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Why do you go to school? Reframing grades

Why do you go to school?

Take a moment think of three goals you had/have in school (i.e. why are you taking this class?).

Did grades make the list? Because for most student's its #1, when really it shouldn't even be on the list at all. The problem is, we've framed education around grades. Grades were never supposed to be the reason for school. But from early in education, teachers talk about content in terms of grades:
  • "this will be on the test"; 
  • "you'll need to know this for the test"; 
  • "you need to work on this to get a good grade".
  Students are being taught that they are in school to get good grades - not to learn.

So what is the purpose of a grade?

Grades are a way to provide students feedback on assessments of how much they have learned and where they still need to focus their efforts. The purpose of assessments (i.e. quizzes, tests, exams...) is that it allows both instructors and students to see that a student has mastered some of the material, but still needs to work on mastery of other portions of the material. It allows the instructor to know what material they need to review and a student to know what material they need to practice again. The grade is just a way of putting an overall score on the assessment. Unfortunately, the grade has become the ultimate goal; not the knowledge of the material but the actual score.

We need to reframe how we talk about grades. Teachers and parents, please stop using grades as a "carrot and stick"

This goal of good grades has gotten so institutionalized in American education that schools are even putting pressure on teachers to grade inflate and change grades, to satisfy students and parents. However, giving a student an A doesn't mean they actually learned the material, if it's not based on knowledge and mastery.

Think about it this way -- you have two candidates to hire for a job: one graduate from Harvard, with a high GPA and one graduated from Podunk University also with a high GPA; which would you hire? Why?  If you pick the Harvard grad, did you do so because a degree from Harvard shows they had money to pay for tuition or did you hire them because a degree from Harvard shows they excel in their field of academics? I'm going to assume it's the later.

Now, say Harvard started giving out As to everyone, in every class... would you still be impressed that your candidate graduated from Harvard with a high GPA? Would a degree from Harvard still represent excellence in their field, or would it now represent the ability to pay the tuition?

When instructors start to provide grades to students that do not accurately reflect the knowledge they have demonstrated, it hurts that student - because they don't know which areas they need to review, and it hurts their classmates who are hoping their degree means something about their level of excellence in their field to an employer. Institutions, be it a High School or an elite University, should fight against grade inflation because it undermines the reputation of the institution, making a diploma from that institution less valuable.

Instructors: start each year/semester with a frank discussion with students asking them the same question I opened with above - Why are you taking this class; what are your top 3 goals for this class? Then talk with the students about what grades mean, and what they reflect. Let's start to retrain students to think in terms of knowledge, not grades. Also, use grades sparingly - instead provide feedback. Mark assignments with corrections, and have the student actually make those corrections, but give grades on only a select number of key assignments that truly demonstrate a level of mastery. When students get a grade on every single thing they touch (e.g. that math worksheet that helped them learn a new skill), they are being taught that grades are the goal.

Parents: Stop making a big deal about grades in the early years - in fact, grades don't even need to come into a conversation about school until the student is around 10 yrs old. This is true about testing in schools also. Unless the test is showing something highly unusual - your child is falling into an extreme category above or below the general norm - there is no need to talk to your school or teacher about their standardized test grades. You have the power to take the power away from testing.

Once a student reaches adolescence, they are at a point where they can start to appreciate feedback on their academic performance. But that's all a grade is - feedback on their academic performance. Grades should never become part of a student's identity, or how they define themselves.

As a professor, I really hope each and every one of my students has experienced a grand failure at some point in their academic career - productive failure is important for teaching grit. It's how students learn to dust themselves off and try again. But, if their self-esteem or self-identity are tied to grades, that failure can be devastating instead of being an important learning oppertunity.

By reframing grades as constructive feedback, instead of the goal of school, we can rebuild our academic system to value knowledge over grades.




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