[abc123gal]

I'm going to be new to middle school this year from over 20 years in elementary. How much should my assignments be weighted?
I plan to have:
-an interactive notebook or daily worksheet
-bellwork/exit slips
-class reading/discussion
-unit tests
I'm just wanting some ideas from how others do it.
TIA!!

[KAN]

I am interested to read what others say. We are not allowed to take a grade for anything except assessments.
Back in the day, when we could take grades on homework, I did 10 points for each homework assignment and it ended up being about 10% of their grade.

[Youthcantknow]

I tend to assign more weight to assignments done in class to hold the kids accountable for getting their work done. I also figure that I'm there in the room with them, so there are fewer excuses for not doing well. Like the pp, homework was only 10% of my weighting system so that students wouldn't fail just due to homework. One thing to keep in mind when determining the weight for unit tests is to decide whether there are enough tests in a marking period to prevent one low test grade from having an significant impact on the marking period grade.
I hope you enjoy middle schoolers- they're my favorites!

[Rockguykev]

As little as you can get away with. Daily assignments are learning activities. It doesn't seem fair to evaluate learning before the process is done. For me it works out to be about 25% of the grade simply because we're required to update grades bi-weekly and I don't always have a test fall in those two weeks.

[cid0926]

You might want to check with your administrative team. Our district set up our weighting percentages for our digital gradebooks, ie 40% tests, 30% projects, 10% quizzes, 10% homework and 10% classwork. Then it is up to us how we choose to categorize our assignments and the actual points allotted for each assignment. These worked out reasonably well balanced for most teachers.

I am going to try something a little different for my ELA and SS class this year and grade everything on a rubric scale 1-4. As long as they were in class for the instruction they will automatically receive a 1, and then points will go up from there.

[NJMath]

I use points, rather than percent weights. I make tests 100 points, quizzes around 20, homework 2 points/day, do now's 2 points, notebooks 20 points per chapter, participation 50 points per marking period.

One of the main reasons I use the point system is because you have more flexibility with it. If you wind up assigning a big project you hadn't thought of when you decided on your grading policy, you can decide on a fair number of points for it at the time of the assignment, which you can't do with weights. I have also seen some teachers run into issues with weights where they may say that quizzes are 30% of the grade but only end up giving 1 or 2, which is unfair to students to have it affect their grade that much. (I've seen other teachers use weighted grades just fine, but its just something to think about)...

[sjgriffin]

I am interested in your plan for the 1-4. I am starting a new job this year and need to revamp my grading.

Could you please provide more information?

Thanks

[Mshope]

We are not allowed to grade any assignments or homework. So we can grade some formative assessments like a quiz but students are permitted to re-take any assignment or test. We are mainly expected to grade unit type tests or writing assignments. For example, we would never be allowed to grade a class "discussion" because that is part of the learning process. Even our foreign language teachers are not allowed to grade participation because some students are too "shy." I disagree but that is the world I function in.

However, this is concerning because some kids will have a low grade. We are not (unofficially) allowed to give low grades, so I throw in some writing assessments. I occasionally grade an exit slip. I just feel like they don't all turn them in or will do a terrible job if it is not assessed.

I really never used weights, just a point system.

[mrsd5]

We weight this way:

Summative assessments: 80%
Formative assessments: 20%

All assessments must earn 70% for a student to show proficiency. Students can retake as many times as they need to show proficiency, at least until the end of each quarter. It is a nightmare to keep track of. Most students figure out that passing the first time is easy so they don't have to go through the steps of remediation before retaking an assessment. I agree with this weighting in theory, but it is a LOT of work for the teacher.