Agreed. Knowledge is often incrementally created. It’s only when we look back at the large trends that we interpret it as “aha-moments”. Often negative results never get published and failure gains no value in research. I think that creates a very distant picture of what it looks like to be a great scholar. One that discourages rather than encourage.

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I agree about students and teachers opting for a quantitative score as opposed to a qualitative. I think altering things would really shake the tree. I do think it throws a big wrench into the admissions / hiring process if we did change things. Also thanks for the insight about your education, I would think mine was the same way I just cant remember that far back :P.

I think you bring up some really great points. I would think that the college admissions process would be much harder. Also hiring people would be more difficult. I feel like so many institution rely on the ever important GPA. I do like your suggestion on alternative assessments. Thanks for the insight.

A problem with the rank system is that it motivates students unevenly based on their expectations and self-confidence. The top tiers are highly compelling and motivated (maybe for the wrong reasons) but the ones in the middle might not see enough incentives to improve their position. It’s true that there might be less competition in the middle-of-the-curve crowd but I’m not sure if that is compelling enough.

Thank you for your post! I was also thinking of the purpose of assessment, and whether the current grading system would fit into the purpose. Definitely, assessment is not to define their ability, nor to criticize their performance. As you pointed out, assessment is to prepare students better for the real world and to make them learn more. So, I totally agree with your idea that grading and exams need to exist, with the transformation of its focus toward motivators.

I agree. This is why I think having a check list / rubric is extremely important. It takes any bias out of the grading process. I would be curious to hear others thought on this as far as qualitative grading.

Jap, I agree with you but I still believe some teachers might have a bias about material they teach. For example some professor might have done research on composite slabs and might stress its importance. I guess these biases make for better education.

Awesome perspective. I wish I had the opportunity to be homeschooled. While I wasn’t in a position to have such an opportunity, it’s something I look back on and wonder if I had that kind of learning experience if I would enjoy it learning overall more. I have an appreciation for learning — but I know due to shallow evaluation in my early years it affected my life rather negatively. I was a ‘slow’ learner and it forced me into more remedial courses that more taught me the system rather than learning. This wasn’t always the case, but it happened enough for me to reflect on it poorly.

I will say, it gave me the sight I needed to understand ‘failure’ and how to go about improving using said scores. But I wish I learned how to handle failure on a creative level and not a quantitative one, and your experience of being homeschooled showcases that for me.

You bring up some really good points. The first one I want to address is about student proposing their own grades. I know of a professor here at Tech that did this, because he did not want to calculate their grades (my assumption). I also think he was trying to get some input from the student for justification. However I honestly think it was more for the former. This makes me sad, like they were just exploiting this good idea. I think it has some really good potential to keep students accountable.

The second point I want to bring up is some teachers just don’t want to teach. In a lot of cases It is just a requirement for the job title. I completely agree with your points here. Sometimes I think it would be beneficial if they were completely different entities. Strictly teaching and strictly research.

Having graded zillion assignments from engineering students, I Always get the feeling that the rubric is not precise enough, somehow not detailed enough to cover all the strange cases that students produce on their papers. I don’t see why we can not just simply point out what they might have missed or where they might have strayed into a new (wrong or right) path. Honestly things like “take one point if they get the sign of the equation wrong” is absurd.