Posts Tagged ‘assessment’
May 27th, 2011
As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I had a really good, and I felt honest, talk with my Honors Precal kids about what they thought about the idea of eliminating grades.
Their main concern was a good one: they are going to be assigned a grade eventually (because they will need one on their transcript) and they do not want to be surprised with what that grade turns out to be. They feel like if they have grade markers along the way they will know whether or not they are on the trail. Without the markers they would feel lost.
In some ways, it comes down to a matter of trust. Can I convince them to trust me that if we focus on learning the mathematics they will get better and their grade will be what they want it to be? More directly to their concern, the feedback I give them on a regular basis should be the guidance they need to know whether or not they are on the trail. We’re on a different trail though: the mathematics trail, not the grade trail.
A second concern was that some students find grades motivating. They feel like if they see a B and they want to see an A, they know they have more work to do to get there, and have the motivation to do it. Contrary to Alfie Kohn, (and I am a Kohn disciple) there is some research that supports this idea. But if an arbitrary letter can motivate better results, then my feedback can do that as well. And so much better -right? My feedback not only can let them know where they stand (which is where the grade stops) but can continue on to suggest improvements and next steps.
More later…
May 26th, 2011
I think I’ve come to the point of no return in terms of grading and assessment. I gave up points 6 or 7 years ago, and since then have had various incarnations of a standards based grading (SBG) system.
The thing is, that no matter what system I use, the students can’t get past the idea of grades long enough to focus on learning. Not all students, but most of them. And I hate it. I hate feeling like the students are only interested in what we do in class because they want to “earn” a good grade for it. I hate that the system is set up so that the accumulation of credits is the end goal and not the accumulation of knowledge. It’s back-asswards. The credits should be the by-product of the learning. Right now the learning is the by-product of the credit accumulation. About 4 years ago I had a parent and school board member tell me (after looking over my SBG rubric) that “getting students to understand is great but here at ______________ we are more about class rank and grade point average.” I just threw up a little in my mouth.
I’m beginning to realize two things: 1. If I give grades, then I am complicit in this mockery of education. 2. I have to give grades. So what I’m toying with now is what Shawn Cornally writes about in this post. I may have to give grades, but what if I postponed them until I absolutely had to give them?
This leaves me with a list of questions that hopefully anyone who stumbles on this blog can contribute to.
- How do I introduce this idea to students?
- How do I explain this to parents?
- What does this idea look like on a day to day basis in the classroom?
- Can I keep up with the amount of feedback that will be needed in order to replace grades?
- How are the grades that I eventually have to give determined?
- Fill in the blank.
May 5th, 2011
Wow. An historic day for me, getting to meet two of my educational hero’s. Shawn Cornally author of the blog Think Thank Thunk and Dan Meyer author of the blog dy/dan
- Students will play the grading game. The numbers game. The question is how much are they learning?
- Our traditional grading system is broken and has caused this problem.
- Students must know what they need to learn and have opportunities to show that they know it.
- We need to find a way for kids to look at their grades and decide, wow, I need help on…
- Grade books need to be dynamic. Grades in them should be changed based on what the students know.
- Communication with parents is key. They need to know what the kids know and what they don’t and we need to encourage them to help their kids study.
- If it’s important enough to write a test item for it, then it deserves it’s own separate grade.
- Avoid numbers and use written feedback. Use the first assessment to just give feedback on, then when the second one has a grade on it, it isn’t a surprise or slap in the face.
- Passing all standards will result in a B+ even if you fail the midterm and final. Midterm and final (for retention, get you the A.
At this point in the session, a really seemingly bitter lady is going on about how her district is forcing her to use standards based grading. The way she says words like rubric, and formative, are clear indicators that she is in no way in favor of anything other than the traditional bullshit. All the while I’m typing this she is going on and on with seemingly no end in sight. Can you say retirement?
Ok, Shawn is back and addresses this lady’s concern about homework. For him it is about the relationship with the kids. If a kid is not doing well then there needs to be a conversation with him/her about what they think is causing their poor grades. Those talks, for him, get kids back on track and doing some work.
May 2nd, 2011
So the conversation started on the assessment of logarithms that Katie (pseudonym) turned in. It was something to the effect of “No offense, but maybe if you told us when these assessments were going to be, we would do better on them. I haven’t used this stuff for like a month and I don’t remember it.”
My reply was “Then use it more and study. I mean, if you can’t do this stuff then we probably both agree that you haven’t really learned it…” The in-person conversation we had later sort of ended in tears and Katie commenting that she just didn’t have time to really learn the stuff. Wow.
Is it ok that students learn something for a test and then forget it?
This seems disingenuous to me. We teach something, we tell the students when they are going to have to show us they know it – so duh! they cram. On average, does the number of students seeking help spike near quiz and test time, or do kids seek help in about the same amounts regardless of when the quizzes are? Probably a rhetorical question right? Doesn’t that bother anyone?
What if they didn’t know when the assessments were going to be?
I propose three things and I’ll try to cover each of them more deeply in future posts.
- Students would have to be more responsible about studying.
- Teachers would have to be much more selective about what we choose as targets.
- The floodgates of assessment opportunities would be broken wide open.
Do we expect students to really know the material we are learning, or not?
