Assessing and Evaluating Learning

One sentence I highlighted in Chapter 13: Assessing and Evaluating and Assessing Student's Learning is "By focusing their attention on trying to retain the 'facts,' students perceive their own unique responses as irrelevant to 'getting a good grade' and becoming more dependent on you for the 'right answer,' positioning you as the knowledge dispenser." This sentence really stuck out to me more-so than the rest of the chapter. I think that students need to be taught that there isn't always a right answer. Students may have interpreted the text differently at some points. The teacher's interpretation is not the right answer but it is one answer. Also, I don't think teacher's should be the sole knowledge dispenser in the classroom. For example, a teacher shouldn't give their interpretation of a book and quiz the students, expecting that the student's will write down the teacher's interpretations. A teacher should give multiple interpretations of a story and help the students to problem solve and narrow it down to the most likely interpretation.
In Section Four of the "Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook," the section talks about the negative impact of zeros. I feel like this was the most important part of the handbook. Putting a zero in the grade book can terribly misrepresent a students achievement. A student could have 100% on everything in the class but that one zero can drastically change that percentage at the end of the semester. Instead of assigning zeros to overdue assignments, I've noticed a lot of teachers will just take a few points for every day it isn't turned in. That way the student isn't receiving a zero. Instead they would receive a grade closer to 100% if they turned their assignment in a couple days late. I definitely want to use this kind of grading in my own classroom.