What are effort grades? What is your stance on this topic?

Effort grades can be given based upon completion of work or class participation. They can encourage students to try, even when the material seems difficult. 

In my class, I try to make sure that the majority of grades are assigned based on mastery of the standards rather than participation or effort. 

While rewarding students for effort can be beneficial in terms of student motivation, it can also lead to grade inflation and result in grades that do not reflect student’s knowledge (Arsyad Arrafii, 2020).

Because I teach courses that are assessed by end of course or AP exams, I try to do as much as possible to make sure that the grade a student earns in my class is a reasonable indication of the grade they can expect to receive on the standardized test that will come at the end of the course.


References

Arsyad Arrafii, M. (2020). Grades and grade inflation: Exploring teachers’ grading practices in Indonesian EFL secondary school classrooms. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 28(3), 477–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2019.1663246

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