CALEDON, Ont. – Some Grade 9 students at an Ontario high school will be able to negotiate their end-of-semester grades as part of a new pilot program the school is rolling out.
James Kardash, principal at Mayfield Secondary School in Caledon, Ont., says students will receive feedback on their assignments throughout the semester, but not grades.
At the end of the semester, they’ll sit down with their teacher, evaluate their coursework, and go over the feedback to show how they implemented it in subsequent assignments.
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Kardash says the student and teacher will then have a conversation and, ideally, come to an agreement on an appropriate final grade.
He says that if they can’t agree, the teacher will have a final say on the grade, but there will be an appeals process if the student contests it.
Some experts like the idea, saying it will allow kids to focus on the learning process rather than the grades.
But others say that while focus on feedback throughout the semester is good, assigning a grade should be the teacher’s responsibility.