October Classroom Assessment: What's in a grade?

In assessment I believe we educators and the system of education has evolved from just teaching to a test and taking test and moving on.  There is still a high pressure to teach to a test but here at Fisher we look for other ways to assess and use cooperation and team work and thinking outside the box so to speak. In my Spanish classes, I use a variety of activities and actions to absorb the language.  They hear the language authentically in speech, song, videos; they see it in posters, visuals, promethean board, handouts; they create it in google slides, websites, documents, posters, they connect culturally in discussion and reflect on their own experiences and make comparisons.  I like to think of these actions as layers that work toward a final assessment which is measured in the final action of a note taking/completing an interactive notebook activity, open book quiz, written test, project involving creation and sharing and research and  review.  Everyone has different learning styles and different ways they absorb the information.  The tendency in class is to keep the information  to themselves and so my role is to guide them to produce it and share it in class and develop confidence in sharing their  knowledge.

In effective grading, we need to consider three things: the purpose of the assignment, the type of grading, and whether or not there are options. How does this assignment measure up?  It's important to keep the focus on helping kids produce quality work.  I do struggle with the pressure to get things graded and the class size of students with 180 students and if I allow students to have multiple times to complete an assignment.  However, I build my lessons in working through a concept in layers and so if they don't get the concept on the first layer then there is another layer that is introduced to get the concept.  It's still a moving target and I haven't arrived for sure but I do agree that we as educators must keep this in mind: Purpose, Options, Measure up? and finally how does this assignment  lead them to produce quality work?    I sure don't want to be that educator that teaches them that MEDIOCRITY is GOOD ENOUGH.  However, I need to find balance too in not encouraging them to be perfectionists and being content that tasks are works in progress and we learn from them to continually improve and do better.  I do the best I can today with the tools I have today and where I am today.