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How Do We Know What Students Have Learned?

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Abstract

This chapter delves into the enduring question how should we assess students? Starting with the initial introduction of grades into American schooling in the late-eighteenth century, the chapter explores how educators have continually questioned grading and assessment practices, experimented with alternatives, and tailored approaches in their own classrooms to balance the needs of students with institutional requirements. The first source, from 1918, is an article written by the superintendent of Hot Springs, Arkansas schools on his efforts to install a new grading system and teachers’ reactions to it. The following source is a report collecting short descriptions of the various ways teachers across Michigan were experimenting with grades in 1941. The third source is a contemporary teacher’s description of how he has come to implement standards-based grading in his classroom.

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Correspondence to Ann Marie Ryan .

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Ryan, A.M., Tocci, C., Moon, S. (2020). How Do We Know What Students Have Learned?. In: The Curriculum Foundations Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34428-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34428-3_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-34427-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-34428-3

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