Becoming “Real”
There are few things in life that confound me more than humans choosing to do something – often repetitively – when they know the outcome will be unfair, unreasonable, unrewarding and/or unrevealing. Grading performance in an academic setting is one of those things. Alfie Kohn’s arguments for re-thinking assessment are both sound (research-based) and logical. One particular revelation struck me as being at the heart of the matter: Maehr and Midgley’s (1996) observation that “an overemphasis on assessment can actually undermine the pursuit of excellence.” Kohn himself summarized the issue even more clearly: “the more students are led to focus on how well they’re doing, the less engaged they tend to be with what they’re doing.” Isn’t this completely counter to what is intended to be accomplished in the education endeavor?
This observation is reflected in a few of the blog posts others wrote reflecting on this topic:
Vanessa Guerram did an interesting post on the difference between educating for the workforce (filling a need of society) versus educating to empower [the individual].
The notion that somehow economic security trumps individual fulfillment has confounded me for years. And as Vanessa eloquently acknowledges “if education systems focus on students’ learning experiences, education will be about empowering students so they can find the tools they need to make their difference in the world.”
If students are able to focus on becoming experienced – possessing both skills and understanding – won’t they be productive citizens and contribute to the greater good of society?
Jaci Drapeau finds Kohn’s arguments limited and more synergy with Elbow’s argument for “more evaluation” which focuses on growth of students’ abilities or sophistication.
I appreciate Jaci’s reading of Elbow. Through her blog post the clarity of the language used – evaluation versus assessment – was more clear after contemplating it from her perspective. Evaluation, in Elbow’s work, is akin to an apprentice relationship: the student learns from a master and receives guidance, crtique, and challenges along the way to refining one’s craft/understanding. Through the experiences one learns and becomes more capable of applying understanding to new situations, problems or innovation.
Lauren Kennedy questions the feasibility of an alternative evaluation system (narrative) in the context of a system that is based upon summative assessment and grades quantified in numbers.
Lauren’s contemplation of where would the education system be without some sort of number-based assessment system was also clarifying. It helped to see the existing system as serving its own needs rather than those of the individual “engaged … in what they’re doing.” (Kohn
Becoming a real _______ [can be filled with any occupation or title] requires the development of the skills, mindset and demonstrated proficiencies that are expected within the field(s). And, while we have established systems where grades represent progress toward becoming real, they rarely reflect ‘real’ anything.
Feedback (both positive and negative) is essential to progressing and developing one’s craft. Few humans exist and work simply for the benefit of themselves. Effective feedback can be liberating for the perfectionist and the individual who is stuck in an unproductive process: it can be the catalyst for new perspective that leads to original insight. Feedback that leads to an informed evaluation of a student’s progress – their growth – through certain carefully crafted exercises/projects/artifacts intended to develop one’s skills, thinking and articulation should be the aim of any educational endeavor. Grades mean next to nothing to anyone involved in the ‘earning’ or ‘distribution’ if there is no meaningful and intentional feedback.
____________________________
Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 28-33. Retrieved from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-grades/
Maher, M. L., & Midgley, C. (1996). Transforming school culture. CO: Westview.
“Feedback (both positive and negative) is essential to progressing and developing one’s craft. Few humans exist and work simply for the benefit of themselves. Effective feedback can be liberating for the perfectionist and the individual who is stuck in an unproductive process: it can be the catalyst for new perspective that leads to original insight.”
Yes!! I totally agree. I really think students appreciate feedback on assignments. I know I do. I like to know what worked, what specifically didn’t work, and how I can improve on the next assignment (or even the current assignment if that’s allowed). Like you suggests, giving feedback also reiterates to the student that there was an audience for the assignment, and they weren’t putting all this work and effort simply for a personal grade.
Thank you for your post! I really appreciate your reflection on the use of feedback to provide students with input on their progress. I am curious to hear about your experiences incorporating this type of feedback into a classroom or ideas about how you would do that!
Sorry it took me so long to get back to this, Amy!! I stopped to think about examples that would make sense and never came back.
I think the best personal example from my classroom is the Writing Workshop I instituted with my fifth graders. They had daily, weekly, semi-quarterly and quarterly objectives they needed to meet, including expanding vocabulary, developing their writer’s notebook, obtaining feedback on their writing, initiating and participating in writing conferences with me, and submitting final written work (with all drafts, notes and other documentation)for my review – similar to what journalists do for their editors. The end result was to have 3-5 final pieces of writing a quarter that they would be willing for others to read (peers, parents, submit to the school newspaper, etc.). It wasn’t as simple as I’ve made it sound, and it was often messy and terribly disorganized looking. There were a few kids who failed to complete anything the first quarter, but by the end of the second, had at least two pieces done, and by the end of the year were writing proficiently, had a portfolio of 5-10 pieces of writing and could re-read their work and see their personal growth as writers. And, their year-end report card grade was based on their cumulative progress throughout the year, not on what they had received each quarter.
At the time I didn’t consider the workshop to be successful, overall, but with time and hindsight I realized that some of those kids are amazing writers now (not all attributable to my class, but it was the first time they had the opportunity to ‘act’ like real writers, so I feel like they identified with being one thereafter), and most were confident writers through high school. So, in the long run, I’d have to say that the writing workshop was a success.
I agree that feedback is a crucial instrument to learning. There’s nothing less inspiring than getting a paper back that I’ve worked tirelessly on because it was written on a topic that I feel passionately only to get it back with a letter grade or _out of _ points assigned. It’s like telling me that if I recieved an A or 20 out of 20, there’s nothing left for me to learn (which I know is an impossibility).
Oh, yeah … I can totally relate, Jason.
I am trying to figure out an optimal learning schema where evaluation is about measuring growth and next steps, not about giving grades. It exists in portfolio learning communities (schools) and they are starting to develop studies of the students’ success in both managing their learning and what they learn.
Here are a couple of links to schools I think are on the right track:
Portfolio school, NY – https://www.portfolio-school.com/
SEEQS, HI – seeqs.org
I’m right there with you, pal.
It is terribly frustrating. And the crazy thing is, I think the professors that do it think they are doing us both a favor, most of the time!
Ah. The first sentence of your post resonates with me so much. When I feel set up to fail, it makes me not even want to try. And oftentimes I’ve had courses where on the very first day, we’re told that lots of us will fail. It just completely bursts my sense of motivation. I need to be told that I will at least have the resources I need succeed. That they are at least present and real.
My question would also be – Can’t we do both? This is in relation to implementing both skill building and empowering through education. Sure, you can’t be a microbiologist if you don’t know how to work in the lab setting. However, people that merely possess these skills are not always efficient in the lab.
Thanks for your comment, Nicole.
I think that there should be a process by which students can ‘report’ *teachers* who profess to be such and still expect a certain number of students to fail. Failure should not be an option in education, in my opinion. That’s not to say that doing quality work, meeting deadlines and demonstrating proficiency (or better) and not important, but this artificial process under which we’ve operated for so long that seems to think it is ‘producing’ quality, success, competency has failed time and time again to do so.
I believe we can (and do) develop competency/proficiency, even expertise without the threat of failure. I’ve luckily had a few professors here at VT that believe that, and thank goodness. There is movement on using standards-based evaluation systems in K-12 public schools where a student is evaluated based on their demonstrated proficiency based on proficiency expectations, rather than given a ‘grade’ for their effort/work. And there are colleges that don’t even give grades to their students.