I hate talking about grades, grading, and the like. I think it has become sad commentary on our educational system that students are willing to do anything to get a “good” grade. I also echo Jerrid Kruse’s point that we must begin to accept that our assessment’s are “merely a judgement” so that we can open ourselves, and the system, up to generating more thought-provoking assessments that speak to the heart of critical thinking skills.
Now I want to tackle another problem with grading: the individual who is performing the act. Think about the process and understanding that goes into being able to grade assignments. How can we, as educators, accept that across every district there are different understandings of what an “A” looks like, or how we calculate grades? I understand that these types of discrepancies exist within individual buildings, but that is just ridiculous in its own right. The point of this post isn’t to offer answers. It is to get us all thinking about what we can do to ensure more accurate analyses of what are students are (or are not) learning in their courses.
Here’s one idea that I have kicked around a lot lately: grading exchanges. I don’t think that teachers should grade their own students’ work. Assignments could be passed to another teacher so that their we could move closer to objective grading. There are a number of positives to this type of process. Teachers, knowing that they were exchanging with another, would limit the number of assessments they give, which would leave more time for true learning. It would also allow for teachers to “calibrate” themselves by comparing their interpretation of student work against a colleagues. We should also hope that it will produce more collaboration in creating assessments thereby generating more effective, rigorous tasks.
I understand that the primary focus on grading is parental, community, and higher-education pressure, but we need to make movement in finding more effective ways to analyze students internally and externally. In other words, an “80″ in my district as a final grade should be the same as an “80″ in yours. This is a daunting (maybe impossible) task, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it.
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
I interest in teaching and education started my first year of college when I did a research paper on grades. I was surprised at not only the history of grading but the lack of real debate, in the usefulness or even the reasoning. Needless to say my teacher at the time was not pleased when I reported my findings. I was struck by the “A ” is not the same “A” in other distracts or school or even classes… this seems to not only crazy but harmful to students of all classes. The issue is grade in general, having another teacher grade for you still does not eliminate the fact that grades mean nothing if they are not used to inform real information about the students work. Not just there effort or the level of understanding, but even informs them of the progress they are making. I really think pass or no pass are about all the grades we need. Work should be done to a certain level and if it has not reach that level the student has to revise and redo until it is at that level. This can help students and teacher see learning as a process, not a means to an end. Critical review process can help in this. This can be done in many ways, but outside teachers, by professionals, by fellow students, and by the students themselves. When you create an environment were quality of work not quantity of work is the norm, doing work for the grade is not an issue. This is a great issue to raise…
Aaron,
I’m intrigued by your post. I’m torn with your idea of exchanging grading assignments, however. I can see your point of collaboration and being objective in grading. However, I have always been under the belief that all forms of assessments (tests, daily work, quizzes, what ever else you want to call them) are meant to assess what students know and drive their learning and my teaching. If I use assessments to change my teaching, don’t I need to be the one evaluating that assessment? Now, I am aware that not every teacher utilizes assessments to change what or how they teach, but if we want students to learn rather than just regurgitate information, isn’t that what we want to do?
Eric Townsley
Aaron,
Again thanks for the opportunity to have an important discussion.
I am fervently against grading. While I appreciate your attempt to improve a broken system, some times it is just best to flush the turd rather than to pretend that its not a smelly old turd.
Grades come to replace a student’s motivation for learning, in essence it replaces learning. Rather it is fuel in the engine for systems that teach to the test, and for kids to test it and forget it.
When learning is appreciated for its own sake, we are supporting students in building natural habits of being life-long learners. I remember my own excitement at the start of each school year as a child, because I loved learning. How quickly I came to dread school because it was not a living learning community, but rather a mausoleum of cultural artifacts.
I am advocate of feedback, and strong feedback, that authentically appreciates where a student is strong and where there is softness. In social work this is called a “strength’s perspective.” When used correctly, it build’s a student’s self-esteem and self-efficacy, so that s/he is less intimated by the things they may not be as naturally talented at. When used improperly we coddle kids and help them form bad habits because we don’t want to hurt their feelings or have them feel badly about themselves. Which we don’t want of course, but the feedback can be delivered without destroying a kid’s day or self-image. In fact, when done well, it builds a child’s resiliency because of an authentic understanding of themselves and their work. Think about how many kids are devastated if they don’t get an “A” and are so fragile to feedback that may be constructive criticism…that’s not how I want to be nor want my students to be.
When we can reflect, using tangible examples, back to the student what s/he is doing really well, and how this strength can help to confront an area of weakness, we are truly doing our students the service they deserve. This helps to build their own practice of self-reflection and in turn, their own self-assessments become more and more useful. They can continue to trust themselves rather than have it replaced by a dependency on authority figures.
The trick as well is providing exemplars to the students so they know what they are being evaluated against from the get-go. This is vital, otherwise we create an unstable learning environment, one that is not safe for learning, because it is not safe emotionally.
Building this kind of self-knowledge is integral to having students who leave school with the ability to think for themselves with a grounded understanding of themselves, subject matter, and the world around them. Such a method of reflection and assessment is used for life-long self refinement, whether in academics, objective tasks and skills, or interpersonal and intrapersonal issues.
With hope,
Adam
PS A great talk by Alfie Kohn on the issue of grades: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQt-ZI58wpw
Hi Aaron,
Good talk to have. I have many mixed feeling about grades and probably align more with what Adam suggests, although I think the idea of teachers looking at work together is very valuable. Co-grading is a great option for that, but then we are focused only on the summative portion of what we do with student work. I would rather see teachers focus on the formative portion. What if we had a shared space where we did post results of common assignments, and then we DISCUSSED the student work that we got back from the assignment. That could lead to a number of healthy activities for us to share as educators.
We might talk about:
–How to give support to student strengths in a given piece, and how to provide feedback that would help that student move to the next level.
–Why certain instructional practices (modeling, exemplars, lecture, group work, testing, essays, etc.) appear to lead to different results in overall student work, including different strengths and weaknesses. And perhaps a discussion on which practices bring about different types of learning and achievement.
–How the assignment itself could be improved upon for its learning potential.
Those would be more powerful conversations, in my mind, than a conversation about what grade to give. Those kinds of conversations over a shared assignment, could lead to real changes in teacher-work as well as achieving the alignment in grading that you wish to see.
A second point I would like to make on grading is that in my experience, grades at the elementary level are not conducive to student learning. Developmentally, elementary students do not understand how to achieve a long term grade (semester, etc.). It is their parents that understand how to get that grade and work to make sure their child achieves it (sometimes even doing the work for them if it comes to it). In that regard, I would say final grades have no real place in elementary. Instead, elementary students and parents should simply be kept abreast of ongoing summative scores that reveal how they are doing on the content at hand, with perhaps a narrative report card at key intervals. Parents would hate that, but I think it better matches the development of the children and their own understanding of grades.
Just my two cents. Thanks for engaging us in thought.
Bonita
Thanks for a great debate… I agree that grades have no place in Elementary Classrooms. If students have already loss the love of learning in Elementary school, the system is really really broken. Thanks Adam and others for really adding to this debate….
David,
I definitely echo that. My mother is a principal in a 4th and 5th grade building, and we had this very discussion over lunch. We both came to the realization that grades in elementary schools are ridiculous to begin with. We continue to tell kids they need to be lifelong learners yet fail to acknowledge that we instill the “grade culture” at an early age.
As always, thanks for your feedback.