Grading Smarter, Not Harder: Assessment Strategies That Motivate Kids and Help Them Learn

All the talk of closing the achievement gap in schools obscures a more fundamental issue: do the grades we assign to students truly reflect the extent of their learning? In this lively and eye-opening book, educator Myron Dueck reveals how many of the assessment policies that teachers adopt can actually prove detrimental to student motivation and achievement and shows how we can tailor policies to address what really matters: student understanding of content. In sharing lessons, anecdotes, and cautionary tales from his own experiences revamping assessment procedures in the classroom, Dueck offers a variety of practical strategies for ensuring that grades measure what students know without punishing them for factors outside their control; critically examining the fairness and effectiveness of grading homework assignments; designing and distributing unit plans that make assessment criteria crystal-clear to students; creating a flexible and modular retesting system so that students can improve their scores on individual sections of important tests.

Grading Smarter, Not Harder is brimming with reproducible forms, templates, and real-life examples of grading solutions developed to allow students every opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Written with abundant humor and heart, this book is a must-read for all teachers who want their grades to contribute to, rather than hinder, their students' success.

Myron Dueck is a vice-principal and teacher in School District 67 in British Columbia, Canada. He has previously taught in Manitoba and on the South Island of New Zealand. Over the past 17 years of teaching, Myron has had experience in a variety of subjects ranging from grades 3 to 12. As a teaching and administrative leader, Myron has been a part of district work groups and school assessment committees that have further broadened his access to innovative steps taken by others. He has presented his student-friendly assessment procedures to fellow educators in British Columbia, California, Idaho, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Greece. Recently, Myron has presented in both Los Angeles and Chicago at the ASCD Annual Conference and has twice been published in Educational Leadership magazine.