Tough Graders Make Children Learn More

[Anonymous]

OP your comments about private schools grading being tough are interesting. My DC is at a top ivy after MCPS. DC says that tons of kids there are from private schools, and they struggle with science. They write very well though. Public schools might grade easier but somehow they push the kids in science more. Maybe public schools entice their students to study sciences because of easier grading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the PP who posted about having learned the opposite while in grad school. I actually do not believe in grading at all, and much prefer students and families having an awareness of what they know and what they’re ready to learn next. My program was not a traditional education program, and I’m very happy with the philosophy I learned, I also agree that in order to be a good teacher, you need actual in classroom experience. I didn’t get my masters until I had been teaching for many years, and it only helped solidify my understanding of what I already suspected.

This is a nightmare approach to teaching. How do you assess what the kids have learned? How do you ensure that they work to the standards they need to learn?

I’m confused by your confusion. You observe, you ask questions, you have students work on assignments, projects, etc. just like they regularly would. You compare their work and answers to what the standard says to see if they are proficient. It’s really simple. You just don’t need to give a participation grade, homework grade, or give things a letter or percentage grade. Standards-based/proficiency/narrative grading is quite common.

so you still grade them but it’s just pass-fail?

No, it’s not pass/fail. That would mean that you are able to “fail” at something just because you haven’t learned it yet, even though you may be able to learn it tomorrow or in 2 years. This is about understanding what a student is able to do with proficiency so you know what they are ready to develop next. This is probably hard to understand because we are so used to lumping kids into grade levels expecting them to be able to learn the same thing in the same amount of time, but that’s not developmentally accurate. Everyone is on their own learning trajectory.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand how there can be “easy” or “tough” grading in math. Isn’t there only one right answer? Grading writing can be much more subjective, I know that, even with rubrics. But what is a “tough” grader in math doing differently?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how there can be “easy” or “tough” grading in math. Isn’t there only one right answer? Grading writing can be much more subjective, I know that, even with rubrics. But what is a “tough” grader in math doing differently?

Easier: Partial credit when a child does some steps of a multi-step algorithm correctly.

Tougher: No re-takes, no extra credit, no partial credit. Particular rules about how work must be shown or how answers are displayed (boxing answers, including units where appropriate).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your comments about private schools grading being tough are interesting. My DC is at a top ivy after MCPS. DC says that tons of kids there are from private schools, and they struggle with science. They write very well though. Public schools might grade easier but somehow they push the kids in science more. Maybe public schools entice their students to study sciences because of easier grading?

Both public schools and private schools can vary widely. There are some privates stronger in reading/writing than math, but there also are some public schools which are the same.

MCPS and FCPS both have many parents pushing STEM, so those systems have much stronger STEM courses than a rural public school (e.g, Louisa County or Craig County) will have.

[Anonymous]

How about try a "education won't put poor people in a lifetime of debt" approach to education. If education is viewed as a societal good as opposed to a life altering gamble then I think it would be re accepted to be engaged in class.

[Anonymous]

Generous retakes also help students master the material. Turning school into some kind of punishment seems misguided. In the end the grades matter less than content mastery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how there can be “easy” or “tough” grading in math. Isn’t there only one right answer? Grading writing can be much more subjective, I know that, even with rubrics. But what is a “tough” grader in math doing differently?

Easier: Partial credit when a child does some steps of a multi-step algorithm correctly.

Tougher: No re-takes, no extra credit, no partial credit. Particular rules about how work must be shown or how answers are displayed (boxing answers, including units where appropriate).

I believe the papers define them more along the lines of expected GPA. Teachers who pass out As like they're going out of style do worse than "be delighted with your B" teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The world has changed since our day.
Grades are inflated.
Parents attack regularly and severely.
As a HS teacher, I rarely give lower grades anymore. It isn't worth it for the salary I make.

It’s ridiculous how competitive college admissions have become. Parents are stressed too. Grades have become a weapon they shouldn’t be

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the complete opposite of what I learned while getting my MEd.

You learned kids shouldn’t be graded hard?

You would be shocked at how many teachers think grades should be eliminated all together...

If there was adequate time to write narratives for every student then eliminating grades would be very worthy of exploration.

But that's a fantasy! So grades are needed, for better or worse.

-teacher

Instituting "grades" instead of narratives (or at least in addition to narratives) had an large -- and positive -- impact on the medical world. Apgar scores made babies safer, Glasgow coma scores are ensuring proper care to head injury victims, NIH stroke scale is making strokes more survivable, etc. The key is that the metrics get delivered fast and clear.

Conversely, in the education world, actual performance can be buried under the weight of jargon. And this is particularly true for children of less educated parents.

[Anonymous]

The premise of this thread carries no weight. There is no data to support this notion. It's just the wish of one poster who probably also dreams of a past that never was...

[Anonymous]

without grades, does everyone end up at the same place? If everyone is decidedly the same academically, at least on paper, then with limited resources, how do determine who gets what for things like colleges?

How do you determine who is actually proficient and what proficient even is if you are not evaluating the performance of large groups? Or are you grading, but just not assigning the grades to the individual and only using them for internal reference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:without grades, does everyone end up at the same place? If everyone is decidedly the same academically, at least on paper, then with limited resources, how do determine who gets what for things like colleges?

How do you determine who is actually proficient and what proficient even is if you are not evaluating the performance of large groups? Or are you grading, but just not assigning the grades to the individual and only using them for internal reference?

I don’t think proficiency is a relevant metric here anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The premise of this thread carries no weight. There is no data to support this notion. It's just the wish of one poster who probably also dreams of a past that never was...

+1000 just another unproven pet theory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:without grades, does everyone end up at the same place? If everyone is decidedly the same academically, at least on paper, then with limited resources, how do determine who gets what for things like colleges?

How do you determine who is actually proficient and what proficient even is if you are not evaluating the performance of large groups? Or are you grading, but just not assigning the grades to the individual and only using them for internal reference?

I don’t think proficiency is a relevant metric here anymore.

I mean it sounds like some support the removal of all metrics beyond that humans exist, and at certain ages, they exist at various places where people may talk about stuff, whether they participate or not.