I completely agree with you! Not being graded, I think, allows for much more creativity. It allows a student to feel safe, take some critical thinking risks without fear of penalization, and receive peer and/or instructor feedback in a less formal (and often more constructive) setting! I also think this type of setting allows for collaboration, leadership skill development, and autonomy- all of which become extremely important once we enter the “real world.”

I agree! I think tests can be a very helpful learning tool. There have been many times that I thought I absorbed and studied all relevant content only to find (sometimes in going through study guides, and other times while taking the test) that I had missed something important!

I think assessment is helpful because it let’s students know if they missed something; however, I don’t think assessment necessarily has to contribute to someone’s grade in a course. What’s wrong with taking a test, getting useful feedback, and having THAT be the end of the process? No grade book, no anxiety, etc…

I like how you make the distinction that tests themselves can be a helpful learning tool when the professor provides feedback and when grades on the test are not of paramount importance. If we can take away some of the anxiety associated with tests by making them more low-stakes (in reference to grades), like in your experience, I think some amount of testing in certain disciplines can improve learning.

That is much more plausible, but if it is correct, it is Dr. Welch that is missing the point. He’s clearly arguing that global connectedness is the grand narrative he uses to motivate teaching and provides an example of how he does it.

Thank you for the discussion point. I agree that sometimes we get “tunnel vision” when discussing these types of topics. Many are so anti-(whatever the current dogma is) that they throw all their energy into changing it. I think like most things in life, we have to be able to see the risks and benefits of each practice. And, usually, the most practically feasible plan ends up being something in the middle. In this case, I think we will see that the complete dissolution of grades will not be as useful as maybe utilizing some form of assessment that incorporates grades and feedback (as mentioned in Alfie Kohn’s piece).

Interesting take on the issue! Your post reminded me of peer-reviewed articles and “publish or perish.” I wrote a paper about “publish or perish” last semester, and I found a lot of articles about how the emphasis on publishing has many negative consequences, but one positive side that I hadn’t really considered is similar to what you described–previously, academia was kind of a “good old boys” culture that depended more on who you know rather than what you know. Thus, many people were happy about the switch to using publications as a metric because it was objective. Thanks for the post!

Your article raised a very good point that I already suffered from in my country Egypt. Having a good education there is like a nightmare. You need to spend a lot, in order to make your kids join a reputable private school. In such a system, as you said, standardized tests are the only acceptable way from the society for assessment. No one will trust descriptive assessment or locally designed exams. This kind of education puts a lot of pressure on kids and of course kills any fun in the learning.
However, I think the proposed assessment methodologies are not a luxury for the developed countries. The education system is well settled and been fair enough to accept new assessment methodologies. And who knows, developing countries could make use of them in the future but I think they need first a complete revolution in their educational systems.

I like the analogy you used between grades and medical test results. I think it is a trade-off between using a standardized measurement as grades and a more loose way as descriptive assessments. You cannot go for only one of them. For example, in a college admission assessment, grades are not reflecting the actual level of students especially if they were based on exams. On the other hand, descriptive assessment may not be fair for some students and it is harder to rank students based on these assessments. So, as you mentioned, we need to combine both but in a way that makes it fair and in someway standardized for all students.

Yes I know

Yes, I totally agree with you. In the post I am mainly talking about practical disciplines.