Education, Math, and More with Mr. Allison

 I saw a Facebook post this week where a parent stated, "Grades are not a measure of knowledge, but a measure of compliance." Unfortunately, I think there is a lot of truth to that in our culture today. My goal with grades is the opposite, though. Grades should be representative of what a kid knows. Years ago, the math department where I work established test scores as 75% of a student's grade. I cannot speak for other teachers, but this has worked well to help kids LEARN the material, instead of counting on lots of completion-graded homework and classwork points to keep their grades high, even when their knowledge is lacking.  Take a class with 1000 points possible in a grading period, where students take three 100-point tests. If a teacher grades everything but tests for completion, a student could turn in every paper with every answer wrong and "earn" 70% of all the possible points. In most schools today, 70/100 is a C. Even if this student scored a zero on e...

Next month, I'll start my 18th year as a teacher. One thing I've learned over the years is there's always more to learn. Most of the time when you turn a good idea into reality, it works for a little while before some kids figure out a way to circumvent it. But one idea a friend of mine and I came up with many years ago still works well for me today. It's a curve for grading tests that actually works!  Here is a link to a spreadsheet calculator you can make a copy of and use! What does that mean, that it works? Everyone's heard of the bell curve of old, but that's been widely denounced as unfair. A certain percentage of students make A's and a certain percentage make F's, even if only a few points separate the highest and lowest grades. If the highest grade was 100 and the lowest a 90, you would still have students making F's. My friend and I agreed that was ludicrous.  Another common method of curving grades is to simply add a certain amount of poin...

 When I started teaching Advanced Placement Statistics in 2013, I was excited, but pretty much clueless about how to grade. I think this struggle is common to most teachers who begin teaching AP classes. My approach to grading has evolved over the years and I think I have a pretty good approach, worth sharing for those who are new to AP. If you like it, feel free to use it. If you don't, I hope you find another great approach that works well for you and your students.  **IMPORTANT NOTE -- The system I use was not developed in collaboration with any other teacher or entity. Do not infer that it is endorsed or backed by College Board or other AP teachers. You can find many approaches. This one may or may not work for you and your students. In this post, I will describe how I structure my tests, how my test grades are calculated, and how my course grades are calculated (balance of assessments and other assignments.) I will link you to a sample Google Sheet with a fabricated class...