Authentic learning activities call for understandable assessments. In this chapter, the process used to involve students in developing an evaluation tool is described. This tool was used by a panel to grade proposal presentations developed in an authentic learning task.

If we take as a given that faculty are their own moral agents, and not mere agents of the educational institutions at which they work, online grading systems, which are increasingly popular and mandatory, compromise their ability to act ethically. This is because such systems reduce the nuances of a complex and challenging reality to the…

This article assesses the impact of the Bologna Process on the grading schemes of EU member countries. In light of some problems regarding the implementation of the European Credit Transfer system (ECTS), the author proposes further reforms and offers some elements of a unified grading system for European higher education. The author explores the…

There is nothing more frustrating for a student than to receive a project assignment with little or no description of how it will be graded. The student completes the project and then the teacher picks a grade by some unseen checklist. For students, parents, school administrators, and a program advisory board, this method of student assessment…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conferences on Educational Technologies (ICEduTech 2014), and Sustainability, Technology and Education (STE 2014). The International Conference on Educational Technologies (ICEduTech 2014) is the scientific conference addressing the real topics as seen by teachers, students, parents and…

The chronic academic underperformance and student failure of most American urban high schools are actually created by the antiquated way that schools evaluate student academic performance and award (or deny) course credits. When the school leaders in a small inner-city high school in Chicago began to question the "received wisdom" of…

The teacher's task of assigning letter grades to students and the public's interpretation of them can be perplexing. Does the student's grade represent the level of achievement, the gain in achievement, or some combination of the two? Is the student's effort included in the grade, or are high achievers given good marks regardless of effort? Are…

Since 2000, the General English Proficiency Test, a newly developed test of English, has been phased in by the Language Training and Testing Center in Taiwan. It has become the most universally used test of English in Taiwan, a fact that can be evidenced by its aggregate number of registered test takers. This article first describes the…

As the use of web-based homework delivery and checking systems expands, we have greater need to evaluate how students engage with these systems and how changes in the systems influence student behavior. Reported here is the assessment of WeBWorK, an open-source web-based homework program used largely in postsecondary math and science courses, with…

This paper describes the rationale for, and the design, implementation and preliminary evaluation of a taxonomy to guide the grading and feedback of ePortfolio assessment of personal development planning (PDP) in a module where PDP is integrated into the curriculum. Conventional higher education assessment methods do not adequately address the…

The relatively poor academic achievement of black and Hispanic students has been a national concern since the passage of the "Elementary Secondary and Education Act" in 1963. Frustrated with relatively slow progress in closing these educational gaps, the most recent reauthorization of the ESEA, the "No Children Left Behind Act of…

[Slides] presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2009. This study investigated the presence of a general rise in high school grades without a corresponding rise in SAT scores, as well as different grading criteria between schools, as shown by differential relationships between AP course grades and exam scores. These…

The present article examined the validity of public web-based teaching evaluations by comparing the ratings on RateMyProfessors.com for 126 professors at Lander University to the institutionally administered student evaluations of teaching and actual average assigned GPAs for these same professors. Easiness website ratings were significantly…

Because of a wide diversity of grading practices and policies among California community colleges, its impact upon students, and the need for compliance with state minimum standards, a study group was appointed to examine existing regulations and make recommendations to promote commonality among grading policies. Issues such as local autonomy,…

The purpose of this article is to deal with the following issues as they relate to educational grading policy: (1) to examine the use and misuse of grades in education; (2) to explore the use of performance based grading versus traditional grading and compare institutions using traditional grading versus those using performance based or…