Evaluating Students

When we assign a grade to a student, what are we evaluating? Teachers vary in what they consider “fair game” for grading, but most often a grade represents a combined assessment of each student’s learning achievement (testing what the student knows or knows how to do), general performance (the quality of work that the student produces for the course), and effort (how hard the student worked in the course). To reduce the amount of time and energy you and your students spend worrying about, or negotiating, grades, it is vital that you provide clear grading guidelines and enforce them fairly.