My action research project deals with grading in schools. I think that we take too many grades and it waters down the students grades. I have had to change what I am doing because I have changed schools this year. I was going to implement a new grading policy school wide and document the changes I saw in grades in the World Geography department. We were only going to take one grade a week and see if there was a change in the grades. We were going to allow students to make up all school work, redo tests and assignments and turn in late work. Like I said before, I have had to change this plan. I am now going to take my four classes that I have and compare their average with the two to three grades we take per week to their grade if we only took one grade a week. I have predetermined what grades would have been the only grade. I think this is a great solution to my problem. It will also give me a little more accurate data because I will be using the same students with grades they would have gotten anyway. It also eliminates the worries that many of my colleagues have had about whether parents and administration would be willing to accept the one grade a week policy. I still believe that my hypothesis is accurate, that there will be minimal change in the students over all average. The timeline has changed a little but not much. I will use data from the first semester. 

Challenges

Challenges to the Action Research

I foresee a couple of challenges that may present themselves with my action research. I am only taking one grade a week next year.

1. Parents will question whether their child is going to fail because there are not enough grades.

I will address this issue by explaining the grading procedure to them in detail. I will assure them that their child will be able to redo any assignments that are low grades for points back on the assignment. I will also explain to them that I am able to give more feedback to the students.

2. The students will think that their assignments don't mean anything.

I plan to address this early on in the year. At the very start to be exact. All of their assignments will be worth their time. I plan on taking a quiz/test every week. They will be able to use notes or any assignments that they feel will help them with their quiz/test. They will notice that if they do the work in the class they will know the questions on the quiz.

3. The teachers that are also doing this will start deviating from the proposed plan.

I will try and talk to the teachers and explain the importance of this action research. The teachers that have agreed to only take one grade were also on my grading policy committee. They have read all of the same research that I have and so I hope they feel it is worthy of taking a look at.

Action Planning Template
Goal: Will taking one grade a week be beneficial to 9th grade world geography students, teachers, and administration?
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Discuss the need to change the grading policy.	Jorge Arredondo Dr. Elizabeth Cocina Aaron Smith SDMC members	March 2012	Interview	Group decided the need for a new grading policy
Read Research on Grading	Aaron Smith Morgan Camp William Schuster Jeff Cupp	March 2012	Education Leadership Magazine ASCD website	Discussion on research
Create a survey for teachers and staff to take	Aaron Smith Morgan Camp William Schuster Jeff Cupp	March 2012	Survey Monkey	Teachers completed a survey on survey monkey. 39 teachers out of 120 responded
Create a survey and give it to a sample group of students	Aaron Smith	May 2012	Questions for the survey	Collect data from the survey
Evaluate STAAR results for World Geography from 2012	Aaron Smith Morgan Camp William Schuster Jeff Cupp	Aug. 2012	STAAR results for World Geography	View STAAR results
Create Survey Monkey to evaluate the new grading policy	Aaron Smith Morgan Camp William Schuster Jeff Cupp	May 2013	Survey Results	View and discuss survey results
Create a evaluation survey for sample students	Aaron Smith	May 2013	Survey Results	View and discuss survey results
Evaluate STAAR results for World Geography from 2012 and 2013	Aaron Smith Morgan Camp William Schuster Jeff Cupp	June 2013	STAAR results for World Geography from 2012 and 2013	View STAAR results
Reflection of Information	Aaron Smith	May 2013	All Data collected	Reflect on overall aspects of the action research

Week 2

I have read all the comments so far. I appreciate the feedback that has been given. I have found out at my school that grading is a very hard topic to discuss changing. I am going to explain the grading policy that we have now and the grading policy that we will have next year. The grading policy from this year is that teachers need to give 3 grades a week. That was the only stipulation.The new grading policy will be as follows:

The mission of the Grading Policy Committee is to agree upon and implement a consistent school wide grading policy that supports student learning, reflects individual student academic progress, and motivates students to take responsibility for their academic achievement.

Grade Percentages:

Grade percentages will be the same across grade levels.

 They are as follows:

Freshman- 50% Tests    50% All others

Sophomores-60% Tests 40% All others

Juniors- 65% Tests        35% All others

Seniors- 70% Tests       30% All others

All AP classes will be classified as senior level.

Retakes and Redo’s:

All teachers will accept retakes and redo’s of assignments for the length of the grading period. These items will be assessed up to a 70 to replace the failing grade.

Teachers may give another test or assignment and give full credit in place of the failing assignment.

Make-up Work:

All teachers will accept make-up work for the length of the grading period for full credit.

Make-up work is defined as work that was given when a student was absent.

Grades per Week:

Teachers will take a minimum of one grade a week and no more than three grades a week. Taking one grade a week allows teachers to grade for content and understanding more accurately. Giving more than three grades a week would deflate the value of the grades taken.

This is the grading policy that we as a committee came up with. My study will be with the World Geography teachers. We are only going to take 1 grade a week. That grade will be a quiz over the weeks assignments. There will also be a test every 3 weeks. Many people are concerned that this is not enough grades. I think it is plenty to see if a student has learned what they needed to learn for the week.

Educators using Blogs

Educators can use blogs in many ways. It is a great way to communicate with other educators and share your ideas. It is also effective in helping educators come up with ideas for their own schools. They are able to put news about what they are doing at their school out and receive feedback from others as to how they can improve those activities.

Action Research

Action research is a great way for the administration at a school to solve problems at their individual school. Action research is when there is a study done by school personnel and action is taken from the results of that study. It differs from educational research in a distinct way. In educational research much of the research and material is done by an outside source. It is not widely accepted at the individual schools because it might not deal with the type of students or it faculty might say well it might be good for that school but not here at ours. Action research is done on campus by the administrator and teachers on staff. School faculty take ownership in its findings and are more likely to accept the results. I am going to try an action research to find if giving less grades will increase learning. Right now our campus makes us give three grades per week. I am asking if they will let my world geography team only give one grade per week. We are going to compare the STAAR results from this year and next year to see if scores improved. We are also going to look to see if feedback to the student has been more productive. My hypothesis is that by giving less grades we will be focused less on how much has to be graded and more on the quality of the work being turned in. We will be able to realize when students need to go back over something more effectively.

Just Started

Ok I have just started blogging. I am making this site as an action research site about grading. I feel that teachers give too many grades that don't count for anything. I feel schools justify giving a lot of grades so that it "helps" students. What a croc it just means more work for teachers!