Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What does "rigorous" mean?

So rigorous really means "Supersize Me!"

If two hours of homework a night is good, four hours of homework a night is better!

Looks like high quality linear thinking to me.

I don't give many homework assignments, personally. But those who do are frequently overwhelmed by tall piles of, say, arithmetic problems. One way they cope is to give a completion grade instead of checking each problem. And in fact, sixth grader's grades--even when you are assessing for proficiency in the benchmark--often reflect more of whether they finished an assignment or followed the directions than what they know of the material.

Here's a shortened version of the grading scale in my classroom:

Advanced: Goes beyond what is expected, shows understanding beyond expectations.

Proficient: Fulfills all requirements.

Partially Proficient: Fulfills almost all requirements. Shows almost complete understanding.

Novice: Fulfills some requirements.

Missing or Incomplete

Under this scale, I give no As for effort, but I do give Ds for effort.

If every school followed this scale, the grades that admissions committees received would be much more meaningful than the hodgepodge of teaching philosophies, formulae, grade inflation, percentages, averages, and holistic grading they now receive in disguise as a unified GPA system. There would still be some subjectivity and personal grading policies embedded. That seems to be inevitable.

My older dd (high school) gets completion grades for homework in some of her classes and it does count toward her grade, which I agree might be a way of inflating a grade even if the homework is poorly done. Fortunately, she is motivated to learn and isn't one to just write something, anything down to have it done.

My youngest (middle school) gets actual grades for homework quality and correctness, but homework contributes nothing to your class grade. The grades that show up on her report card are based 100% on her test scores (unit tests, quizzes, midterms, etc.). I'm not sure how I feel about that one. For a kid who is a bit of an erratic test taker due to some rather divergent reading of directions and attention to detail issues, it makes knowing her class grade a bit of a guessing game since how she thinks she did on a test and how she actually did rarely align.

In my experience, middle school teachers expend a great deal of energy explaining to students where their grades come from, and students still have no idea.

My expectations regarding a curriculum described as "rigorous" would be that it was one in which students were taught the skills that, when mastered, would allow them to demonstrate a high degree of proficiency in dealing with questions at all levels of Bloom's taxonomy, not just the first three, and which covered the field both broadly and deeply.

Have I mentioned that I'm used to my expectations not being met?

Dealing with all levels of Bloom's taxonomy. That's a specific definition, and actually fits with solid educational practice. One can only hope.