Vignette 8

As I was reading the vignette about Mr. Brit, my first thought was, "why is he deciding what will be used to calculate the achievement grades at the end of the year!"  By waiting until the end to decide, Mr. Brit is probably leaving is students thinking this:

Will Ferrell aside, deciding which assessments will be used to calculate the final grade after they have been completed is doing the students an injustice.  

In order for learning to occur, mistakes need to be made, which involves a lot of risk on behalf of the student.  They need to have the safety of knowing these mistakes will only be assessed formatively, providing feedback on how to improve in the future.  It is therefore unfair, as well as detrimental to learning, to tell a student earlier in the year that an assignment is for formative assessment, intended to facilitate their growth and learning, and then turn around and use it in a summative manner, for final reporting purposes.  Students will feel betrayed, because they were ultimately marked on the mistakes they made under the pretense of growth, and will probably in the future not take risks, out of fear their mistakes will be summatively assessed down the road.

The only fair practice, which is conducive to learning, is to inform the students at the time of the assessment whether it is formative or summative.