Grading Policy
Key points on Grading
Grades should demonstrate
student progress/achievement
in regards to a specific learning
target
Feedback is essential to
student growth - rubrics and
comprehensive feedback needs
to be given to students
routinely
Growth is on-going
Artifact: Interdisciplinary Project Rubric
Below is a rubric created for our Interdisciplinary Project. The criteria included on this rubric
exclusively relates to the content learned and skills students had been practicing within the
classroom. Similarly, students were provided with the rubric at the very beginning of the project,
Description and its significance
At the root of my philosophy is the desire to create an equitable grading policy. At
the root of my philosophy is the desire to create an equitable grading policy. One
major component to this is creating an “accurate” grading system in which
grades “reflect only a student’s academic level of performance, excluding non-
academic criteria (such as behavior)” (Hough). Grades should relate explicitly to
learning targets that are based on subject content and skills. Thus, turning in
work late should inherently not be marked-down. Similarly, “effort” or
“creativity” are not necessarily content-related and should not be included within
a grade. There are certainly issues that could arise from such policies. However, it
is really important to make a grading system in which students are intrinsically
motivated rather than grade-motivated. In order for students to be intrinsically
motivated they need to see relevancy in the curriculum and be interested. If all
else fails, creating a seperate space where students are assessed on effort such as
a “civic disposition grade” is a more equitable system than most traditional
grading policies.
The large reason to assign grades to student learning is to demonstrate growth to
both students and their guardians. However, it is imperative that students
understand why they received the grades they did. Oftentimes, this can take the
form of rubrics which demonstrate what quality work looks like and where a
student's work fell regarding certain criteria. Similarly, students need to be
provided helpful feedback which highlights their strengths, areas of improvement
and physical steps they can take to improve their work going forward. Regardless,
students need to receive feedback routinely and provided with rubrics in advance
so that they can work to assess themselves, reflect upon their work and make
improvements.
I also believe that growth is on-going and students should be able to redo work or
submit assignments late. This policy is founded upon the belief that part of the
process of learning is revising our own work. Similarly, it is important that
teachers are flexible and acknowledge that there are other factors within our own
student lives. When grading, I also believe it is important to provide students
many opportunities to practice such skills/content before being formally
assessed. Thus, you are giving students feedback on their progression rather their
first attempt attempting a skill or learning specific content. When constructing a
grading policy it is essential to promote a growth mindset.
allowing students to assess themselves, reflect on their learning and identify areas to improve.
This rubric is also a space for myself to provide students with feedback regarding their
progression and achievement.

This is a single screenshot of the rubric. The entire rubric can be found with the link at the very
bottom.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DZWu-
N7IIvWaNA2eQ2_9hGlaqxv71SvTn4SVzfpM65k/edit?usp=sharing

Citations:
Hough, Lory. “Grade Expectations.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Ed
Magazine, 2019, www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/19/05/grade-expectations.