What a fantastic video. I will be sharing with my colleagues. As a teacher, I struggle with grades as well. A percentile scale makes more sense, but that ultimately just ends up hurting feelings. Students often earn grades in my class simply by demonstrating they've learned period, whether it be the content or even certain skills. If it were up to me, there would just be pass/fail.
Sometimes when a student seems to be doing poorly but insists that they studied, I'll schedule a conversation and let them demonstrate what they know that way. The hurt feelings aspect is interesting, especially since I started teaching at my current school. My last school was loaded with students that were happy to pass, but the school I'm at now is more of the grade chasing variety. Telling a student they didn't pass at my last school was devastatingly hard, but the students there were more understanding of that than my current students who have to accept a B instead of an A. The Grades=Success narrative is strong at my school, and I really wish parent and students could see it differently.
This reminds me of a Robert Miles video where he referenced Goodhart's Law: When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric. There's definitely value in measuring how much a student learned in a class, but because we've put such a huge emphasis on grades, they're no longer actually a means of measuring that. They've become warped, and all the minor differences between what we're trying to measure and what we're actually measuring become amplified to the point where it's no longer useful, but since we've invested so much of our culture into the idea that grades work, it's really hard to go back and fix the problem now.
I'll have to look up Goodhart's Law. It sounds fascinating. I often ask student what getting an A actually means, and most students think that it means that they'll completed all of the assignments. So they don't think about the quality of the work which can only be improved when somebody engages fully in it. I think of my first videos on this channel and think, "If I graded those, they wouldn't be awesome," but my videos are improving each time I make one because I'm engaging in it and I'm trying to learn more. I don't know how to move that same idea to the classroom where students can't choose whether or not to be there. Thanks for conversation. I'm still working my way through the playlist and I'm almost to yours. I'm looking forward to it.
No kidding. It gets even harder when you start looking at more complex work that involves evaluations and creative elements. What does an A look like in creative writing, when artistic license is a thing? It gets too weird and complicated.
Great video, thanks! It's such a delicate balance -- without grades as incentives (and the suggestion that grades=job) people often have trouble getting students to learn; but that's in part because teaching to a test, especially a standardized or generalized one, results in boring teaching and difficult learning. It can be a vicious cycle!
I completely agree: it's a balance and double-edged sword. Without a carrot on the stick, many students won't put in the effort because there is always so much to think about and manage in just the realm of their lives. Then throw in massive classes and standardization and you lose track of the individual student? It's a mess. I think that's why the most I've ever learned in a class came from small college and grad classes, but I can't imagine the tax payer to shell out all the money you'd need to pay for all the teachers to allow for 10-student classrooms. Thanks for the conversation!
Words From The Muck exactly. The luxury of the small classes I teach at university makes me sad about the big ones... but even in the small classes, I can't blame students for being pragmatic about grades even when they love the subject. They have so many pressures on them.
I often have to try and convince students to take care of themselves. At my high school, the pressure is insane and it isn't too unusual to have students cracking under the pressure. I think that's why this topic is so interesting to me, or more accurately, why the narrative about what grades do for a person is so interesting. Though I don't celebrate when a student doesn't turn in an assignment, I have no trouble at all moving deadlines and rearranging things when a student talks to me about their troubles.
The fact that universities focus on things like extra-curriculars so much in America is, as far as I'm aware, different than most of the rest of the world. For example, I'm from Ireland, and for us, the college we get into and the course we get are determined entirely by how well we do in a single set of exams at the end pf our secondary school. Grades here matter quite a lot and there is no incentive whatsoever to do extra-curricular activities if all you want is to do a very good course.
Interesting. Grades and tests still carry a ton of wait for us. Tests like the SAT and the ACT are a big deal along with the grades from our high schools. I think the idea of extracurricular value is because one's involvement in extracurriculars demonstrates some kind of value that the colleges are interested, like leadership or commitment. I don't work for a college, so that's purely speculative. In either case, I wish I had added a line in this video like, "if you commit yourself to learning as much as you can, the grades will come along with it." Maybe that's too idealistic. I don't know. Thanks for your comment and for watching!
what I did to get somewhat good grades(18.5/20) was to not care about the grade and just study.I got 20/20 in math. and yeah I got 13/20 in ancient greek but I had dyslexia image if someone without it did the same. they would get 19.5/20(which is a really, really good grade) and not be worried about the grade. you need to learn it and not remember it.and to do that you have to remember it without stress and with practice the remembering becomes learning
I recently had an employee I hired a few months ago Quit after i wouldnt give them a raise based on being on time to work for 2 weeks straight! He had a very bad lateness problem. This participation trophy generation are very lazy! Ill never hire another one again
about the profession someone chooses. Aristotle said in his book "ΗΘΙΚΑ ΝΙΚΟΜΑΧΕΙΑ" it doesn't matter what job you have but it matters if you do it well. a good plumber is more useful and better than a professor who didn't teach anyone or a general who always loses his battles
What a fantastic video. I will be sharing with my colleagues. As a teacher, I struggle with grades as well. A percentile scale makes more sense, but that ultimately just ends up hurting feelings. Students often earn grades in my class simply by demonstrating they've learned period, whether it be the content or even certain skills. If it were up to me, there would just be pass/fail.
Sometimes when a student seems to be doing poorly but insists that they studied, I'll schedule a conversation and let them demonstrate what they know that way. The hurt feelings aspect is interesting, especially since I started teaching at my current school. My last school was loaded with students that were happy to pass, but the school I'm at now is more of the grade chasing variety. Telling a student they didn't pass at my last school was devastatingly hard, but the students there were more understanding of that than my current students who have to accept a B instead of an A. The Grades=Success narrative is strong at my school, and I really wish parent and students could see it differently.
This reminds me of a Robert Miles video where he referenced Goodhart's Law: When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric. There's definitely value in measuring how much a student learned in a class, but because we've put such a huge emphasis on grades, they're no longer actually a means of measuring that. They've become warped, and all the minor differences between what we're trying to measure and what we're actually measuring become amplified to the point where it's no longer useful, but since we've invested so much of our culture into the idea that grades work, it's really hard to go back and fix the problem now.
I'll have to look up Goodhart's Law. It sounds fascinating.
I often ask student what getting an A actually means, and most students think that it means that they'll completed all of the assignments. So they don't think about the quality of the work which can only be improved when somebody engages fully in it. I think of my first videos on this channel and think, "If I graded those, they wouldn't be awesome," but my videos are improving each time I make one because I'm engaging in it and I'm trying to learn more. I don't know how to move that same idea to the classroom where students can't choose whether or not to be there.
Thanks for conversation. I'm still working my way through the playlist and I'm almost to yours. I'm looking forward to it.
It's really hard to measure memory and intelligence, since everything is relative and doesn't fit into one big number, like we're trying to make it.
No kidding. It gets even harder when you start looking at more complex work that involves evaluations and creative elements. What does an A look like in creative writing, when artistic license is a thing? It gets too weird and complicated.
Blergh. Grades are such a frustrating metric of learning. Great review on some of the challenges of grading systems!
Thank you so much! And yeah, I imagine as you work with environmental education, grades would be a super obnoxious and useless thing.
Great video, thanks! It's such a delicate balance -- without grades as incentives (and the suggestion that grades=job) people often have trouble getting students to learn; but that's in part because teaching to a test, especially a standardized or generalized one, results in boring teaching and difficult learning. It can be a vicious cycle!
I completely agree: it's a balance and double-edged sword. Without a carrot on the stick, many students won't put in the effort because there is always so much to think about and manage in just the realm of their lives. Then throw in massive classes and standardization and you lose track of the individual student? It's a mess. I think that's why the most I've ever learned in a class came from small college and grad classes, but I can't imagine the tax payer to shell out all the money you'd need to pay for all the teachers to allow for 10-student classrooms.
Thanks for the conversation!
Words From The Muck exactly. The luxury of the small classes I teach at university makes me sad about the big ones... but even in the small classes, I can't blame students for being pragmatic about grades even when they love the subject. They have so many pressures on them.
I often have to try and convince students to take care of themselves. At my high school, the pressure is insane and it isn't too unusual to have students cracking under the pressure. I think that's why this topic is so interesting to me, or more accurately, why the narrative about what grades do for a person is so interesting. Though I don't celebrate when a student doesn't turn in an assignment, I have no trouble at all moving deadlines and rearranging things when a student talks to me about their troubles.
The fact that universities focus on things like extra-curriculars so much in America is, as far as I'm aware, different than most of the rest of the world. For example, I'm from Ireland, and for us, the college we get into and the course we get are determined entirely by how well we do in a single set of exams at the end pf our secondary school. Grades here matter quite a lot and there is no incentive whatsoever to do extra-curricular activities if all you want is to do a very good course.
Interesting. Grades and tests still carry a ton of wait for us. Tests like the SAT and the ACT are a big deal along with the grades from our high schools. I think the idea of extracurricular value is because one's involvement in extracurriculars demonstrates some kind of value that the colleges are interested, like leadership or commitment. I don't work for a college, so that's purely speculative. In either case, I wish I had added a line in this video like, "if you commit yourself to learning as much as you can, the grades will come along with it." Maybe that's too idealistic. I don't know.
Thanks for your comment and for watching!
Up and Atom shared a we collab edu list
Thank you great discussion
phew this makes me feel good about my A- in calc bc
A + video!! 😉
I see what you did there...
Teaching to Test......come out of school like a can of soup with a label on it. Good Luck.
what I did to get somewhat good grades(18.5/20) was to not care about the grade and just study.I got 20/20 in math. and yeah I got 13/20 in ancient greek but I had dyslexia image if someone without it did the same. they would get 19.5/20(which is a really, really good grade) and not be worried about the grade. you need to learn it and not remember it.and to do that you have to remember it without stress and with practice the remembering becomes learning
I recently had an employee I hired a few months ago Quit after i wouldnt give them a raise based on being on time to work for 2 weeks straight! He had a very bad lateness problem. This participation trophy generation are very lazy! Ill never hire another one again
Not enough people have seen this.
Thank you so much. I wish all teachers and students could embrace some of this stuff a bit more.
about the profession someone chooses. Aristotle said in his book "ΗΘΙΚΑ ΝΙΚΟΜΑΧΕΙΑ" it doesn't matter what job you have but it matters if you do it well. a good plumber is more useful and better than a professor who didn't teach anyone or a general who always loses his battles