M.Phil.

ELM
2nd Semester
Quality Assurance

Presentation on
“GRADES IN QUALITY SCHOOLS”

Presented to
Dr. Farah Naz
Presented by
Aniqa Kafeel
Batool Ishaque
Syeda Saman Fatima
Irfa Ahmer Paul
You will know:
• Meaning, purpose, types of Grading & Grading System in various
countries
• Advantages & disadvantages of grading.
• What successful people say about success & failure
• Different Criteria for Grading
• Grading in Quality Schools
• Quality Teaching Methods for Quality Grades
• Best Grading Practices
• Quality teaching methods & strategies for best quality grades
 Meaning of Grading
Grades provide information. A grade assigned to a student serves
multiple purpose depending on who views it.
 Purposes of Grading
1. The primary purpose of the grading system is to clearly, accurately, consistently, and fairly communicate
learning progress and achievement to students, families, postsecondary institutions, and prospective
employers.
2. The grading system ensures that students, families, teachers, counselors, advisors, and support
specialists have the detailed information they need to make important decisions about a student’s
education.
3. The grading system measures, reports, and documents student progress and proficiency against a set
of clearly defined cross-curricular and content-area standards and learning objectives collaboratively
developed by the administration, faculty, and staff.
4. The grading system measures, reports, and documents academic progress and achievement
separately from work habits, character traits, and behaviors, so that educators, counselors, advisors, and
support specialists can accurately determine the difference between learning needs and behavioral or work-habit
needs.
5. The grading system ensures consistency and fairness in the assessment of learning, and in the
assignment of scores and proficiency levels against the same leaning standards, across students,
teachers, assessments, learning experiences, content areas, and time.
6. The grading system is not used as a form of punishment, control, or compliance, what matters most is
where students end up—not where they started out or how they behaved along the way. Meeting and exceeding
challenging standards defines success, and the best grading systems motivate students to work harder,
overcome failures, and excel academically.
Purpose of grading and reporting:
• To communicate the achievement status of the students to their
parents and other stakeholders.
• To provide information that can be used by the students for self-
evaluation.
• To select, identify, or group students for certain educational
programs.
• For scholarships
• For admission in educational institutes
• For job purpose
 Types of Grading Systems
There are 7 Types of grading systems available. They are :

Percentage Grading – From 0 to 100 Percent

Letter grading and variations – From A Grade to F Grade
Norm-referenced grading – Comparing students to each other usually letter grades
Mastery grading – Grading students as “masters” or “passers” when their attainment reaches a
prespecified level
Pass/Fail – Using the Common Scale as Pass/Fail
Standards (or Absolute-Standards) grading – Comparing student performance to a
pre-established standard (level) of performance
Narrative grading -Writing Comments about students
Pakistan
Grading Scheme
Grade Percentage Marks Remarks
A+ 85 and above Excellent
A 80-85 Very good
B+ 75-79 Good
B 69-74 Moderate
C+ 65-68 Fair
C 60-65 Needs Improvement
D 50-59 Unsatisfactory
F 49 and below Failed
In the old grading system consisting of "Division Scheme", the range of
percentage of marks is as follows:
:
Percentage of Marks Division
60–100 First
45–59.99 Second
33–44.99 Third
0–32.99 Fail
Nowadays most Universities follow following grading system

Grade Marks GPA

A 90 and above 4.00
A− 85–89 3.7
B+ 80–84 3.3
B 75–79 3
B− 70–74 2.7
C+ 65-69 2.3
C 60-64 2.0
C− 55–59 1.7
D 50-54 1.3
F 50 and below 00.00
Finland
Several systems are in use in different educational institutions in Finland. The "school grade"
system has historically been a scale of 0 to 10, but all grades lower than 4 have been discarded.
Thus, it is now divided between 4, the failing grade, and 5–10, the succeeding grades. Upper
secondary school has same grades for courses and course exams as comprehensive school but
matriculation examination grades are in Latin. Universities and vocational institutions use a scale
of 0 (fail) and 1–5 (pass), or fail/pass.
France
In France, schools grades typically range from either 0 (worst) to 20 (best) or, sometimes, from 0
(worst) to 10 (best). A mark below the average (10 out of 20 or 5 out of 10, depending on the
scale) is usually a fail. For the French National High School Level (baccalauréat), a grade of 8–10
typically gives the right to take an additional oral exam in order to try to improve that average to
10 and pass. A grade between 10 and 12 is a simple pass (without grade); between 12 and 14
(more rarely 13–14) the grade is called "assez bien" (rather good); 14–16 is called "bien" (good);
above 16 is "très bien" (very good). An exams jury can award the "Félicitations du Jury" for any
mark, though they usually reserve it to a candidate who has achieved 18/20 or more.
Advantages and Disadvantages
of Grading
S.no Advantages Disadvantages

Takes the pressure off from the students at certain

1 It doesn’t instil a sense of competition
levels

Not an accurate representation of the performance

2 Grading Pattern description
and the knowledge gained

Gives the students an obvious idea about their

3 It is not an exact scoring system
weaknesses and strengths

4 Make class work easier Lack of incentives

5 Leads to a better rendezvous of ideas

 Advantages of Grading
1. Takes the pressure off from the students at certain levels:
In a general grading system as considered above, a student’s real scores and it’s associated marks are not
accounted on the official transcript, which denotes that their GPA will not have an effect on either a pass or a fail
mark category.

2. Grading Pattern description:

One of the main advantages of this method is that the studious children are clearly discriminated from the
average and below average type of students but this led to the development and mounting up of an intense
pressure amidst the students.
The advantages of the grading system are that the development of pressure upon the students in terms of
studying has appreciably reduced.

3. Gives the students an obvious idea about their weaknesses and strengths:

4. Knowing precisely which subject(s) are their weak spots, students can easily decide where to toggle
their focal point on.

5. a grading system where the alphabets are the scales, a grade of C or grade of D is known to speak a
lot.
6. Make class work easier:
Suppose if a student knows that getting a D is enough to scrape through the class
assignments section in the marking division, he or she will only focus on getting a D
without any fuss.

7. Leads to a better ideas:

Classes or the courses that are often taught in a classroom medium within the
confined premises of a school are highly difficult and are taken in the ultimate sense
as getting a pass or a fail on a subject. This builds a sense of responsibility in their
minds to work and train hard in their weak spots.

8. We Actually Don’t Know How To Learn Without Grades

One of the best things you can say about grades is that students and teachers are
used to them.

9. Grades Carry a Lot of Weight in the Outside World.

 Disadvantages of Grading System

1. It instill a sense of competition & not cooperation

2. We Couldn’t Learn for Learning’s Sake

3 We Don’t Need Grades To Train In Practical Skills

4. Grades fail to evaluate students in their nearly infinite

qualitative variations.
5. Not an accurate representation of the performance and the
knowledge gained.

6. Lack of incentives.

7. Grades aren't exactly driving us to greater heights of educational

enlightenment. They sure do cause a lot of stress though.

8. Grading is not an exact science, even if it pretends to be.

 How teachers should grade students’ Performance?
Grades should reflect students’ performance on specific learning criteria.

Establishing clearly articulated criteria for grades makes the grading process
fairer and more equitable.

Unfortunately, different teachers often use widely varying criteria in

determining students’ grades, and students often aren’t well-informed about
those criteria.

Often teachers merge diverse sources of evidence that distorts the meaning
of any grade.

Educators in many parts of the world assign multiple grades. This idea provides
the foundation for standard-based approaches to grading.

In particular, educators distinguish among the product, process, and progress

 Criteria for Grading

1. Product criteria are favored by educators who believe grading’s primary

purpose is communicating summative evaluations of students’ achievement
and performance. (They focus on what students know and are able to do at
a particular point in time.

Examples: Teachers who use product criteria typically base grades exclusively on:

final examination scores (e.g., reports, projects, or exhibits)

overall assessments
other culminating demonstrations of learning.
 Criteria for Grading
2. Process criteria are emphasized by educators who believe product criteria
don’t provide a complete picture of student learning. From this perspective,
grades should reflect not only the final results but also how students got
there. Teachers who consider responsibility, effort, or work habits
when assigning grades use process criteria.

Examples:
The same happens when teachers count:
classroom quizzes
formative assessments
homework
punctuality of assignments
class participation
attendance.
 Criteria for Grading

3. Progress criteria are used by educators who believe the most

important aspect of grading is how much students gain from their
learning experiences. Other names for progress criteria include
learning gain, improvement scoring, value-added learning, and
educational growth. Teachers who use progress criteria look at
students’ improvement over a period of time, rather than just
where they are at a given moment. Scoring criteria may be highly
individualized among students.
Example:
grades might be based on the number of skills or standards in a
learning continuum that students mastered and on the adequacy of that
level of progress for each student.
 Best Grading Practices

After establishing explicit criteria or indicators of product,

process, and progress learning,

Teachers then assign separate grades to each indicator.

In this way, they keep grades for responsibility, learning
skills, effort, work habits, or learning progress distinct from
grades that represent students’ level of achievement or
performance.

The intent is to provide a more accurate and comprehensive

picture of what students accomplish in school.
Grading in
Quality School
 Different methods used as an alternative to grades

1. Teachers write evaluations of the learners for each academic activity.

They may give feedback on each student's strengths, weaknesses, and
improvements during the classes.

2. Students focus on the in-person evaluation. For every semester they meet
with a tutor to discuss their academic success. Tutors tell learners where
they can improve and in which areas they excel.

3. Teacher issue students one of two scores: satisfactory or no credit. The

school does not record "no credit" scores on the official transcripts.
4. The schools which does not calculate GPAs, which can make it difficult for
learners to qualify for financial aid or transfer to other schools. To combat these
issues, the school encourages students to create portfolios of their course
work. Learners can include evidence like performance reports in various school
activities, capstone projects, and letters of recommendation.

5. A school gives students more agency over their degrees than other schools. The
school allows learners to design their own programs & challenges learners to
think about complex issues that face diverse communities and develop
leadership skills they need to succeed. In order to cultivate such a rigorous and
unique culture, the school developed a unique evaluation system.
The first part of the grading method is that learners evaluate themselves, their
teachers, and their courses.
Quality Teaching Methods

for

Quality Grades
 1) Take measures for enhancing Executive
Functioning of the brain or Cognitive Control
2) Develops Self-Regulated Learning Habit
from early age
3) Make Students Self-Directed
Learners
For adult learners

• Self-directed learning is a
characteristic of discipline by the
learner where no instructor or
facilitator is present and the
learner takes the initiative to
identify their learning needs,
create learning goals, gather
resources while choosing the
appropriate strategies to achieve
their set goals. Finally, they
evaluate their learning outcomes.
In SDL the learner has the freedom
to create their goals, and the
manner in which to achieve them.
VIDEO
4) 21ST Century Skills
 5) Choice Theory

Glasser wrote about six conditions which

should be considered by teachers for
improving grading system
• 1. “There must be a warm, supportive
classroom environment”
• 2. “Students should be asked to do only
useful work”.
• 3. “Students should always be asked to do
the best they can do”.
• 4. “Students should be asked to evaluate
their own work and improve it”.
 Suggestions for teachers on
how to grade & why to grade
Suggestions:

• Grading and reporting are not essential to the instructional process.

• Grading and reporting serve a variety of purposes, but no one method

serves all purposes well.

• Grading and reporting require inherently subjective judgments.

• Grades have some value as rewards, but no value as punishments.

• Grading and reporting should always be done in reference to learning

criteria, never "on the curve."
NAEYC Standard
• The teachers should support children’s learning using a variety of
assessment methods, such as observations, checklists, and rating
scales.
• Assessment methods should be appropriate for each child’s age and
level of development.
• Teachers should use assessment methods and information to design
goals for individual children and monitor their progress, as well as to
improve the program and its teaching strategies.
• Families should receive information about their child’s development
and learning on a regular basis, including through meetings or
conferences.
Strategies for Fair and Conflict-Free Grading

• CREATE A GRADING PLAN

• COMMUNICATE YOUR PLAN TO STUDENTS
• KEEP RECORDS
• CONSIDER THE DISTRIBUTION OF GRADES
• RESPONDING TO GRADE CHALLENGES
 Developing grading criteria
• Consider the different kinds of work you’ll ask students to do for your
course.
• Developing criteria may seem like a lot of work, but having clear
criteria can:
• save time in the grading process
• make that process more consistent and fair
• communicate your expectations to students
• help you to decide what and how to teach
• help students understand how their work is graded
 Making Grading More Efficient

• Create assignments that have clear goals and criteria for assessment.

• Use different grading scales for different assignments.

• Limit your comments or notations to those your students can use for
further learning or improvement.

• For each significant assignment, establish a grading schedule and stick

to it.
Providing Meaningful Feedback to Students

• Use your comments to teach rather than to justify your grade,

focusing on what you’d most like students to address in future work.
• Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.
• Comment primarily on patterns — representative strengths and
weaknesses.
• Avoid over-commenting or “picking apart” students’ work.
• In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry
by students rather than provide answers for them.
Role of teacher To Manage
Students’ Stress &
Fear From Grading System

Elevate self-esteem
Make practice the habit of students
Train students to set goals for
themselves
Persistence
Determination
Cooperation
Creativity
Collaboration
Critical thinking