Woah…

Honestly, Kohn just kinda blew my socks off… There were so many moments where he really just knocked me off my game & really made me question my way of thinking… To tie back to previous discussions – that’s part of being mindful in your teaching though. Reading things, especially things outside of your normal way of thinking, and reflecting on it. This article was definitely an exercise in mindfullness for me.

“When school is seen as a test, rather than an adventure in ideas,” teachers may persuade themselves they’re being fair” – Woah…. This has been me lately… I literally had this thought this week… I’m currently working with our Senior Design class this semester and one of things I’ve been asked to do is develop rubrics for the course assignments. Previously this has always been a small class and it was easy for the professor to kinda just go with however he wanted to grade it that year. This year, the class size more than doubled and he wanted a little more structure that could be easily transferred from year to year. I discovered Canvas’ rubric setting and quickly fell in love. But one of the things I’m learning is that when I have a rubric that I’m grading from, my grading tends to be really rough… I tell myself that that’s the fair way to do it and that this is how the students can see up front how everything will be graded… But the more I read this article, the more I realized how this doesn’t jive with the rest of my teaching style. I’m very collaborative. I want to get to know my students and I really want to focus on how their learning the material and transferring it to knowledge instead of just memorizing information… I did struggle with the fact that this seemed to be written for students in secondary education but I can see in the effects of grading that he listed at the beginning in not only my students, but my peers, and even myself at times.

I do think grading has its place in higher education. (I definitely don’t think I could tell my department next year that I’m throwing out the gradebook for my class.) But I am intrigued by the applications for my classroom and combining these ideas with others I’ve seen to comprise my own “grading style” if there is such a thing. Through working on these rubrics for Sr. Design, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about what kind of assessment I want to in my class next year… The course I’ll be teaching is our Intro to BSE course which has both a lecture & lab component. I’ve been looking at in-class assessments, more problem-based lab assignments, and even lab quizzes to make sure they come prepared. This idea of not everything being graded is really interesting to me now. Maybe the lab quizzes can be self-graded at the very beginning so they can ask questions before we start about what they don’t understand.  The in-class assessments don’t need to be graded either and can just be for helping the students assess their own learning during the “lecture” time. “We Assess What We Value” and if what we value is students leaving our classroom being able to apply the knowledge provided to them in our course, being able to problem solve, or even just knowing how to learn then in the words of Kohn himself maybe “grading is problematic by its very nature” to what we’re trying to accomplish.

I’ll leave you with the one part in particular of this article that really struck me personally. It was the story of the student and his zen master. As a very goal-oriented person, I literally make goals everyday and I’m better when I make goals & deadlines for those goals. But it’s true. When you focus so much on how close you are to that goal, no matter how important, enlightened, or critical it is…

“If you have one eye on how close you are to achieving your goal, that leaves only one eye for your task.”

Woah…. Just Woah….

We hear people say, “I’m just not the creative type” all the time. Probably all of us have said it at one time or another, unless you actually happen to be incredibly creative. But, this phrase creates a barrier to learning, especially at an early age. Being creative, or rather the act of creating, forces you to ask questions and think critically. In many ways, this has become a lost art in standard educational practices. This portion of Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon short book, Imagination First, resonated with me because while reading, I made the connection that imagination, creativity, and assessment are all interrelated concepts. Everyone has an innate sense of creativity, it just needs to be cultivated in different ways. Designing more creative ways of assessing students, as Alfie John suggests in The Case Against Grades, could give students the motivation to be curious learners and use their imagination more.

I grew up with very rudimentary methods of assessment used between elementary school and college. The standard A-B or 100% scales. And, admittedly, I fell subject to being one of those students who simply worked for a high grade, either through rote memorization or easy assignments that were guaranteed to be easy-A’s. In my senior year of high school, I took a college-level writing course for college credit. Our teacher gave us a detailed rubric for every writing piece that year. Which, in turn, led to mediocre pieces of writing that fit the bill of the rubric, but lacked any substance. In fact, I can’t even recall a single paper I wrote in that class, just the rubrics. Looking back, I’m angry at myself for not taking more advantage of the opportunities I had in such classes.

But, however much I regret focusing too much on numerical or alphabetical grades, that is how you have to play the game when you are a student. You have to live up to certain expectations to receive x-grade that you want, and if you receive the proper x-grades, you’ll get into a prestigious college. If you receive exceptional x-grades in colleges, you’ll get a job after graduation or even get admitted into graduate school. It’s just the game that students now learn.

But, as Kohn’s narrative suggests, there are many alternatives to standard assessment methods. This is an exciting concept for me, especially since I have had little exposure to such methods in my own schooling, and I have yet to teach myself. I really enjoyed reading the concept of collectively arriving at a grade between a teacher and student, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that most students pick the same grade the teacher would have given them otherwise. This creates a more democratic system within the classroom. It also leads us to the question of the quality of teachers– It would take a lot more time and effort for a teacher to sit down with every student to review a quarter/semester, especially when many teachers probably are overloaded as is. But, I hypothesize that if a teacher truly wanted to make a difference in the lives of his/her students, they would be more than willing to spend that extra time. At least in a perfect world.

These readings made me interested to learn more about grade-less education systems. However, after a quick Google search, I found a Wikipedia page (yes, I know, Wikipedia…) that listed the grading systems by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_systems_by_country

I didn’t see a single one that doesn’t use some type of numerical formatting (though I quickly skimmed through it so possibly missed something). Food for thought… what if an entire country became grade-less? Wouldn’t that be something…

Assessment has been one of the main focuses in education for as long as I can remember. From elementary school onward, there was always some big state exam on the horizon, in addition to the nearly constant steam of other kinds of evaluations. Does this focus on assessment actual increase students’ abilities to learn? What about long-term retention of knowledge? Alfie Kohn suggests, citing many sources, that our obsession with assessment may actually be counterproductive. It causes students to focus on the wrong aspect of being in school. Rather than trying to “make the grade” students should be encouraged to enjoy the process of learning itself. The inherent enthusiasm for learning that most people have is not harnessed by a grades-centric approach. Kohn suggests that usually it is the instructors and administrators, not the students, that benefit most from a focus on assessment. Shouldn’t education at all levels ultimately be about the students? As  Diana Oblinger lays out in “Making the Grade: The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning,” traditional assessment methods miss the mark . Authentic assessment is a superior alternative to traditional assessment. It focuses on students’ learning of concrete, real-world skills and critical thinking over time. Memorization of facts and adherence to rubrics is not found in authentic assessment regimes. Ideally, at the end of such a program, students would be prepared to creatively handle complex situations. Putting such a program into practice is difficult however, given the current status quo and funding difficulties. Perhaps over time enrollment in institutions that do not focus on grades will become more commonplace, but for now, the focus on grades remains.

I personally like to view grades the same way I view the number that pops up on my scale: it’s just a number and it holds no barring on my value. I admit that it’s not always easy to tell myself those things after receiving a less than ideal grade on something I studied my ass off for or seeing a larger number than I had expected after eating lean protein and veggies. Just like we are constantly bombarded by media of what “beauty,” “health,” and “attractiveness” are, society tells us that our success is dependent on our education, our GPA’s, and our careers. College is an incredibly difficult time for numerous reasons and some students get wrapped up in letting grades define them instead of focusing on their growth as individuals. 

Our mindsets have shifted from choosing a major that interests, fascinates, and lights a fire within us to what will be the most lucrative in the long run. These mindsets have almost turned us into intelligent  and incapable robots. We take in information (sometimes), regurgitate it (sometimes), and spit it back out with little to no comprehension of what’s been heard or read. We look for buzz words, formulas, and other people’s work in order to (re)create work of our own.

For example, in the Public Speaking class I teach, there is a set rubric we are taught to follow and then grade from. It includes your basic public speaking skills such as eye contact, articulation, hand gestures, and a clear organizational pattern. These are all good things that I believe are important when public speaking but the rubric itself and the way the course is designed stifles any creativity on the student’s part. I’m obligated to knock off points for memorization, performances, and slam poetry pieces. It’s almost painful to write in the comments “I appreciated your creativity but…”

Something I struggle with is determining whether to grade to the student or grade to the curriculum. Do I punish a student for not performing to the rest of the classes standards even though they’ve improved tremendously? In a student’s mind, is a C+ really that much better than the C they’ve previously received? How am I suppose to motivate and encourage their improvement if I’m bound to “grade everyone on the same scale?” I understand the logic behind this but am still unsure as to how I feel about it.

When reading Lombardi’s article all I could think about was the importance of giving my students the opportunity to hear feedback not only from me, but from their classmates as well. I cannot take credit for this aspect of my courses, because it was suggested by my boss for all GTA’s who teach public speaking, but I capitalize on this opportunity as often as possible.

As someone who teaches public speaking, I have a lot of tips on how to best engage an audience and how to write a speech that is easy to follow, but I am not afraid to admit that I do not know all there is to know about public speaking.

The greatest part of my job is not teaching my students to become great public speakers, but learning from my students what makes a great public speaker. Day in and day out I learn amazing things from my students, and I try to give them as many opportunities as possible to learn from not only me, but one another. One way I facilitate this learning is by having the students assess one another’s speeches. I am always interested in how honest my students are with their classmates about their performances. They grade one another much more harshly than I grade them.

After reading the Lombardi article I have decided that in my next class I am going to explain to my students why these assessments they provide for one another are so important. I want them to understand that they aren’t simply a way to receive participation point or my way of keeping them focused during speeches, but that they allow them to see a wide range of perspectives, because even though I may be the one giving them the final grade, in public speaking you can’t only cater to one member of the audience you must consider the group as a whole.