Are grades a reflection of learning?

The inspiration for this month’s blog occurred Sunday night at about 10p.m. while I sat on the floor of my daughter’s bedroom—frustrated, sad, angry, and disillusioned.  Why the extreme emotions?  Why as I sat on the floor?  Just…why?

Annika is a pretty good reader.  She isn’t a fast reader, and neither am I, but she is a good reader.  She understands what she reads and can ask some good questions about the material once she is done.  Because she reads well, she has to meet an Accelerated Reader goal that is challenging.  Unfortunately, though, she doesn’t see this as an opportunity or an achievement; she sees it as a task—a job to be completed.  The joy of reading and losing herself in a book has been stripped by the demand to read books that add up to a certain number of points.  Her perspective has been changed by the grade attached to the assignment.

She started reading one of her American Girl books on Sunday afternoon.  A few pages into the book, she stopped, looked up the book on AR, and decided to quit reading then and there even though she had been enjoying the story.  Why?  Because the book wasn’t “worth enough points” in her estimation.  She didn’t see the value in reading a book that she felt didn’t help her reach her goal for the quarter quickly.  While I acknowledge that we all need to determine the value of continuing with a project, why are we quietly encouraging our students to only do a task if there is a reward or grade attached?  Why are we educating them out of learning?

Kids are naturally inquisitive; they want to learn.  But at some point in their educational lives, they lose that natural desire, and I believe they do so because they are more concerned about the grade than they are about the learning.  I have had seniors say, “Just tell me what I need to do to get an A.  I don’t care about anything else.”  Really?

So what do we do as classroom teachers and school leaders?  How do we put the learning back in education?

I believe standards based grading will help, but that alone doesn’t inspire inquisitiveness.  Problem-based learning is another methodology for which I have high hopes.  PBL allows students to demonstrate their learning through projects that they develop based on the objectives needing to be reached or the problem needing to be solved.  But like I discussed in the last blog, the true shift occurs in the whole paradigm of how schools grade and how society wants schools to grade.

The other idea that holds promise for me and could potentially bridge this gap is explained on pages 65 and 66 of Reeves’ book, Elements of Grading.  Here, he explains that assessments of standards can be converted into grades using a three-, four-, or five-point scale.  I especially appreciate his explanation of letter grades:

A=At least four assessments with a final score of 4 and two assessments with a final score of at least 3

B=At least four assessments with a final score of at least 3 and two assessments with a final score of at least 2

                C=At least three assessments with a final score of at least 3 (66).

I can easily see how I can convert this into something useable for essays, particularly if I break down the elements of the essay into separate assessments.  For example, I can assess structure and grammar; organizational techniques; content; and diction/voice separately and convert that to one grade.  This would also, hopefully, help students see which part of the essay needs improvement.  It won’t be perfect, but like a methods professor often told us: “If we had found the perfect method, we would be using it by now.  Until then, we have to keep working at it.”

 

While this concept of converting to standards based grading and blending it with traditional reporting methods isn’t without its pitfalls, it certainly is worthy of experimentation.  I am looking forward to the chance to examine the possibilities with student scores when I “play” with my gradebook this summer.  I want to see how these shifts affect real kids in real situations before I implement them in the classroom.

Grades need to assess learning.  (And a student who doesn’t turn in an assignment isn’t demonstrating learning.) I have become a firm believer in this statement while I acknowledge that making that shift in reality is challenging.  But I know it is essential to move toward a better system for everyone, including Annika.