3 Locations to Serve You! Edmond • OKC • Yukon Physical Therapy • Occupational Therapy • Speech Language Therapy Now providing bilingual services at our Sooner Road and I-240 location. Thank you for voting us Best Special Needs Therapy Provider 3 years in a row!
What is narrative grading? Rather than assigning students a traditional letter grade, a narrative grade is typically several paragraphs written by the instructor providing feedback on the student’s performance in the class, noting their strengths, areas for improvement and how they met the objectives for the course. A partial example of a narrative grade given to students on a quarterly basis is below: [Student*] participated in each and every one of our in-class discussions. As teachers, working online and remote, we cannot state how much of a blessing this was to us. While not being the only student who talked, [Student] was someone we could always count on to bolster any given group of students partaking in conversation ... [Student] is unafraid to ask questions and think deeply; he’s also willing to admit when he doesn’t understand and is able to serve as the mouthpiece for a larger audience who more than likely had the same question(s)! [Student] ... showed up [to] each of his four class periods on time, prepared and full of encouragement for his classmates. On our days more full of discussion, [Student] had question after question at the ready ... but, more than anything else, [Student] demonstrated that he’s someone capable of talking to anyone about anything with an ease and comfort not often displayed in those of us who’ve left our college years behind, let alone for someone who is only just beginning his high school career. *The student’s name has been removed for privacy. But increasingly, the reliance on letter grades as an arbiter of scholarship and success is being scrutinized. Alverno College, a four-year liberal arts school in Milwaukee, Wis., was an early adopter of narrative reports in lieu of letter grades, creating a more individualized account of a student’s progress. “The system of student assessment at Alverno College does not include reference to letter grades,” reads the college’s course catalog. “In fact, one tenet of the College’s educational philosophy is that the faculty do not evaluate students comparatively using letter grades. Instead, we establish criteria for effective performance in each course. In the graduate programs, these criteria reflect standards for achievement within the discipline and professional areas, which guide all courses in the specific program.” Narrative assessments are closer to the way real life works. For example, with the exception of the military, most employee evaluations are narrative — rarely does an adult receive an A-to-F grade for what they accomplish in the workplace. According to Alexander Astin, author of the 2016 published book Are You Smart Enough? How Colleges’ Obsession with Smartness Shortchanges Students , a narrative assessment will tell students and parents far more about individual progress than a letter grade with no supportive data to back it up. “Narrative evaluation provides students with individualized, detailed feedback,” wrote Astin. “Students are not only informed about how well they have mastered the course content but also provided with specific information about their strong points and areas where improvement is needed. This kind of evaluation also affords the professor an opportunity to give the student feedback about basic cognitive skills, such as writing and critical thinking. Narrative evaluations can not only be extremely helpful to the student but also, because the process itself requires the professor to get to know the student’s work personally, strengthen the relationship between the student and faculty member.”
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