Category: Week 5 – Assessment

It’s time for some wise words from Yoda.

The wisdom of Yoda is so true. He says the dark side is quicker, easier, and more seductive. For the sake of this blog post, that means giving out grades. It is quicker and easier to do. Here is a rubric and here is a score. That can be really seducing to do if you are a tenure track professor with a million other things to do. Take your grade and move on. Why did you get that grade? Please consult the rubric. We could probably figure out how to do everything on ScanTron bubble sheets so assignments practically grade themselves. I was skeptical when I saw the titles of the readings about doing away with grades. How else are we supposed to assess student performance? It is how I was assessed, and I turned out fine (That’s a favorite argument of mine for things). Besides, isn’t it important to have quantitative measures of assessment in this metric obsessed world we live in? That way we can prove we are good teachers, and students have a way to measure their growth? If we want to try not giving grades in earnest, we need to truly buy into it. This means we have to give up our biggest student motivator, the fear of a bad grade.

As I have recently been informed by those couple of videos that carrot and stick motivators only work for mostly mechanical tasks, then we would continue to operate this way? In the class I was a TA for last semester, there were lots of writing assignments and a final presentation. There were no tests or quizzes, which are, in my opinion, the primary motivator to look at the information. However, with everything they turned it was easy to tell they were writing to regurgitate information to get their grade. I am open to believing that if there weren’t grades on these assignments, they might have been more thoughtful in their responses. It would also make me feel better because I provided a lot of feedback on those assignments to help them to that end, which apparently is largely ignored. It makes me believe that to truly move away from information regurgitation learning, we have to go all in and not have a mix of. Unlike many of the other things, I think going gradeless is an all-or-nothing affair. So get your grading gum and patches, because it is time to go cold turkey on grades.

 

I think that the most profound part of the Dan Pink videos for me was the mention of the disconnect between what science offers and what business actually does.

Pink says, “there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.” He mentions that what we thought worked (if-then rewards) only works in certain circumstances and often destroy creativity. There is a misconception in business that higher incentive automatically equals higher productivity and that a system of rewards and punishments do not lead to high performance.

This makes me think about the action of effectively communicating science to lay audiences. Is it that the science is not clear enough for the businesses to understand and take action or is it that the science doesn’t fit the business models or is too expensive to implement?

The same concept applies to grading. Good performance relies on intrinsic motivation. I think that if grades were not used in education in the similar carrot on a stick fashion, perhaps the desire to do things for self will travel to the workforce once students graduate.

Confession time:

As a recovering grade addict, I have thought a lot about the effects of grades on my life.  The terror of getting a grade worse than an A during my middle and high school years was enough to affect many of my decisions about what extra-curricular activities I chose, what classes I took, and how I spent my free time.  At the time, I liked to think that I had it all under control and that grades didn’t matter.  But they did.  So much so that I still remember the deep anger I felt toward one of my math teachers who, during my senior year, granted me the only B I had received in my whole young life.  I blamed him for so much, much more than was necessary, and even worse I would not forgive myself for being such a failure.

It wasn’t until a few years later during my undergraduate degree that I finally started to loosen my grip (just slightly) on the “straight A” ideal.  Before you get the idea that I was going rogue and not caring at all about grades, just know that that wasn’t the case.  The grade addiction ran deep, and I still cared.  I still fought for those A’s as much as before.  But I started to recognize that a grade wasn’t a reflection on my worth or my identity.  I began to realize that I had foolishly thought that the definition of who I was required some statement on my intelligence and that my intelligence was clearly linked to my GPA.  It occurred to me that I needed to reject this line of thinking.  I started to take things in stride, and a grade less than an A had less power over me than it did before.  I won’t lie, it still stung, but I guess I cared more about how far I had come and all the people I had interacted with when I wasn’t studying.  It was a small step, but a necessary one.

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Now as I am preparing to become an educator in higher education, I wonder what to do about grading in my future courses.  I still feel the lingering affects of grade addiction, and it is hard to let go.  I alone cannot completely eradicate grades from the university system, and I will likely have to submit grades at the end of each semester as always.  But what can I do to ease the pressure of grades on students?  What can I do to help them have their eyes on the adventure of learning rather than the hurdle of the GPA?

For one thing, I can remember a few key lessons from interesting studies.  First: Dan Pink has summarized many scientific studies about motivation in his TED talk, “The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us.”  These studies showed that when offered some external reward or punishment for a simple mechanical task, people performed better.  However, when these same rewards or punishments were offered on a creative or cognitive task, performance WORSENED.  You have probably felt this way before.  Dan Pink says that what we need to succeed in our creative endeavors are 1) autonomy, 2) mastery, and 3) purpose.  If I can find a way to incorporate these three things into the classroom, I think that the students will feel more joy in learning than fear of grades.

Another thing I would like to incorporate is something from the experience of an English teacher, Jeff Robbins, as told in Alfie Kohn’s “The Case Against Grades.”  This teacher decided that the best way to remove grades from his classroom was to offer comments to all of his students on their work, write short notes about their progress in his own gradebook, and then sit down with them at the end of the semester to collectively discuss what they learned and, at the end of the conversation, their final grade.  What I love about this approach is the way the instructor sits down with the students and focuses on individual improvement and learning.  I also think that giving meaningful feedback on the students’ work is essential to encouraging progress.

To wrap up this post, I want to leave you with two quotes–one that I found to be very meaningful and one that I thought was a bit cheeky.  First, from Alfie Kohn:

“Impress upon students that what they’re doing will count toward their grade, and their response will likely be to avoid taking any unnecessary intellectual risks.  They’ll choose a shorter book, or a project on a familiar topic, in order to minimize the chance of doing poorly — not because they’re ‘unmotivated’ but because they’re rational.  They’re responding to adults who, by telling them the goal is to get a good mark, have sent the message that success matters more than learning.”

The last quote I have is something funny I found from Katie Hendrickson’s summary of assessment in Finland. I’ve heard a lot of people praising Finland for their educational system, including my sister who lived there for over a year, so I figured I would jump on the bandwagon for a minute :).  In their system, they do not frequently administer “high-stakes” testing, though when the international assessments come every couple of years, students from Finland tend to do very well.  Why?  Well, as one principal put it:

“Some testing is thus ultimately necessary…if only to prove that regular testing is not.”

Assessment is an integral component of students’ education. We need to gather information about students’ performance and use it to guide them in their learning process. However, we need to remember that the only purpose of academic assessment is to foster learning, not to label students based on their performance or grades.

The question is how to establish an effective assessment process. There has been an ongoing debate on the current grading system, and whether it is appropriate or not. Personally, I do believe that the current grading system is not perfect and there is a lot of room for improvement. However, building an ideal assessment system, in which all students are assessed based on their own learning styles is not easy. One thing that I would suggest to help us take into account the differences in students’ backgrounds and learning styles in our assessment system is to offer a variety of options (such as exams, projects, homework, labs and extra credit opportunities) to assess the understanding of course content. In general, I prefer open ended projects and homework rather than tests with a limited amount of time, because they give students more chance to think out of box, and foster their critical thinking, while for most tests, students are taught to think and solve questions in a specific format to obtain a full credit.

Finally, we need to remember that it is learning that matters, not getting good grades or becoming successful in all exams!

 

 

 

 

This is a series of clips from a South Park episode in which Cartman (for those who are unfamiliar with the show – he is the overweight one), for reasons I cannot remember, becomes a teacher for a class of underprivileged inner city high schoolers. While the portrayal of the students in this episode is arguably offensive, I believe the show’s creators hit a very real nerve regarding the U.S.’s education system.

Cartman is put in charge of these students, who as a result of their environments, are impoverished, defiant, and collectively do not care about school. He tells them that they should believe in themselves, that they should challenge the system, that they can get into college just like the privileged kids in rich schools! Their secret? Cheat!

Professor Cartman, who has stolen the answers to what we assume is the SAT/ACT, has students recite the answers over and over in class. Consequently, they all receive perfect scores and get accepted into college – as a result, he laments, “I reached these keeeds.”

Okay, so South Park is a crude, and at times quite disgusting show. However, the writers oftentimes portray the realities of our society, albeit in the most crass way possible.

Scores define educational success in the U.S., and money and privilege will give you a leg-up to that success. As a result, impoverished and minority schools suffer. Students lose motivation, become disinterested, and find purpose in unhealthy places. It’s a cycle that adds weight to people who were already born with feet encased in cement blocks.

Grades and test scores are how the government can measure schools’ success, and reward them with funding. However, as Dan Pink mentioned in his TED talk, incentivizing work may not necessarily translate to competence, performance, or understanding. In fact, schools that strive for higher grades may cut corners in their students’ education in order to do so.

“If we really want high performance…the solution…is not to entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick.” -Dan Pink, The puzzle of motivation

What if all students from all schools had virtually no way to cheat? Remove grades, remove pressure, encourage creativity. Every person has a passion. Give them purpose rather than incentive, and remove unnecessary pressure. My art teachers always said, “You don’t have to be good at drawing, you just have to create and show you understand the process.” Grades in art class weren’t based on how well you could draw a vase of flowers, but how you approached the task.

Realistically, we do need concrete, measurable means of gauging student progress. However, I like Alfie Kohn’s suggestion of negotiation – at the end of the course, sit down and ask what grade they think they deserve (although the teacher does have the final say).

Make assignments, give due dates, offer feedback. But do not break out the ominous red pen.  Known for scratching harsh criticism into the skin of an assignment, the red pen is a killer of motivation. Fear of the red pen steers students to cheat. And contrary to what Cartman believes, a “keeeed” who is pressured to cheat is not a “keeeed” who has been reached.

-J

 

The first time I heard about a college that didn’t give out grades, I had a knee jerk, dismissive and appalled reaction. My friend told me about a college in Scotland where students were graded only on a pass/fail basis; it seemed so odd. How do they measure students? Would the students even come to class if they weren’t being regularly measured on their understanding of the concepts? Would they learn anything?

In the readings for this week, we were introduced to the concept of grade-free learning. To be fair, this differs a bit from the college which I mentioned earlier. The college based their pass/fail decision on an end of semester test with a minimum score that demonstrated proficiency. The concepts we were introduced to were much more comprehensive in their measurement standards, but my initial reaction was the same. Would this actually work? Will they really learn?

Then, I watched the video from Dan Pink about how motivation works. In his TED talk, he explained how the carrot and stick model of motivation, which companies use quite often to motivate their employees, often stifles creativity and lowers productivity. Afterwards, I watched a video by Sir Kennith Robinson. In which, he talks about how we educate our children from the waist up until we are only focused on educating their right brain. He then argues that this sort of education is limits students in their creativity and ability to overcome being wrong. He also argues that the model of education worked to train pupils for factory work but is inadequate for preparing students for the modern era.

The other reading that stuck out to me from this week was the one by Alfie Kohn. He argues that we have known the grading system to be problematic since the 1930s, yet we have continued to use it.

My initial negative reaction to the grade free system can be boiled down into two parts. One is the aversion to change, and two is the lack of a clear picture of what grading does to the student. I had this idea that we must be using this system for so long because it works and is the best option we have available. Why would we change something that doesn’t need changing? I’m realizing now the naivety of that viewpoint. If our goals as educators is to provide an education that engages the whole student, then it seems that change is what is necessary.

The Case Against Grades (##)

We are assessed everyday of our lives, whether we realize it or not, on pretty much everything we do. Obviously, we are assessed in school on how well we can remember what is taught to us and are given a grade that reflects the teacher’s opinion of our performances. We are assessed when playing sports based on how well we run, throw, shoot a basket, etc and are assessed by either making the team or not and then by either starting or bench-warming. Outside of these more obvious examples of being assessed, we are assessed based on what we wear, how we look, what car we drive, what food we buy, etc. And, sadly, I admit that I am guilty of assessing people (typically subconsciously) on all of these accounts. I think it is probably pretty fair to say that all of us do this, unintentionally. For example, when I go grocery shopping, if I see someone with a cart full of soda, cookies, chips, etc with no fresh fruit and veggies, I typically think that this person is really unhealthy and/or poorly informed on nutritional guidelines (even though they could just being buying a bunch of food for their Super Bowl party, and that particular shopping cart is not at all indicative of their overall eating habits). This is a perfect example of why grading students on everything is not ideal. That person at the store would have received an “F” in Health Ed based on that day’s shopping cart … but maybe overall, he/she/they would get an “A+. Grades are snapshots … not the big picture.

Assessment is a part of life, whether we like it or not. But, there are so many approaches we can take towards assessing others. In regards to our education system, grades are king, despite the evidence showing that grading students reduces their interest in what is being taught and encourages students to take the path of least resistance in order to get good grades (Alfie Kohn, “The Case Against Grades”). Kohn discusses how some schools have found success in replacing letter/number grades with “narrative assessments” or to have students assign themselves grades and then have the teacher and student discuss the reasons behind this assessment. The teacher, of course, has the final say – but I like that this enables kids to think critically about how they perform and gives them a voice. However, this seems like it would be a huge amount of work for the teachers – and therefore, likely not possible in large college classes. That said, this form of assessment is commonly used in “the real world” through our annual reviews where we self-assess, get assessed, and discuss with our superiors. Since a major point of going to school is preparation for “the real world,” shouldn’t we assess students in a way that directly translates to how they will be assessed later in life? Giving grades on everything would be the equivalent to my advisor micromanaging me every day and critiquing everything I do constantly (rather than look at the bigger picture of my strengths, weaknesses, etc). Our assessment should be part of our learning adventure – not an evaluation of how we “perform” every step along the way. If I were to run a marathon, I might trip at mile 15 but still get a PR.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with grades is that it can discourage imagination, creativity, and risk-taking. Students are encouraged to follow the path of least resistance, which minimizes the creation of novel ideas. Liu & Noppe-Brandon (in Imagination First) discuss how Einstein is the picture of intelligence not because he was necessarily significantly smarter than the average person (though he very well may have been), but because he was not afraid to imagine, create, and fail. Failure is such an important learning tool, but in school we are taught that failing is bad, and it means we aren’t learning and succeeding. Most people will admit that they learn more from their failures than their successes, so why do we make “failure” such a bad thing? At the end of the day, qualitative feedback is much more beneficial than a letter or numeric grade. When grades are assigned, even if teachers provide qualitative feedback, most students ignore the feedback if they are happy with the letter/number grade (or if they just don’t care). Students would learn more if they were actually asked to read and absorb the feedback and make the corrections.

At the end of the day, assessments will never go away. And I don’t think that they should. Being assessed encourages us to grow. It is HOW we are assessed that matters.