Case Book One

Ms. Leus is sitting at her desk, re-reading the teacher handbook. She is shaking her head, and looking back and forth between the handbook and her grade book. Behind her, the computer screen visibly shows a spreadsheet with student names and columns of numbers. Her colleague, Connie Calme comes into the room.

MS. LEUS: Connie, it is good to see you. Thanks for coming by. I really can't figure out this new software-grading program. The spreadsheet and my grade book look alike, in that all of the entries are the same, but my calculations come up differently than on the spreadsheet, and if I follow the handbook, everyone in my class is earning an F. Something is not right!

MS. CALME: Okay, Remy, let me look. First, did you weight any of the columns so that the spreadsheet program counts one column more heavily than another one? Even one column counting twice as much as the rest is going to throw you off. Second, did you run the calculations program correctly? When I did mine, I found that two of my students had disappeared from the spreadsheet when I did the calculations. I obviously hit a wrong key somewhere!

MS. LEUS: I don't think I weighted any columns, but I will have to check that, as soon as I find that program manual that tells me how to do that. I thought I ran the calculations correctly, but they just don't make any sense. Look at Carlos' scores. He has all 100s, except for one 98 in my gradebook. Right? Now, look at the spreadsheet. I have the same scores, but they are coming out differently. Why? They don't seem to total the same.

MS. CALME: Give me one more second of playing with this. There it is! Look, the spreadsheet program is treating these scores as percentages, not as whole numbers. That may account for some of the problem. The rest of the problem is probably due to the fact that you have missing numbers in this column over here. Unless you tell it not to, the program makes up numbers to fit vacancies in the data. My guess is that the program was automatically filling in the numbers. Let's print this out and compare it to your grade book, and then make any needed decisions.

MS. LEUS: I can't thank you enough, Connie. I know that this all works well if you enter the data right. I guess I didn't know that entering the data also includes specifying how the data appears. I didn't know about the missing data. I also am wondering if I can somehow reconcile my grading with the handbook.

MS. CALME: Are you out of alignment on the standards for grading?

MS. LEUS: Yes, I am lost. I have no idea what to do with this. If I follow the handbook, or my gut feeling, sooner or later, even if they do end up looking alike, they are focusing on different things. I believe that there needs to be room for teacher discretion. I have students that have really earned a D, but if they want to make up the work they missed, they can do so. I want to know that everyone succeeded. I want to be able to give a C instead of a D. I think that that is much more motivating, and I will see continued growth this next year!

MS. CALME: That is an interesting perspective. Let's print this for backup, and then see if the screens that are available give us any help on properly filing these grades.

Teacher Notes:

• Depending on the district you are in, you may have a range of technology support systems available to you. Make sure you spend some time learning how to use any unfamiliar technology. Do not hesitate to ask administration to plan for technology that you consider important in helping you improve instruction. In the above example, when the teacher has learned to properly use the software program, it will probably save her much time and effort. However, until she has learned that, she is likely to spend more time and effort in trying to learn it. The hope is that she does not get so frustrated that she walks away from it and does not use it. If you see that a colleague is not using technology that may be beneficial, you can offer to help that person learn to use the technology, but make sure you know it well enough you can really help someone else learn to use it.