Stephen,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I definitely agree with a lot of what you said and it made me wonder if the way some teachers phrase how they present some of the information, does that cause more students to only study for the test? I’m sure that is probably not the case but it just made me curious. This course has been better at getting me to think more about the process/structure than previous courses and I am curious the direction education ends up going in the future.

Chris,

I really appreciated your comment about you turned out fine when you were assessed using a grading system, but since being in grad school I understand that there might be some flaws in the system. I think going cold turkey would be very interesting to see what would happen especially with older professors who know nothing besides grades and the current system. My only question is how do you determine/assess a student’s success in a course then if there are no grades?

Ashley,

Thank you for sharing your experiences with all of us! I definitely had a different experience but can see how your experience leads you to dislike the current system and can easily make others dislike the system based on what you have said. However, I want to pose the question of what do you think could be a different way of assessing a student’s success? I ask that question because to me the way to assess success for math or science may look differently than english, but I agree the way we grade and/or the emphasis on grades is currently making people value who they are based on a letter which needs to change.

One of the things that stood out to me in your post Patrick was when you say “So it matters, but the pursuit of knowledge should matter more.” and that I think is the key to shift the focus from grades for “passing” to what matters more. I think we as educators hold that key, it depends on how we utilize this tool called “grading” to inspire curiosity for pursuit of knowledge (as you say) instead of the pursuit of a perfect GPA.

Learning is definitely what matters and the ability to think critically, problem solve, create, innovate…I also agree that a range of things is good. Qualitative research uses a term called triangulation (gathering data from multiple sources to construct a holistic picture) and I wonder if that can be something that can be done for grades? What do you think?

Great post! Memory is important for academia, and the added stress of getting an A can definitely affect a student negatively. How should we reconsider our grading mechanisms? Should we reward effort? I struggle with this question, because if we proceed with these methods will the student even bother to learn the material? I am at odds with my own pedagogical practices, I want them to succeed, but I have requirements to meet as well. I really like this discussion though!

I agree with Jyotsana. The behavior you describes sounds really vindictive and petty — an abuse of power. I wouldn’t consider that a pedagogical strategy or motivator at all. I’m sorry that happened to you!

I agree it makes it difficult to teach anything when the student is so focused on the grade. I say no, worry about learning the material, everything else will be fine. I abide by an idea that if a student puts the work, and discusses the material with me they will be fine. Just put the effort in is my mantra, if they don’t work why should I? I really like what your saying in regards to how we become so preoccupied with grades that we lose our creativity in the process. Unfortunately, the college is so disorganized that we have several P.h.D students teaching the same class in different ways. There is no consistency, and while that can be good, it can also spell confusion for many students going further in their education. Great Post!!!

“I find it pretty disturbing to see occupations that have more constructive feedback in their performance reviews than our classrooms have in their course assessments.” Now that is an issue, right. So we say that we are testing and assessing so that we send out a prepared workforce and yet…..I do believe that some of this may also be the result of systemic structures, however there must be a way out of it…I think there are changes taking place gradually and it is taking a little too long…

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Whaaaaaaaaaaa! I like the line “what if I was allowed to fail..and fail..and fail..and…”

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