I absolutely just looked at the grade and considered the exchange finished. I think alternative evaluations are needed across the board. I would have personally preferred a mastery based system...
I absolutely just looked at the grade and considered the exchange finished. I think alternative evaluations are needed across the board. I would have personally preferred a mastery based system (pass/fail where anything below an A fails, but you get as much time as you need) for subjects I was passionate about. But not everyone needs those levels of expectations.
In a perfect world, classes would not have set lengths; you stay and study until you've mastered the skills you're supposed to master, and you move on as soon as you've done so. I believe that...
In a perfect world, classes would not have set lengths; you stay and study until you've mastered the skills you're supposed to master, and you move on as soon as you've done so. I believe that grading and point systems encourage the creation of busywork classes. It would encourage gifted students to pass through quickly so that more resources could be directed to the students who need more help, and it would hopefully reduce the stigma of being held back if you weren't able to understand the subject by an arbitrary date.
That being said, I would imagine this approach would require a lot more professional teaching labor, and it's doubtful to be adopted since it's so far outside of the traditional structure in which we teach - though I'm sure that there's a lot of other 'experimental schools' that work somewhat like this.
What you suggest makes a lot of sense. Imagine a school system where the students took the exam at the beginning of the school teaching period, instead of the end. If you passed, you wouldn't need...
What you suggest makes a lot of sense. Imagine a school system where the students took the exam at the beginning of the school year teaching period, instead of the end. If you passed, you wouldn't need take a single class; you'd just get the credit right away. Everyone else would take classes as needed in order to retake the exam (at any time) and pass, as many times as they needed (and, I suppose, had money to pay for).
When I was a kid, it was the same. I only looked at grades because I was constantly gaming the system so I could put in the least amount of effort I could. But right now I'm an adult trying to...
When I was a kid, it was the same. I only looked at grades because I was constantly gaming the system so I could put in the least amount of effort I could.
But right now I'm an adult trying to spend some money on my education, I could almost care less about my actual grade; what's important to me is that I actually understand what it is that I am learning. Feedback is everything.
I went to a university that was founded in the 60s with personalized reviews instead of grades. By the time I attended they had switched to a hybrid system, grades and a review, so that students...
I went to a university that was founded in the 60s with personalized reviews instead of grades. By the time I attended they had switched to a hybrid system, grades and a review, so that students could more easily transfer or apply for grad school if needed. Midway through my time there, they completely removed the review system.
I was not a good student when I went off to university. I had undiagnosed dyslexia, I did not want to be there (or any college right after high school), and I failed out after a year with a cumulative GPA of 1.2. My reviews were scathing, and justifiably so. I took 2 years off with had significant personal growth and did enough classwork to meet the requirements to return. On the second go round, my academic performance was much better, with an average GPA of 3.8. However this time I didn't get reviews. Now when you look at the complete picture of my time at university, I ended with a 2.9 and pretty damning comments from my first year. Without spending time to track my growth over those five years, I look like a pretty unappealing candidate.
So how does this relate? I love the idea of ungrading and a review that allows for growth. Numbers turn us into a binary and rarely reflect the story behind them. A cumulative GPA of 2.9 can result from vastly different personal trajectories. Still, the cut off for most graduate programs is a 3.0; any less and you wont pass the automatic filter or, in some cases, department standards for admission. To me, a 3.0 feels arbitrary because it doesn't track growth, it's just an average. To echo the article, it favors those who came into the institution performing at a high level, not those who improved with classes. We need a consistent evaluation metric and grades fill that role, but it would be great to see our system give them less weight and treat them as another data point on a complex individual. What if we tracked students like stocks? When looking to invest you look at performance over time. Is this price improving? What does current company performance look like? Are there any exciting announcements on the horizon? It gives a nascent companies the opportunity to complete against established ones. It would be interesting to see progress tracked as a trend rather than an average.
I'm in a class that is normally a lot of writing, but this professor has us doing discussions about the analyses we're supposed to be doing instead. I prefer it because if I want the participation...
I'm in a class that is normally a lot of writing, but this professor has us doing discussions about the analyses we're supposed to be doing instead. I prefer it because if I want the participation points I need to know the material and be able to apply it. Even one week when we had an "integrative session" I didn't prepare for I was able to do alright because I knew enough to synthesize points out of the discussion we were having and case materials.
He still grades, like my coming certification exam and our final project, but he's extremely helpful if you're wrong, or not as correct as you could be. The feedback is immensely helpful in not just understanding the material, but identifying how I can better do this.
This is, of course more a "flipped classroom" model than a non-grading school system, but I'm liking the trends I see emerging in higher education where the students are given the challenge of change, because of given a chance they will seize the opportunity to improve.
This is really interesting. Looking back, I wish I had paid more attention to the comments my teachers wrote.
I absolutely just looked at the grade and considered the exchange finished. I think alternative evaluations are needed across the board. I would have personally preferred a mastery based system (pass/fail where anything below an A fails, but you get as much time as you need) for subjects I was passionate about. But not everyone needs those levels of expectations.
In a perfect world, classes would not have set lengths; you stay and study until you've mastered the skills you're supposed to master, and you move on as soon as you've done so. I believe that grading and point systems encourage the creation of busywork classes. It would encourage gifted students to pass through quickly so that more resources could be directed to the students who need more help, and it would hopefully reduce the stigma of being held back if you weren't able to understand the subject by an arbitrary date.
That being said, I would imagine this approach would require a lot more professional teaching labor, and it's doubtful to be adopted since it's so far outside of the traditional structure in which we teach - though I'm sure that there's a lot of other 'experimental schools' that work somewhat like this.
What you suggest makes a lot of sense. Imagine a school system where the students took the exam at the beginning of the school
yearteaching period, instead of the end. If you passed, you wouldn't need take a single class; you'd just get the credit right away. Everyone else would take classes as needed in order to retake the exam (at any time) and pass, as many times as they needed (and, I suppose, had money to pay for).When I was a kid, it was the same. I only looked at grades because I was constantly gaming the system so I could put in the least amount of effort I could.
But right now I'm an adult trying to spend some money on my education, I could almost care less about my actual grade; what's important to me is that I actually understand what it is that I am learning. Feedback is everything.
I went to a university that was founded in the 60s with personalized reviews instead of grades. By the time I attended they had switched to a hybrid system, grades and a review, so that students could more easily transfer or apply for grad school if needed. Midway through my time there, they completely removed the review system.
I was not a good student when I went off to university. I had undiagnosed dyslexia, I did not want to be there (or any college right after high school), and I failed out after a year with a cumulative GPA of 1.2. My reviews were scathing, and justifiably so. I took 2 years off with had significant personal growth and did enough classwork to meet the requirements to return. On the second go round, my academic performance was much better, with an average GPA of 3.8. However this time I didn't get reviews. Now when you look at the complete picture of my time at university, I ended with a 2.9 and pretty damning comments from my first year. Without spending time to track my growth over those five years, I look like a pretty unappealing candidate.
So how does this relate? I love the idea of ungrading and a review that allows for growth. Numbers turn us into a binary and rarely reflect the story behind them. A cumulative GPA of 2.9 can result from vastly different personal trajectories. Still, the cut off for most graduate programs is a 3.0; any less and you wont pass the automatic filter or, in some cases, department standards for admission. To me, a 3.0 feels arbitrary because it doesn't track growth, it's just an average. To echo the article, it favors those who came into the institution performing at a high level, not those who improved with classes. We need a consistent evaluation metric and grades fill that role, but it would be great to see our system give them less weight and treat them as another data point on a complex individual. What if we tracked students like stocks? When looking to invest you look at performance over time. Is this price improving? What does current company performance look like? Are there any exciting announcements on the horizon? It gives a nascent companies the opportunity to complete against established ones. It would be interesting to see progress tracked as a trend rather than an average.
Sure, the GPA makes more sense if you think of college more as a series of unrelated courses rather than a progression, which it often is.
I'm in a class that is normally a lot of writing, but this professor has us doing discussions about the analyses we're supposed to be doing instead. I prefer it because if I want the participation points I need to know the material and be able to apply it. Even one week when we had an "integrative session" I didn't prepare for I was able to do alright because I knew enough to synthesize points out of the discussion we were having and case materials.
He still grades, like my coming certification exam and our final project, but he's extremely helpful if you're wrong, or not as correct as you could be. The feedback is immensely helpful in not just understanding the material, but identifying how I can better do this.
This is, of course more a "flipped classroom" model than a non-grading school system, but I'm liking the trends I see emerging in higher education where the students are given the challenge of change, because of given a chance they will seize the opportunity to improve.