At Harvard-Westlake (HW) students and parents have the opportunity to see their grades four times a year, with the last time in June being your final grades that go on your transcript. While the three check- ins a year are helpful and much needed, especially for the parents, it would be extremely helpful to not only be able to see your grades more often, but to also know which assignments directly impact your grade. It is hard to tell when your grade changes either positively or negatively, what caused the change and which assignments have a bigger impact on your grade. As a student, it is very difficult and in some cases upsetting to not understand what is impacting your grade.While there is the opportunity to meet with teachers, meeting’s with teachers take time and sometimes it is not always possible to see your teachers regularly and keep up to date with our grade. There then comes the problem of teachers not being 100% transparent with your grade and just telling you that they will get a better understanding after you turn in your next assessment. This is a problem that is not only frustrating and annoying, but is also impacts student’s ability’s to earn a better grade in their classes. However, there is a rather simple solution to this problem.
When teachers calculate students’ grade, they often use some sort of spreadsheet where they input each graded assignment, and then it shows the impact of each assignment on students’ grade. This spreadsheet or grade calculation method should be available to the student and the students parents. Students and parents alike should be able to check hw.com and see each students’ current grade for each class. This way the student can see how their grade is changing and what is causing the most significant changes in their grade, which can also solve many potential misunderstandings or missing assignment issues.If a student went in and saw that their grade went down because of a missing assignment, then they can meet with their teacher right away and fix the problem, compared to the problem going undetected until grades come out each quarter. There have been many problems that I have had before where I had completed and turned in assignment, but yet my teacher lost it and counted it as a zero. Problems like these happen all the the time yet often go unseen by the student until grades come.By having grades available to see at all times, this would help avoid all potential problems.
As well as making grades open for students to see at all moments of the year, students would benefit from having their assessments graded and returned before their teacher assigns another test. There should be a precedent that teachers cannot assign a test and or essay or any other assessments without returning the previous one. Students get into study habits and it is often hard to tell what is working and what is not without seeing the results on the assessments. When teachers test without handing out the previous test, it is difficult for the students to know if the way they studied worked, and if they have to change something before the next test. By getting the results back on your test before your next assessment, it gives you time to make the necessary adjustments and learn from your mistakes.
If teachers made these adjustments would make school so much easier for students and have a significant impact on their grades.
