October 17th - Entrance Slip
1) What are your "student bird" and "teacher bird" thoughts about assigning percentages or letter grades in the assessment of student work? What do the grades indicate? How are they arrived at? Whose purposes do they serve? What are positive and negative aspects to giving grades? to be assigned grades by an instructor?
From my perspective as a future teacher, I don't think grades are an accurate portrayal of a student's understanding. From my experience tutoring, I have many bright students who are able to explain to me what they understand and talk through their problem solving process to answer their questions accurately and correctly. What I find surprising is that more often than not, students will freeze during their test and make mistakes/not complete questions I know they are capable of doing. This gives me the perspective that grades through testing are only an indicator of a student's ability to take tests.
However, I think that there are methods of grading outside of testing which could indeed be a great indicator of a student's knowledge. One way I assess my students' knowledge while tutoring is to conduct knowledge interviews. Whenever we are reviewing for a test, students will be tasked with explaining how they approach problems and I will personally assess their understanding through the accuracy of their answer. This gives me a great understanding of where they are at and if I feel comfortable assessing their grades from this perspective.
For myself a student of mathematics, I reluctantly admit that grades were indicative of my knowledge of the various math subjects. Throughout my undergrad, I performed at a mediocre level as I knew I just needed the degree to enter this program. As such, I did not invest enough time in learning material and my grades reflected this. However, once I started doing math I enjoyed in my upper division courses my grades drastically sky-rocketed and this motivated me to continue doing well. Of course, this is because I gained the intrinsic motivation of learning math for the sake of learning math, a trait which is extremely rare as noted by Jo Boaler.
2) What are some of the unintended side effects of grading? How do grades and marks in themselves format the social relations and learning situations in a classroom, a school, a district?
One side effect is the problem of comparison. Students are well aware of the admission requirements for certain university programs and understand that this is the standard they need to meet. In their reflection to see if they can/do/will meet this goal, they compare their current grade levels with the requirements. They are also aware that their peers are also trying to enter these programs and could be aiming much higher than this minimum benchmark. This creates a great amount of anxiety among students both through competition and also through feelings of inadequacy.
3) Could you imagine teaching math and/or science without giving grades? How could a teacher encourage learning without having an emphasis on grading?
I don't think from a societal perspective that teaching without grades is possible. In some reforms, students are given tags along the lines of beginning, approaching, meeting, excelling and I think these still count as a grading mechanism. I can imagine various districts attempting to remove grades but on an international scale, grades are important in university applications and we would require a global change for any reform, something I doubt would happen realistically.
However, I think that how we determine grades can be improved and steered away from tests. The interviews I mentioned being on method. This still allows the teachers to assess students but also give students an intrinsic motivator of trying to impress their teacher. Additionally, as the authors of the physics paper mentioned, there are various strategies to increase intrinsic motivation, connections to real life for example, which would encourage learning and minimize the emphasis on grading.
From my perspective as a future teacher, I don't think grades are an accurate portrayal of a student's understanding. From my experience tutoring, I have many bright students who are able to explain to me what they understand and talk through their problem solving process to answer their questions accurately and correctly. What I find surprising is that more often than not, students will freeze during their test and make mistakes/not complete questions I know they are capable of doing. This gives me the perspective that grades through testing are only an indicator of a student's ability to take tests.
However, I think that there are methods of grading outside of testing which could indeed be a great indicator of a student's knowledge. One way I assess my students' knowledge while tutoring is to conduct knowledge interviews. Whenever we are reviewing for a test, students will be tasked with explaining how they approach problems and I will personally assess their understanding through the accuracy of their answer. This gives me a great understanding of where they are at and if I feel comfortable assessing their grades from this perspective.
For myself a student of mathematics, I reluctantly admit that grades were indicative of my knowledge of the various math subjects. Throughout my undergrad, I performed at a mediocre level as I knew I just needed the degree to enter this program. As such, I did not invest enough time in learning material and my grades reflected this. However, once I started doing math I enjoyed in my upper division courses my grades drastically sky-rocketed and this motivated me to continue doing well. Of course, this is because I gained the intrinsic motivation of learning math for the sake of learning math, a trait which is extremely rare as noted by Jo Boaler.
2) What are some of the unintended side effects of grading? How do grades and marks in themselves format the social relations and learning situations in a classroom, a school, a district?
One side effect is the problem of comparison. Students are well aware of the admission requirements for certain university programs and understand that this is the standard they need to meet. In their reflection to see if they can/do/will meet this goal, they compare their current grade levels with the requirements. They are also aware that their peers are also trying to enter these programs and could be aiming much higher than this minimum benchmark. This creates a great amount of anxiety among students both through competition and also through feelings of inadequacy.
3) Could you imagine teaching math and/or science without giving grades? How could a teacher encourage learning without having an emphasis on grading?
I don't think from a societal perspective that teaching without grades is possible. In some reforms, students are given tags along the lines of beginning, approaching, meeting, excelling and I think these still count as a grading mechanism. I can imagine various districts attempting to remove grades but on an international scale, grades are important in university applications and we would require a global change for any reform, something I doubt would happen realistically.
However, I think that how we determine grades can be improved and steered away from tests. The interviews I mentioned being on method. This still allows the teachers to assess students but also give students an intrinsic motivator of trying to impress their teacher. Additionally, as the authors of the physics paper mentioned, there are various strategies to increase intrinsic motivation, connections to real life for example, which would encourage learning and minimize the emphasis on grading.
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