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Guskey
Casey,
I agree with your comment, even I have experienced such things. Many times in a chemistry class, students could mathematically solve the problem but could explain the chemical process.

O'Connor
Amanda
I agree with you that grading is subjective and emotional. Sometimes it is hard to draw the line. The student could be a good student who usually understands everything but makes one bad grade. its hard to decide if that bad grade is because the student doesnt try or if there was a misunderstanding and they actually tried.

Guskey
Casey i agree with your comment too. Teaching the students only what would be on a test is like spoon feeding the student to score well on the test. the students basically memorize what they need for the test. They don't learn anything.

O'Connor
Amanda I agree with you, sometimes it becomes hard for a teacher to become a fair grader. Specially because we happen to know the students,and also when we compare the answers to other students the answers seem to be close to the right answer. But it would not be fair to mark the answer right because it wouldn't be fair for the other student.

O'Connor
Hala, and others, It seems like some of us have the same thoughts when it comes to the statement "grading is not essential to learning" and I agree that there needs to be some sort of grade that comes out of an evaluation that tells the student what they need to work on and what their strong points are.

Guskey
Casey,
I agree with what your saying, I also feel like when a teacher teaches to the test, that the students are missing out on the full learning experience. I feel like these students are as prepared for future problems when they are being taught like this.

Guskey
Hala,

I feel that teaching to a test underlies more than teaching what "might" be on an assessment. I believe that students not only miss out on important material, they are taught how to get answers. They are taught to have a one track mind when taking tests, and not think much about the answer they come up with. I bet there are many students out there who only solve for answers and don't think about what the answer implies (like speed of a bullet exiting a gun being close to the speed of light).

O'Connor
Amanda,

I agree that grading is subjective and emotional. Sadly, it will always be emotional for some people. As teachers, it will be hard to give "good" students poor grades, but that grade can be less of an evaluation, more of a tool for learning. Also, the subjective side of grading can at times be avoided (and I'm sure will be when we become used to teaching) by knowing the content and grading format well enough to where we will become better judges for partial credit.

O'Connor
I completely agree with the perspective that grading is subjective and emotional. Though grading has hard numerical scores that seems to be objective, but they are indeed very subjective. It depends on what type of assessment that the teacher decided to use. Some might perform better when it comes to personal communication type of tests. For that reason, grading is very subjective. Also, teachers try to be neutral about grading, but there's always bias.
I disagree on the perspective that grading has a limited research base. As one one the point the article points out to support this view this that teachers often ignore experts' advices for grading. if they want to conduct a research tell the teachers to follow the guidelines. Therefore, the argument is weak and not convincing enough.

Guskey
Teachers teaching to the test happens when they have the test in their minds when deciding what concepts to cover. They will generally rely on teaching only what is on the test and nothin else becasue those are the only points being assessed. The teacher doesn't worry about going deep into the parts of a certian subject, even if it is important, if those points aren't going to be tested.
Testing what teachers teach is more of what should happen in classrooms. Teachers will only test material that was important enough to cover during the class time. There is little justification to test something that wasn't even covered in class, and the students shouldn't be exected to do this.