I read the Sarte and Hughes article and it really spoke to me. I never really felt that grades were that useful when I was in school - a lot of it was luck and had more to do with whether or not what you studied was even on the test. In spite of the fact that I knew grades didn't really reflect my learning, I still was very stressed about them. I wanted to get into a good university, and for that I would need the grades. This only got worse in University when I started stressing about grades to get my degree and get a job. There were some classes I barely made it through - they were mostly sources of stress in trying to get the required grades than anything else, and I have no idea what practical application they would have had.
The idea of grade competition as a motivator has me a little worried. If some people feel that good grades are just that important, what will happen to those who can't get those good grades? Who are "losing" in this competition?
When I was in high school, I took whatever classes I could. I wanted to learn pretty much everything and took more classes than could technically even fit in my schedule. But I always did well and was never too stressed about grades or tests. Other students chose classes based on what they thought would get them the grades they needed. What if we just did away with grading altogether? As long as students were required to be at school with a full course load, what would students do? Clearly, it would be strange at first, and it's not likely to happen any time soon since grades are still required for things like entrance into post-secondary institutions, but what if we were in some distant future where none of that mattered and it was just normal to go to school all day and not be graded. How would students react? How would teachers react?
It was fascinating during the reflections at the end of the paper where they said that even though they no longer felt that grading was so important, they felt they had no choice but to continue doing it. Because that is the world we are living in and that is what students are expecting. Why is this "the only way to get students attention" as they put it? How could we change that crucial part of the system?
I was a little sad that they didn't have a control group for this study. I would have loved to see what the difference was between the classes that de-emphasized tests and grades and a regular class. Clearly there is still much more work to be done in this area!
The idea of grade competition as a motivator has me a little worried. If some people feel that good grades are just that important, what will happen to those who can't get those good grades? Who are "losing" in this competition?
When I was in high school, I took whatever classes I could. I wanted to learn pretty much everything and took more classes than could technically even fit in my schedule. But I always did well and was never too stressed about grades or tests. Other students chose classes based on what they thought would get them the grades they needed. What if we just did away with grading altogether? As long as students were required to be at school with a full course load, what would students do? Clearly, it would be strange at first, and it's not likely to happen any time soon since grades are still required for things like entrance into post-secondary institutions, but what if we were in some distant future where none of that mattered and it was just normal to go to school all day and not be graded. How would students react? How would teachers react?
It was fascinating during the reflections at the end of the paper where they said that even though they no longer felt that grading was so important, they felt they had no choice but to continue doing it. Because that is the world we are living in and that is what students are expecting. Why is this "the only way to get students attention" as they put it? How could we change that crucial part of the system?
I was a little sad that they didn't have a control group for this study. I would have loved to see what the difference was between the classes that de-emphasized tests and grades and a regular class. Clearly there is still much more work to be done in this area!
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