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Standards-Based Assessment System In A Christian Middle School Science Classroom, David J. Mulder

Master of Education Program Theses

Teachers in all sorts of educational settings have a common difficulty: accurately reporting what their students know, understand, and are able to do. Reporting the measurement of these assessments has traditionally been done through the assignment of letter grades. There is a fairly comprehensive and growing body of literature indicating the weakness of traditional letter grades for authentically assessing student understanding. This study examines an alternative to traditional grading practices. After reviewing relevant literature, I designed a standards-based assessment and evaluation system and put it into place in my 8th grade science classroom at a mid-sized Christian school in northwestern …