Evaluation and Grading: The Biggest Teacher Fear!

Abstract

One of the most challenging steps in our teaching responsibilities is the evaluation of student progress. Evaluation can be one of the most threatening steps for the inexperienced teacher. Planning for student evaluation is an integral part of planning for teaching, not just the final step of the instructional process. As someone who has had to maintain a high GPA in order to gain admittance to your graduate program, you are most familiar with summative evaluation--an assignment or set of assignments that result in a letter grade that is supposed to reflect your overall grasp of course material at the end of a period of time. Without question, assessing your students with grades is one of the most important tasks you may be asked to do as a teaching assistant. However, just as important as summative evaluation--determined through quizzes, tests, term papers, mid-terms, and final exams--is the formative evaluation that we can do throughout the semester in order to assess how well your students are learning as they prepare for summative evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to help teachers, especially young inexperienced teachers, to face with their biggest fear and evaluate their students in a proper way. Paper presents several ways how they can do it easily.