Grading students with significant disabilities can be really hard. Like really hard. I always just assigned my students an "A" because if they aren't understanding something that's on me. I'm their teacher and if they aren't understanding the content that means I didn't effectively teach it. But grading is a part of being a teacher, especially in a public school setting. My students are required to get report cards which I never felt meant a ton. I always gave out maybe one or two grades per class and let me tell you everyone got a 100!
You get a 100! You get a 100! I really channeled my inner Oprah.
But I felt like I was wasting my time and it really didn't mean anything for my students' performance. I don't like wasting time and I really do not like when I feel like something is meaningless.
We have enough on our plates as teachers and if we are going to be required to do something we should try to find a way that it can be meaningful for our kiddos. At least I feel that way. I don't like to half-ass things, which led to the development of a system for grading.
If your district has a system for you, that is fantastic. Keep using it or tweak it using the system I have created for my room. The goal is to create less work for you (and myself). My district really didn't provide us any guidelines on how to develop grades for our students with complex and significant disabilities other than the expectation that we assign our students grades. I took it upon myself to make a system that would work in my self-contained classroom and be meaningful to my students, their families, and myself.
I created a rubric that I use to grade my students. It takes into account mastery level and prompting needs as well as task completion. I absolutely do not grade every assignment or activity we do in our classroom. My goal is pick 1-2 assignments a week per subject. I typically choose assignments that we are working on in small group settings instead of whole group so that I can better access student understanding.
Step 1: Create a data sheet that you can collect data or use this FREE data sheet. I prefer to have a single page data sheet per subject so that I can group my students on the page as I see them in their small groups. I take trial data on whatever skill we are doing and label the data and what we are doing (assignment or the skill). I use a simple +/- data collection key when taking instructional data.
Step 2: Convert your raw data into a grade value. I use the rubric I create to convert the raw data into grades. You can have a single rubric per student or you can use it as a reference and record your grades on a more traditional grade sheet. I personally like have a traditional grade sheet like this one.
Step 3: Input your grades into whatever system your district uses. I input my grades every other Friday and just check off on my physical grade sheet which ones I have input so I can easily track where I am.
That's it. Now you have a system to assign more meaningful grades to your students! As you can tell I love a system but I really need a schedule to make sure I'm not super overwhelmed when the grading period ends since it also typically aligns with progress reporting time for IEP goals.
If you would like the grading rubric you can get it here!
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