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How does the total point system effect grading on improvement?  I like to consider improvement and it seems to me a slow start can't be overcome with the total point system.

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How does the total point system effect grading on improvement?  I like to consider improvement and it seems to me a slow start can't be overcome with the total point system.

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I like total points because of the impact one assignment can have the start of 4th quarter and the start of 2 quarter. It makes athletes eligible who really aren't because they failed 3rd quarter and with one assignment in 4th quarter are now passing. The opposite also happens in which a student has passed 3rd quarter but bombed the first assignment in 4th quarter and causing them to be ineligible.  Several teachers have mentioned that it really doesn't effect grades that much in the end. If that is true, then at least going total points for the semester gets rid of that inequitable time when the quarters change. 

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I like total points because of the impact one assignment can have the start of 4th quarter and the start of 2 quarter. It makes athletes eligible who really aren't because they failed 3rd quarter and with one assignment in 4th quarter are now passing. The opposite also happens in which a student has passed 3rd quarter but bombed the first assignment in 4th quarter and causing them to be ineligible.  Several teachers have mentioned that it really doesn't effect grades that much in the end. If that is true, then at least going total points for the semester gets rid of that inequitable time when the quarters change. 

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Even if we went to total points, teachers can still weight their grades through Power school.

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Total points system, please. This approach will reflect the overall body of a student's work better. 

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Total points system, please. This approach will reflect the overall body of a student's work better. 

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Can you use a Total Points system with weighted grades?

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We need to use the same grading system per district department. If a total point system is used, district departments need to determine common point system for assignments.  All classes across district should have common standards, assessments and grading policies.

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I prefer semester totals. If a kid has a super low grade at the end of the quarter, he knows no matter how well he does next quarter, he can never pass the semester. Totals give the kids hope that they can actually turn their grades around.

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I prefer semester totals. If a kid has a super low grade at the end of the quarter, he knows no matter how well he does next quarter, he can never pass the semester. Totals give the kids hope that they can actually turn their grades around.

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I am no math person but whether you do it 40/40 or 80 at the end, is it that much difference?  Seems to me how much you weight an assignment has a bigger impact.  Hold them accountable for each quarter.

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I am no math person but whether you do it 40/40 or 80 at the end, is it that much difference?  Seems to me how much you weight an assignment has a bigger impact.  Hold them accountable for each quarter.

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With the 40/40/20 we don't really "start over" at the new quarter.  Their semester grade is still there, and someone at a 20% before break is still at 20% total after break.  I think a clean point system is easier to understand than 40/40/20, and will be better for students and parents.

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With the 40/40/20 we don't really "start over" at the new quarter.  Their semester grade is still there, and someone at a 20% before break is still at 20% total after break.  I think a clean point system is easier to understand than 40/40/20, and will be better for students and parents.

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If there is one area of my teaching procedures that has been most contested (by parents), it is definitely my grading philosophy, particularly my use of weighted grades vs. total points grading. (That links to a really excellent article on the topic.)

During my first year of teaching I taught at a school where each department was meant to follow the same grading policy (a good idea, I think), so we managed this by using a weighted system. I no longer remember the percentages, but basically in all of our general English classes, you could count on tests being worth X% of your grade, homework worth Y%, and so on. It didn't matter if you gave a five-point test or a fifty-point test; as long as it was still categorized as a "test" in your grade book, it tied into the X%.

This is a system I have always liked and I continued using it when I switched schools (where it is currently not mandated that our department members grade the same way), despite the fact that very few teachers in our building use a weighted grade system.

This was my breakdown for the 2013-2014 school year.
Tests - 50%
Writer's Workshop - 25%
Homework - 15%
Quizzes - 10%

Pros to this setup:

I'm a firm believer that the student's grade is supposed to reflect mastery of the content, and tests are meant to assess for mastery. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to me that a large portion (half, in this case) of the class grade be assessment-based.

The percentages reflect the effort on the part of the student. Tests require the most effort, so they carry the greatest weight. Writer's Workshop (including all essay drafts, research skills, etc.) requires lots of time, effort, and mastery of skills that are tricky to assess on a standard test, so it was worth the second largest chunk of points. Homework and quizzes require less effort on the part of the student and, to me, are meant to be formative assessments rather than summative, so I didn't want them to tank a student's grade, but I wanted them to pack enough punch that the students took them seriously.

Weighting is very flexible. I don't necessarily have to promise 500 test points a quarter (out of a potential 1000 points, so I still have my "weighting"), with each test being worth 100 points. If I need to throw in another summative assessment, I can. If the test should really only be worth 80 points, no big deal. They are all still worth 50% of the student's grade.

My grade book software does the math work for me, so I don't really have to think too much about how many points something is worth. (How to properly assign points is definitely a topic for another post... I'm pretty opinionated on that too!)

Sometimes you have a quarter that is really heavy on one particular category and really light on another. For example, when my students do their research papers, they get tons of grades in the book categorized as Writer's Workshop grades (25%) but very few categorized as Homework (15%). So if I goof up and only give them one or two Homework assignments, and they goof up and do poorly on those one or two assignments, that has a 15% impact on their grade. This can be problematic.

Students (and often their parents) just. Don't. Get it. They often struggle with figuring out why that one zero in the grade book had such a nasty impact on their grade or why a twenty point test is more relevant than a twenty point homework assignment.

As much as I really like how well weighted grades work for me, I recognize that they sometimes don't work for my students and their parents. I'm nothing if not open-minded [in my humble opinion of myself ;) ] so this year I'm willing to try something different. I'm toying with the idea of a total points/standards-based hybrid.

I like a lot of the ideas that go along with standards-based grading, but I'm not ready to go all in yet (and I'm quite certain my not-so-progressive corporation wouldn't be wild about it either). That's why I'm trying a hybrid this year to see how it goes. It's definitely a big experiment. I'm still in the process of designing this, so bear with me. These are some of my ideas.

Use a total points system. No weighted system. Help students to keep track of their points in class so it is very clear to them why they have the grade they have. Student data-tracking works great in parent-teacher conferences.

Use a list of quarterly standards to guide my teaching (as always). Break those standards into student-friendly objectives (as always).

Create formative assessments (homework assignments, exit slips, etc.) for each objective. Make each one of these work W points. (Like, 10 points, and use this 10-point scale to show mastery of the objective.)

Create formative assessments (quizzes) to assess groups of learned objectives. Make each one of these worth X points.

Create large summative assessments for each standard. Make each worth Y points.

Using the standards list, create a quarterly pre-test and post test that tests all standards. Make this worth Z points.

What do you guys think? Any tips to improve on this idea? Think it will crash and burn? What are your grading philosophies?

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My Grading Philosophy and Trying Something Different

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If there is one area of my teaching procedures that has been most contested (by parents), it is definitely my grading philosophy, particularly my use of weighted grades vs. total points grading. (That links to a really excellent article on the topic.)

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Going to total points does not mean that you would have to accept an assignment from August in December.  You wouldn't.  It means that the penalty for the zero does not continue to hang over the student due to the rigid structure of 404020.

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Going to total points does not mean that you would have to accept an assignment from August in December.  You wouldn't.  It means that the penalty for the zero does not continue to hang over the student due to the rigid structure of 404020.

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Is either better for the student?
I've taught with district policies for "Have something in your syllabus" which could have included total points and with 40-40-20.  I'm not sure I've seen a significant impact either way on the student.  I do think it is good if everyone follows the same policy, school-wide and district-wide.  The first week of the 2nd and 4th quarters are hard for the students, if they have not been educated as to what the impact of missing an assignment is.

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After a lengthy discussion with my husband last night in which he advocated for total points as the ideal higher education grading system while I posited that weighted categories are easier to manage, it became clear that we were both clarifying some misconceptions. It occurred to me that there are probably many instructors who could...

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I think the benefit of having the 40-40-20 set up is that students have accountability sooner. With a quarter grade that really matters, students work harder to maintain grades. We see the slump that happens in the middle of the quarter. I think that slump would be much worse if grades "didn't matter" for months at a time. 

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I think the benefit of having the 40-40-20 set up is that students have accountability sooner. With a quarter grade that really matters, students work harder to maintain grades. We see the slump that happens in the middle of the quarter. I think that slump would be much worse if grades "didn't matter" for months at a time. 

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I prefer semester total points.  They still get their quarter grades - that doesn't change.  I do not like how a student can have a 100% for 3rd quarter, screw up the first assignment 4th quarter, and drop to an F for the semester.  Explaining to both parents and students that we have a 40/40/20 weight on grades makes that one assignment equal to an entire quarter's worth of work...for the time being.  

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I prefer semester total points.  They still get their quarter grades - that doesn't change.  I do not like how a student can have a 100% for 3rd quarter, screw up the first assignment 4th quarter, and drop to an F for the semester.  Explaining to both parents and students that we have a 40/40/20 weight on grades makes that one assignment equal to an entire quarter's worth of work...for the time being.  

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If I want something to carry more weight, I can simply make the assignment worth more points!

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With a total points approach the teacher can still apply a weight to the final exam that makes it more valuable than a standard assessment.  Also, there is much less confusion with regard to the grades that get so out of whack when we change quarters

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With a total points approach the teacher can still apply a weight to the final exam that makes it more valuable than a standard assessment.  Also, there is much less confusion with regard to the grades that get so out of whack when we change quarters

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I'd like to keep it the way it is. If we change it to total points, I'll have some students wanting to turn assignments from August in in December. Maybe if I didn't deal with Freshman? Or if I was tougher on accepting late work.

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I am unfamiliar with "total points". Does that mean that grades are not broken into quarters? So you're running grades like college? I've always felt that breaking the grading into quarters with a final at the end was the easiest way for students to handle the long time from Aug to Dec andJan to May. It gives students a fresh start at the beginning of each quarter. 

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I am unfamiliar with "total points". Does that mean that grades are not broken into quarters? So you're running grades like college? I've always felt that breaking the grading into quarters with a final at the end was the easiest way for students to handle the long time from Aug to Dec andJan to May. It gives students a fresh start at the beginning of each quarter. 

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I think the idea of separate grades for both quarters makes sense because it gives the student the best chance of seeing the error of their choices and allows for mistakes in the beginning of a semester to not only be corrected but also minimized. If you feel that doesn't make sense then consider that most courses are year long, but the grades are still divided into semesters. Imagine the student who has dug him/herself into a hole in August and September and he/she would be trying to extricate him/herself from that hole until April. Not much incentive to make the corrections...

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This should be a district level conversation so all students are on the same grading policy in our united district.

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Total points is a much more accurate reflection of student progress.  This is validated in many educational leadership circles.  When a system like 40-40-20 is used it penalizes students for mistakes that were made weeks or months in the past.  That is not a system that I can advocate for.

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Total points is a much more accurate reflection of student progress.  This is validated in many educational leadership circles.  When a system like 40-40-20 is used it penalizes students for mistakes that were made weeks or months in the past.  That is not a system that I can advocate for.

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In Math, we have a rolling 40-40-20 where we have the 40-40-20 system but we constantly adjust their quarter grade based on their test re-take. This way, someone is not punished for a poor start and is not constantly trying to play catch-up for starting off slow and trying to pass at the end.

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Someone please explain WHY we do use 40/40/20?  Because we always have is not a reason.  Total points more reflective of a semester's performance, it does not confuse anyone at quarter, and simply, it makes sense.  

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Someone please explain WHY we do use 40/40/20?  Because we always have is not a reason.  Total points more reflective of a semester's performance, it does not confuse anyone at quarter, and simply, it makes sense.  