Category: Week 5 – Assessment

What grade did you get? By asking that, are we really just asking how well someone did at memorization and regurgitation? What is a grade? What does it mean? How well does it reflect a person’s learning of a subject? I could go on a little longer with these questions but you get the idea. Be careful how your answer, I am grading you there. If professors, teachers, educators want to assess the information a person has retained and provide feedback as to that assessment, we must do better than a test and grade. As a new professor of record, I tell my students they all have an A in the class. To maintain that, they must be active in class participation and provide some evidence they are learning something. As long as a student finishes the semester knowing one new cool and exciting (yes, this is arbitrary) fact, they have succeeded in the class. To assess them, my assessments are not based on specific question answer tests. Rather, I give essay tests where they just need to use the stuff discussed in class and make a strong argument. I don’t have right or wrong answers as long as you use valid information to support your choice. I used to, and still do to an extent, suffer from test anxiety. I no longer become physically ill and have to use the bag (you know what I mean) but I still get anxious and nauseous before taking a test. Trust me, it is no fun filling out a multiple choice sheet with sweaty hands. Why do we, the educational system, put students through this today? The readings offer critiques of our current system and discussion for alternatives but does that matter? We need to break the system, turn it upside down, share ideas on how to get better assessments. I don’t think we are even testing the students but rather testing ourselves on how well we pass on information. If that is the case, just give them answers, then give them an A, they give us a positive SPOT review and we all win.

Yeah for no education where everyone wins (or is it loses but graduates?).

I think this blog is a difficult test this week. I don’t agree with Standard Of Learning tests. I actually think the acronym SOL is very appropriate. I don’t care for current testing or assessment systems still used in higher education, so staying positive is difficult. RISE UP GEDI and CHANGE THE WORLD!! At least the way we test students and ourselves.

Grades have become a nagging pest and a pesky thorn in my side. They seek to measure learning, as if that was a quantifiable entity to begin with. Most professors can tell you that they have A-students who clearly understand the material better than some of their other A-students. They may even have C-students who understand it better than some of their A-students. This would be concerning if we actually cared about their retention or critical evaluation of said material. These kids/adults want to excel; who can fault them for that? They want to prove their worth, outperform and/or outwork their peers, and demonstrate that they are smart enough to hang with the rest of their peers. Their effort doesn’t concern me (always, at least). Their ability doesn’t worry me. Their focus does.

I teach several students who beg for the buzz words and nuggets of “truth” that they expect to find on the quiz. I found that writing them down on the board often, repeating it multiple times, and hinting at its exam inclusion does nothing for their understanding. They know how to latch on to the key words when they pop up, but have zero idea how to use it. They want to get the question right; I don’t blame them. I do not want to grade them, but I must. We are both in a dynamic that neither of us want to be in. I would much rather reward those A and C-students who can really engage with the class. I can to some extent via small compliments and reassurance, but not in anyway substantial. I have leaned towards including assignments that evaluate their ability to engage with what they learn, not just repeat it. This helps, but is generally met with uproar from those who have gotten used to the “standard” way of doing things. That is enough of my anecdotal experience…

The point is that grades are a long outdated sorting tool. They tell us who places where and not who knows what/how/why. 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. A letter or number by itself is arbitrary – even if we could pattern the quality of learning to these metrics, one cannot successfully interpret them. What have I or anyone learned from looking at an “A” or score? Maybe just that we were good enough to pass with a little bit of room for comfort. Hooray; we survived another course. Once that journey is finished, it does not surprise me when the information hasn’t found its way outside of the classroom walls.

When your a kid, your parents tell you that if you want to be successful then you need to go to school and get “good grades”. The interesting thing is that, by simply “getting good grades”, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are actually learning and retaining anything. All you’re doing is showing on paper that you can read over some index cards a few hundred times to memorize the answers to a test, take the test and potentially get a passing grade to take back to mom and dad. Mom and dad then take that passing grade and put it up on the fridge and tell their child, that they’re going to be succesful if they keep that up.

While that may very well be true, the child most likely will forget what they’ve memorized from that index card in about a week because then the class will be onto another topic that will require them to probably do the same thing with another set of index cards. The cycle keeps repeating itself in a never-ending process.

Kohn’s reading was intersting as it highlighted the effects of grading, that it diminishes students’ interests in whatever they’re learning, create’s a preference for the easiest possible task and reduces the quality of student’s thinking. I would agree with these points, because as I reflect on my educational experiences, I absolutely looked for the shortest readings, and studied only the information that I knew for sure was going to be on the test.

The issue with this, is that I limited myself to only the information that I needed at the moment verses not taking the time to really understand the concepts fully. As I have gotten older and have started to understand this idea a little better, I do believe that professors should find creative ways to encourage their students to not soley focus on the grades they might or might not get and focus on really understanding what they’re in class learning.

What has been really encouraging for me is taking a class this semester focused on the issues of college pedagogy where we have talked about this very issue. We are talking about the issue of grading and the types of effects that it has on students. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a fully thought out way to combat this issue, however I think by continuing these conversations, we should be able to get there eventually.

“Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning.”

“Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task.”

“Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.”

I truly agree the three conclusions of the study on the effects of grading, and it is not surprising at all. We need to think about what benefits we’ve got from those grading systems in higher education seriously.

I’ve tried my best to receive the best grade for all courses through all my degrees. I believe my great GPA scores are one of my important achievements. However, I’m not sure that my high GPA exemplifies all that I can achieve, because I had to please my professors to get grades instead of pleasing my own creativity.

Undoubtedly without the grading system my education even my life would be much different. At this PhD level of my education, I’m able to have the chance to learn how to be a self-generated and self-motivated researcher without any threats from the grading system. The examples Lombardi mentioned show the opportunities for effective assessment of authentic learning that I would definitely try to utilize for my students in future.

Is this going to be on the test? That is just one of the few questions that students care about in a classroom. Assessing how students are comprehending course material has become the most important part of education; rather then intentional learning. I believe that Lombardi and Kohn make good points about assessment being more than grades. Too often are concerned with their letter grade rather than what they are learning. I do not think that letter grades should go away, but how we evaluate students should be altered. Lombardi and Kohn both give examples of how authentic learning can take place. Additionally, Lombardi highlights the difference between traditional and authentic assessment.

By practicing authentic assessment, students can be assessed in a variety of moments and ways rather then by one culminating test or exam. Portfolios are a good example of how this can be achieved. Speaking as someone who has to complete an e-portfolio to meet my graduate capstone requirement, I believe that this method captures what and how I have learned. If my program required a thesis, I do not think it would be an accurate depiction of my learning or that I have completed the learning objectives and there outcomes. Examples like portfolios allows students to take ownership of their learning and use their experiences to prove how they have learned. I do not have an answer for how this should be addressed in the K-12 systems, but it is worthy to consider in how the United States can adapt learning and education.

Alfie Kohn wrote that grades have the effect of “diminish[ing] students’ interest in whatever they’re learning,” “creat[ing] a preference for the easiest possible task, and “tend[ing] to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.”

This has certainly been the experience for me throughout undergrad and graduate school. One thing that I think intensifies the effect of grades is the multitude of responsibilities that students have. I had a professor in undergrad who used to sympathize with how busy we are with our jobs to pay for school, our extra-cirriculars, or our unpaid internships, not to mention the book(s) a week we are expected to read. This professor would say, “I understand, sometimes you have to rob Peter to pay Paul.” This was usually in acknowledgement that he knows that we cannot always do all of the reading, and then he would offer tips on how we might read strategically in the future.

Unfortunately, I have found it difficult to be engaged with my education, at least the way I want to, over the past almost decade. I feel that grades, and the overall managerial, profit-driven, turn in higher ed, has forced me to have a more cost-benefit analysis approach to my education. For example, my thought process during the semester might be: ‘the weekly reading reflections are not graded for quality, only for completion. I’ll rob Peter by putting those on the back burner so that I can pay Paul, work towards a great final paper (worth a whole bunch of my grade).’ If this is the strategy I choose, which I often feel forced to, what is lost are the new ideas, or the critique of my current ideas, that would have come from a more genuine engagement with those weekly readings and reflections. But, if I choose to prioritize my weekly readings and reflections, I jeopardize my final paper, and ultimately my final grade.

I think this experience reflects the disconnect between theory and practice, education policy and our experience learning. Grading, and assessment more broadly, in the United States is symptomatic, I think, of this disconnect. If this divide is not reconciled, it seems to me that the current direction of higher ed is actually undermining what we as a society claim to value; educating the public.