Learning, Schooling, Grading

This is a statement of my own grading philosophy. Every class you take has a different grading policy, based on the instructor's own philosophy and goals. You will find my own philosophy and goals here:

What I Believe about Learning. I believe that learning requires two things: curiosity and passion. Curiosity and passion both come from INSIDE you; nobody else can give you the curiosity you need to ask questions, and nobody else can give you the passion you need to find the answers. Real learning, I believe, can never happen without curiosity and passion. Sadly, it seems to me that very little real learning happens in school, and that is because we have done a terrible thing to our schools: we have replaced curiosity and passion with grading.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Fourth Grade. In fourth grade (early 1970s), I was in an experimental program called the "open classroom." There were maybe a hundred of us kids in a gigantic room with no walls, just some partitions here and there, with "learning centers" in the corners and sides of the room (for math and science and art and music and so on), while the "reading and writing center" was in the center of the room. We did whatever we wanted, and the teachers helped us find things we were excited about. During the school day, for part of the time, the teachers would be teaching things in the learning centers (attendance was optional), and at other times the teacher was just there to help you do your own thing. Every day we filled out a form with big boxes where we wrote in our own words what we had done that day. I loved that year of school… and I was ruined forever. When I had to go to fifth grade in a normal school the next year I hated it so much that I wanted to drop out of school. I love to learn, but I don't love school. Even though I was only a little kid, I think I pretty much developed my whole philosophy of education right there in fourth grade. No curriculum. No tests. No grades. CURIOSITY. PASSION.

Grades and Goals. So here I am now, almost forty years later, and I am part of the schooling institution. The only thing the university wants to know from me at the end of the semester is what letter, A-B-C-D-F, I will give each of you. After fifteen weeks of learning, that is the only result that "counts." What kind of message does that send? I worry that it sends the message that the whole wide range of things that you, as an individual, might learn really doesn't matter at all. All that matters is a single letter or, really, a single number (4-3-2-1-0) since each class grade is even further reduced, averaged into a single GPA that supposedly represents your college education. I think we can and should do better than that.

My Goals as a Teacher. Teachers, of course, don't get graded (which doesn't seem fair, does it...?). For the most part, we are free to set our own goals, which is great. Here are some of my goals. I hope that I can stimulate your curiosity and inspire your passion for learning. I will try to give you an open-ended learning environment where you can make choices that will lead you along a path of learning that matters to you. I will consider the class a success if you will feel proud of what you have learned, and I want to offer ways for you to share what you have learned with the other students in the class. I will try to help you find great things to read and great ideas to think about. I want to share with you the skills I have — research skills, writing skills, technology skills — so that you can use those skills in your own pursuit of learning. Only you will know if I have succeeded in any of these goals at the end of the course. Yes, you are the one who will know if you have learned something in this course, or not — and you don't need a grade to tell you that.

How I Grade. Since, however, I am required to give you a grade, I use a grading system that, hopefully, will not get in the way of your learning. As you saw already, this grading system is based on points which you accumulate during the semester. Your final grade is based on the total number of points you accumulate. In educational jargon, I am using what is called "formative assessment" as opposed to "summative assessment." Formative assessment is like feedback, information that helps you to improve your performance and keep track of your progress over time. This is very different from "summative assessment," which is an objective test that you take at a certain point in time (a midterm, a final exam, etc.), and the score you get on that test is supposed to be a summary of what you have learned. But really, I think we need some scare quotes here: the test is "supposed to be" a summary of what you have learned. In my experience, both as a student and as a teacher, testing usually feels like a crap shoot, based as much on luck as anything else. Given my philosophy of learning, I would find it impossible to design a summative test that would accurately reflect the kind of learning that (I hope) will happen in this class. Fortunately, though, by using formative assessment for the work in this class, with the points accumulating day by day, I am able to report to the university the A-B-C-D-F for each of you that it requires from me at the end of the semester.

Grade Anxiety. Grade anxiety is a common result of summative testing and high-stakes final exams or papers. Not good. I believe we all need more curiosity and passion, and as little anxiety as possible. So, I hope the grading system I use here will completely eliminate any anxiety you have about grading. Does this mean that most students in this class will get an A at the end of the semester? Yes, it does. The students who don't get an A are either students who choose to get a B or C on purpose (if you are super-busy with other obligations, you can cut back on the work for this class; that's fine with me), or students who miscalculate, slacking off on work early in the semester and not having the time they need to earn enough points at the end. It's simply a matter of time: if you have six to eight hours to spend on this class every week, you will have no trouble at all accumulating the points you need to get an A. So, if your goal is to get an A, please make sure you have the time available to spend on this class; if you do, the grade will not be a problem.

Grade Inflation. Yes, this is an example of what is sometimes called grade inflation; I am exactly the kind of teacher who gives a lot of A grades. I hope that you now see why this is a logical and necessary consequence of what I believe about learning and teaching. Recently, there has been a lot of reporting in the mass media about grade inflation and, to be honest, I get very frustrated when I read those reports because the reporters assume, wrongly, that summative assessment is the only possible basis for grading. I disagree: I believe that as teachers we each must choose the basis for grading that we believe is most effective. Speaking for myself, I choose not to use summative assessments for the reasons I have given above. A points-based grading system, without tests or exams, is the best way I know to promote sustained effort and enthusiasm, which in turn leads to the best learning; hence the good grades.

(Proverb Posters)