The Doctor is in: Time for an Academic Physical with Dr. Nikki Roorda

Every day, in millions of doctors’ offices across the world, people go in for their annual physical exam.  This process brings out a multitude of emotions from patients including, but not limited to, “I hate going to the doctor.  I know s/he is going to tell me to lose a few pounds and to stop eating out so much” to “I am excited to see how my changes in lifestyle choices have impacted my high blood pressure,” and everything in between. 

The purpose  of health screenings is defined by the American Medical Association (AMA)  as, “Health care services or products provided to an individual without apparent signs or symptoms of an illness, injury or disease for the purpose of identifying or excluding an undiagnosed illness, disease, or condition” (2000).  The  AMA contends that through the use of screening, our doctors can determine if a medical emergency exists.  No matter what thoughts go through our minds when we go in for our annual physicals, at the end of the day we trust in the process of the health screen to keep us safe from underlying medical issues.

Advertisement

ATI Annual Grading Conference Expands Focus

 

We were riding high after a great ATI Summer Conference, but it was soon time to get back to work. For over a decade, ATI has offered its popular December Grading Conference and plans are well underway to repeat the event again this year. Our presenters and authors were brimming with ideas, and Rick Stiggins was no exception.

As standards-based, or proficiency-based grading gains traction, Rick urged us to stay ahead of the field by expanding our subject matter to address other practices that contribute to better student outcomes by improving feedback from teachers.

This year, grading practices will be just one of several topics related to communication about student achievement address in the conference sessions. Conference participants will have the opportunity to study the basic principles of effective communication about student learning in any school context.

Grades as Communication

By Ken Mattingly

Grades have served many purposes for many people over the years.  The general intent, I’ve always believed, has been to represent how students are doing in school.  However there’s often disagreement on the specifics of the grade and exactly “how” it represents student performance.  Some feel a grade should reflect the amount of work done by a student.  Others view a grade as a representation of when a student learned the material. I would argue that each of these camps are missing out on a key aspect of a grade.

This I Believe

By Ken O’Connor

As I have been involved in some interesting and at times, contentious, discussions about grades over the last few weeks, I thought that this would be a good place to reaffirm my beliefs about grading. I agree that the ideal would be narrative feedback only K-16, and I am a great fan of colleges like Alverno in Milwaukee. However, for the foreseeable future, grades will be required in almost all colleges and high schools, many middle schools, and some elementary schools. I believe we should continue to try to move not having grades as high up the grade levels as possible, but we also have to fight to make traditional grades better — more accurate, meaningful, consistent, and supportive of learning. So this is what I advocate: