12 Alternatives to Letter Grades In Education

I found this to be very interesting and I really liked #4.  In my music classes the students are always demonstrating their knowledge/understanding and ability to apply what they have learned.

http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/12-alternatives-to-letter-grades-in-education/

Does it Count?

“Does this count?”

This is a powerful statement statement when we are thinking about the importance of removing grades or marks from the ‘evaluation’ process. The idea of, “does this count’ indicates that at this point the student is valuing the grade over the learning.  I have seen it many times over, the motivation becomes I need to get an A overrides the original intention of the assignment or learning.  Nothing makes that more clear than when the student gets the assignment back they look at the Grade and immediately move on. If you were to ask the student a few days later, “What did you learn from that assignment?” The answer quite often, “Umm, I don’t know.”

“Does this count?”

When the intention of assignments is learning, then everything counts and it counts for authentic reasons. Students become engaged in the learning. The process and the journey are what’s important because that is the learning. The final product is the way to communicate what the student has learned but it is not the goal or the end point. The communication of the thinking becomes the launch pad for what comes next. When we remove the number or the value, it takes away that extrinsic reward or punishment and allows students and teachers the freedom to focus on the learning. After all, we are in the business of learning. Learning should not be the bi-product on the way to an A, it’s the learning that is the goal.

Learning or Achievement?

What is our purpose? Our why?

Most people want to say learning. Student learning that carries on beyond the classroom. But the further you get from the student desk, the harder it is to say that, and mean it. Get far enough away from the student desk and it sometimes becomes less about learning and more about achievement. More about standardized scores, grades and averages. When you can't see and hear and experience student learning directly, it is easy (and understandable) to look for measures to know how well our children are learning. The trouble is that these measures are limited in what they can tell you, just as they are limited in what they can tell the student.

Achievement is about yesterday.       

Learning is about now and tomorrow.

Students often see grades as an end point. Grades are history. Whether it's an A or a D, a grade says "That's it for me. All done. Nothing left to learn here." Student learning motivated by a grade is artificial. Deep learning for a purpose is powerful. Self reflection and feedback from educators, peers, parents and the global community make learning iterative and meaningful. 

If a student asks themselves, "What did I take away from that assignment/task/project/experience?" and the answer is "A 72." then what do they do with that? However, if the answer includes statements like, "I want to learn more about..." or "I discovered that I need..." or "Now I see a connection to..." then the learning continues.

So, why do we still have grades? Grades are good for measuring student achievement, streaming students and university admissions. It's much easier to look at a data set and see how students have done over time or decide on a student's pathway or admit students to university programs. Much easier than observing them learn and demonstrate, easier than talking to them about what they are learning and easier than looking at a portfolio of work. Are we giving grades because it is good for students or because it is easier for us? Easier for parents? Easier for universities? 

What new information does a report card tell a parent who has been an active partner in their child's learning process? Not much. In fact, that parent could likely have written the report themselves. But, we are not there yet. Generally, parents aren't active partners. Not yet. The conditions for genuine active parent partnerships aren't widely in place yet. People want grades because grades are all we have ever given them to let them know how our children are doing.

I am interested in seeing how #TTOG can help change that.

Just an opinion piece.

Just an opinion piece. My thoughts are my own.

Recently, I wanted to know about the history of grades.

I googled the letter A. My search revealed nothing of value. In fact, the phrase “waste of time” came up more than once in the top sites (along with several articles about TTC rate hikes by John Tory). This result is likely an indicator that my search term is inaccurate. I know that because of the feedback with which Google has provided me. Thank goodness for feedback!

On my next attempt, I googled “grade A”. Now, I’ve gotten somewhere. The second hit is to this wikipedia article. Turns out grades may or may not have come from a professor at Cambridge named William Farish who used them with his students in 1792. He is also known for having given the first written university exam. Thanks, William.

Other results suggest that grading is borrowed from shoe factories in industrial England, where the best quality shoes were given an A grade (an “F” meant the workers weren’t getting paid).

Grades are great for meat and shoes, but what about for helping our children learn? I know that a large F appearing on my computer screen after my initial search (for the letter A) would definitely tell me my search skills needed work, but without any additional information I might not have determined a more accurate term was needed.

The conversation about the usefulness of grades in learning is well worth having. A good look at that wikipedia article led me to the most recent research on grading and learning. Check it out here. The abstract for the article reads as follows:

Parents do not send their children to school to learn how to speak. How then do children learn to speak? The objective becomes obvious to children due to the frustration of being unable to communicate. Learning tasks allow for practice. Feedback is immediate and clear because adults love to help young learners. Applications of new knowledge are made so as to continue learning. Children take responsibility for all aspects of this “natural learning process.” Natural learning obviously works.

Conclusions?

The traditional teacher-responsible design for education in universities conflicts with what we know about how people learn.

I found this research compelling. Grades are artificial; a valiant attempt, during the industrial revolution, to measure the learning of a vast number of pupils filling new educational institutions. But, they do not model how learning occurs, nor do they promote learning. Rather, some say they end learning. 

Are the findings of this article the end all and be all of pedagogical research? Of course not, but there’s a conversation to be had, and it needs to be evidence-based. 

This blog post is my personal opinion, based on some of the evidence I've come across. I know I’ve made errors. If I want to increase my knowledge base and learn more about the issue, I have to keep researching the topic, keep refining my search, but I can also rely on the feedback of others. I know that if the comment section for this entry simply reads “A” or “D” or even “F”(Thanks, William), I will learn very little, but if you prod me, ask questions, or point me to facts supporting an alternative view, I will learn.

#TTOG MEME Challenge- Expressing Ideas Through Images

5 Meme's in 15 minutes.

Pick a cartoon. Collect images. Create Memes. Blog about it.

#Canyouhandleit? #TTOG