Entrance slip: October 21

1) What are your "student bird" and "teacher bird" thoughts about assigning percentages or letter grades in the assessment of student work? What do the grades indicate? How are they arrived at? Whose purposes do they serve?

I believe assigning percentages and grades make students perform more for their marks, rather than the learning. But because of that, I don't think they're a good indication of what they've learned but rather how effective of a test taker they are. How they're arrived varies considerably from teacher to teacher as I've seen in my assessment classes. Depending on your perspective of what's important a teacher can assign a zero or a perfect mark depending on what they perceive to be important. The purpose of grades, are partially for a student to understand and assess where they're at in their learning, but they may even be more for universities so they can see where a student is at before accepting them if they've passed certain criteria. 

2) What are some of the unintended side effects of grading? How do grades and marks in themselves format the social relations and learning situations in a classroom, a school, a district?

students perform more for their marks, rather than the learning. It can also devastate a students self esteem as it ranks them instead of motivates them. Test anxiety is another common issue associated with mark. Grades can also promote unhealthy competition and make them less willing to help each other learn, especially in university situations where marks are based on a scale. This creates a cutthroat environment, and these behaviours can carry on into adulthood.

3) Could you imagine teaching math and/or science without giving grades? How could a teacher encourage learning without having an emphasis on grading?

Yes I can because I've seen it happen in classrooms already where students receive narrative feedback. I've seen this have a great effect on students and I plan on using narrative feedback as much as I can instead of grades.