And the followup will likely be: Many teachers teaching to the test, not teaching so students master course material.
If the test accurately reflects the course material, is there a difference?
Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
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Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#12If you are absent for a surprise quiz because you cut a great deal, the 0 will make your other 100 tests average to about 80, even if you know the course material greatly. Does a job prefer better if you master the course material but in general don't follow the smaller rules? For instance, in an interview, wouldn't you look like a fool if you explained away sub-par grades as bureaucratic issues? Part of life, sadly,…
It's a complicated feedback loop, obviously. Society is petty and bureaucratic, hence schools have to be petty and bureaucratic in order to teach how to navigate society? Partially, but partially society is petty and bureaucratic because schools are petty and bureaucratic and people are trained to consider such systems normal and good. (In fact, schools seem a lot pettier and more bureaucratic than the rest of the wo…
Personally, I hope this doesn't describe a trend that swings too far in the other direction; smart assholes are just as bad as well-meaning idiots. I'd rather work with (and try to be) a smart, courteous person.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#13I have failed a course in college because I forgot to do the homework. 100% on midterm, B on final, fail on the course. Whoops!
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#14I'm glad the NYT is shedding light on this topic but, perhaps the most important aspect of standards based grading is almost burried in this article. One of the basic premises of SBG is that students know exactly what knowledge and skills they have to master. They are assessed and then encouraged to address weaknesses so that they can be re-assessed. This is opposed to a "gotcha!" based assessment system. This approa…
Very true.
My mom started using standards based grading this year in her IB & honors chemistry classes. She's been very successful so far with it and her students have been rising to the occasion with their re-assessments. From her, it sounds like defining all of her tests and assignments in terms of the standards (knowledge and skills) they cover and grading them as such has been difficult, but effective.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#15There's room for debate on whether grades should reflect homework completion and timeliness, but some of the grading practices were nuts:
"...their grades are more accurately reflecting their knowledge, not whether or not they brought in a box of Kleenex for the classroom, a factor that had influenced grades at Ellis in the past."
I applaud the effort to separate knowledge grades from "life skills" grades. I can't imagine anything more useless than making a kid repeat a class or defer their graduation when they've already acquired the requisite knowledge.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#16"Should students be rewarded for being friendly, prepared, compliant, a good school citizen, well organized and hard-working? Or should good grades represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material?"
Because it would be tremendously difficult to grade the students on both things separately.
One of the problems with schools and our society in general is the idea that you can take something complicated and distill it down to a single, meaningful number. Another problem is the notion that you should even try to do this. We're taking this to ridiculous extremes.
I can easily say in a single sentence, "Johnny has mastered 95% of this material but he's apathetic, only completes half of his homework on time, and throws spitballs at his classmates." Done. How hard is that?
Are they trying to save paper and ink costs on report cards?
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#17In Ontario the primary/secondary school report cards have been somewhat like this for a while. Your 'grade' is based almost completely on your academic performance (supposedly). Of course, if you miss evaluations, then your mark will suffer a bit. And some (or many) teachers will still wrap a participation mark into the course (usually something like 5-10%). I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience, these are…
Separating the two seems the most sensible to me.
The article asks the questions:
Should students be rewarded for being friendly, prepared, compliant, a good school citizen, well organized and hard-working? Or should good grades represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material?
This strikes me as a false dichotomy, and it sounds like it has been in use with no catastrohpic effects.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#18And the followup will likely be: Many teachers teaching to the test, not teaching so students master course material.
If the test accurately reflects the course material, is there a difference?
The problem is (at least) three-fold.
One: The tail wags the dog. Since No Child Left Behind, schools have had one major metric: test scores. They have now geared everything else towards making test scores improve, from curriculum to teaching how to take a test. So the test drives all.
Two: Tests are not necessarily a great way to assess mastery of material. The fact that teaching test-taking strategies can dramatically improve scores (independent of underlying domain knowledge) is one example of testing's weaknesses.
Three: Tests are not a good way to construct ideal curriculum. They, of necessity, have to be far more limited in scope than what we (should) want to educate people on.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#19I teach mathematics at a community college. Every year the administration sends to my department statistics on how many people pass our classes. We're told to come up with strategies to increase the passing rate.
I haven't had a pay raise in over two years. My strategy for increasing the passing rate is to give points for things a well trained monkey could do. I give points for coming to my office. I give points for things that have nothing to do with mathematics.
By and large society does not really want us to grade on knowledge. People don't want to hear that they, or their kids, don't know something and that they will have to work in order to gain the required knowledge. People want a high GPA not a high level of knowledge.
I'm reminded of the Soviet joke:
As long as you pretend to pay us we will pretend to work.
Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material
#20"Should students be rewarded for being friendly, prepared, compliant, a good school citizen, well organized and hard-working? Or should good grades represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material?" Because it would be tremendously difficult to grade the students on both things separately. One of the problems with schools and our society in general is the idea that you can take something complicated and dist…
"In addition to an academic grade, the 950 students at the school will get a separate “life skills” grade for each class that reflects their work habits and other, more subjective, measures like attitude, effort and citizenship."
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