorming worksheets, 
research analyses, and a potential outline of each student contributors’s 
addition to the project will hold an individual assignment grade that 
contributes to the individual student’s grade on the group project. 
 
Each student receives an individual and standardized grade for their part of the 
work done. No project will ever be graded as a cohesive group. To get even 
more insight from students about their learning process, I will create a sort of 
self-assessment where students can evaluate their classmates as collaborators 
as well as evaluate themselves as learners and sharers of information. From 
these evaluations, the overall quality of the student’s individual contributions 
to the project, and all classwork conducive to the completion of the project, I 
will devise the student’s individual grade for the learning they did in the group. 
 
11) Academic integrity– what is your policy regarding students who cheat, 
copy, or plagiarize?  
 
I take cheating very seriously, but I don’t want to damage the grades of 
students who already feel so unsuccessful in school that they have to break the 
rules to succeed. The first cheating/plagiarism infraction warrants a meeting 
with me to discuss the seriousness of the choice to cheat, as well as to develop 
a success plan that doesn’t involve academic dishonesty. The second infraction 
will involve a letter home to parents and a second conference with me. The 
third infraction will see the failure of the quiz/project/exam/assignment (a 
reduction of the project’s grade by 50%). Any infractions following the third 
will warrant a report to administration and any implications thereof.  
 
12) Optional: add in anything else you deem necessary to ensure grading 
transparency and integrity in your classroom  
 
I think a classroom newsletter would be a beneficial but labor-intensive way to 
strengthen my collaborative relationship with parents and keep them in the 
loop concerning upcoming projects, field trips, units, and other important 
classroom news. 
   
 Works Cited 

Atwell, Nancie, and Anne Atwell Merkel. ​The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids 

Become Passionate, Skilled, Habitual, Critical Readers​. Scholastic Inc., 2016. 

Buckmiller, Tom, et al. “Questioning Points and Percentages: Standards-Based 

Grading (SBG) in Higher Education.” ​College Teaching​, vol. 65, no. 4, Oct. 

2017, pp. 151–157. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/87567555.2017.1302919. 

Johnson, Valen E. G
​ rade Inflation: a Crisis in College Education​. Springer, 2011. 

Lei, Simon A. “Revisiting Extra Credit Assignments: Perspectives of College 

Instructors.” ​Journal of Instructional Psychology​, vol. 40, no. 1–4, Mar. 

2013, pp. 14–18. E

​ BSCOhost​, 

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ite=ehost-live. 

Miller, Donalyn, and Jeff Anderson. T

​ he Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner 

Reader in Every Child​. Scholastic Inc., 2011. 

OMORI, MEGUMI, and HEATHER FELDHAUS. “Who Does a Better Job? Work 

Quality and Quantity Comparison between Student Volunteers and 

Students Who Get Extra Credit.” C

​ ollege Student Journal​, vol. 49, no. 1, 

Spring 2015, pp. 17–22. E

​ BSCOhost​, 

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site=ehost-live. 

Zull, James E. T
​ he Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching Teaching by Exploring the 

Biology of Learning​. Stylus, 2002.