Picking a project

I'm still debating between two topics: Grading & Assessment, and the effects of TAKS tutorials. I know I won't have the data for the TAKS information until May or June, so today I'll focus my post on Grading.

Purpose: Grades are something that are a necessary evil as a teacher. All students receive some sort of check for their assignments, and the hope is to make the grades paint a more authentic picture of a student. If a student is a "B" student, only because he turns in every assignment a day late--how can the parents know how to help. The more information they have about the grades, the more they can play an active role in their child's education. I want to research how different methods of grading and assessing can improve student performance.

Significance: The more information a student and parent has in their pocket, the more they can do with it. If a parent can look at an assignment and see that their student turned it in on time, but received a 73. It gives a lot more information than the student who received a 93 on the assignment, but turned it in two days late--receiving the same 73. I want to focus on Marazano's bookGrading and Assessment that Works, and compare it to other books and schools that are separating out the academic grades from a student's "ethics." The hope is to paint a more complete picture of what a student is doing in the class.