2. Overview
Presentation
Defining the Challenge: Putting Grades in Context
Where We Have Been
Where We Are
Where We Need To Go
Motivation
Mindset
Culture
Discussion
3. Where We Have Been
(According to Sir Ken Robinson)
Education as we know it is
a product of the
Enlightenment and the
Industrial Revolution.
http://unclutteredwhitespaces.com/2010/07/sir-ken-robinson-on-creating-an-education-system-that-nurtures-creativity/
4. The Key Question
What purpose does industrial education serve in a post-
industrial society?
5. Where We Are:
The Changing Marketplace
Abundance
Can your product/service
really compete in a
marketplace that is flooded
with similar products and
services? What sets it apart?
Asia
Can your job be outsourced
more cheaply?
Automation
Can your job be performed
more efficiently by a
computer or machine?
http://www.archwebb.com/blog/?p=120
6. Where We Are:
The Reality for Young People
“When we went to school, we were kept there with a
story, which is if you worked hard and did well and got a
college degree, you would have a job. . .
. . . Our kids don’t believe that, and they’re right not to.”
- Ken Robinson
7. Where We Are:
Credentials to Competencies
Even if it is possible to get a job based on one’s
credentials—including grades—the key will be keeping
it.
8. Where We Are:
Credentials to Competencies
Critical Thinking
Communication
Collaboration
Creativity
Initiative and Entrepreneurialism*
Agility and Adaptability*
* Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools
Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We
Can Do About It
9. Where We Are:
The Push for Innovation
Grant Lichtman,
The Learning Pond
http://learningpond.wordpress.com
10. Curriculum and Assessment:
Two Pieces of the Same Puzzle
Even as we search feverishly for the latest technologies
and most cutting-edge pedagogical approaches, many
of us often rely on “old-school” grading methods that
undermine our stated commitment to “21st century”
learning.
As independent schools, we have the freedom to
completely re-invent our curricula—but if we don’t get
assessment right, the puzzle will remain unfinished.
11. Where We Need To Go:
Three Tests
1. Grading practices should strive to encourage intrinsic
motivation and engagement in students.
2. Grading practices should cultivate in students a mindset
that is oriented toward long-term growth rather than
short-term achievement.
3. Grading practices should nourish classroom (and school)
cultures that reflect our “21st century” needs and values.
12. Test No. 1
Grading practices should strive to encourage
intrinsic motivation and engagement in
students.
13. “Carrots and Sticks” vs.
Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
Carrots and sticks (e.g.,
grades, cash, etc.) don’t
work nearly as well as we
think they do.
Instead, people are
motivated by three primary
factors: autonomy, mastery,
and purpose.
http://jonrwallace.blogspot.com/2012/06/12.html
14. Why Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work
Less of What We Do Want
Intrinsic Motivation
High Performance
Creativity
More of What We Don’t Want
Short-Term Thinking
Unethical Behavior
http://americancreed.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/carrots-and-sticks/
19. Mastery
The “Three Laws of
Mastery”
Mastery Is an Asymptote
Mastery Is a Pain
Master Is a Mindset
http://ryanmassey.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/mastery-is-an-asymptote/
20. Mastery
“People who have an easy time of
things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I
worry that those people get feedback
that everything they’re doing is great.
And I think as a result, we are actually
setting them up for long-term failure.
When that person suddenly has to
face up to a difficult moment, then I
think they’re screwed, to be honest. I
don’t think they’ve grown the
capacities to be able to handle that.”
- Dominic Randolph,
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/09/18/magazine/18-magcover-20110918/18-magcover-20110918-sfSpan.jpg
Riverdale Country School (NY)
22. Purpose
“Whatever they’re studying, be sure they can answer
these questions: Why am I learning this? How is it
relevant to the world I live in now?”
23. Purpose?
“My goal is to get a 3.7 or higher. . .
. My dad will give me 50 bucks if I
get it—even though 50 bucks isn’t
really that much. . . . Do I have any
other goals? [long pause] I mean
look, grades are the focus. I tell
you, people don’t go to school to
learn. They go to get good grades
which brings them to college,
which brings them the high-paying
job, which brings them happiness,
so they think. But basically, grades
is where it’s at.”
- High school student
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300098334
24. How Grading Can
Influence Motivation
As both carrot and stick, grades have the potential to
undermine autonomy, mastery, and purpose all at once.
25. Test No. 2
Grading practices should cultivate in students a
mindset that is oriented toward long-term
growth rather than short-term achievement.
26. Mindset
Fixed mindset
vs.
Growth mindset
http://blackboardbattlefield.com/2012/02/25/book-review-carol-dwecks-mindset/
28. The Tortoise and the Hare
“As children, we were given a
choice between the talented
but erratic hare and the
plodding but steady tortoise.
The lesson was supposed to
be that slow and steady wins
the race. But, really, did any of
us ever want to be the
tortoise? No, we just wanted
to be a less foolish hare.”
- Carol Dweck
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-tortoise-and-the-hare
29. The Tortoise and the Hare
“The story of the tortoise and the
hare, in trying to put forward the
power of effort, gave effort a bad
name. It reinforced the image
that effort is for the plodders
and suggested that in rare
instances, when talented people
dropped the ball, the plodder
could sneak through. . . . [T]his is
part of the fixed mindset.”
- Carol Dweck
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-tortoise-and-the-hare
30. How Mindset Influences
Performance (and Vice Versa)
When grades are seen as personal judgments, it is
natural to avoid being judged negatively.
How?
31. How Fixed Mindset Students
Avoid Being Judged Negatively
Reducing effort
Blaming the teacher, resisting help
Cheating
Avoiding more challenging tasks or quitting altogether
32. “Low Effort Syndrome”
“[L]ow-effort syndrome is often seen as a way that
adolescents assert their independence from adults, but
it is also a way that students with the fixed mindset
protect themselves. They view the adults as saying,
‘Now we will measure you and see what you’ve got.’
And they are answering, ‘No you won’t.’”
- Carol Dweck
33. Lazy or Rational?
“Students of all ages who have
been led to concentrate on getting
a good grade are likely to pick the
easiest possible assignment if given
a choice. . . . The more pressure to
get an A, the less inclination to
challenge oneself. Thus, students
who cut corners may not be lazy so
much as rational. They are
adapting to an environment where
good grades, not intellectual
exploration, are what count.”
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-well-educated-id-0807032670.aspx
34. Fulfilling Our Mission?
“Each April when the skinny envelopes—the rejection
letters—arrive from colleges, countless failures are
created from coast to coast. Thousands of brilliant
young scholars become ‘The Girl Who Didn’t Get Into
Princeton’ or ‘The Boy Who Didn’t Get Into Stanford.’”
- Carol Dweck
35. Fulfilling Our Mission
Especially if we claim to prepare students for more than
just college, the cultivation of a growth mindset should
be non-negotiable.
36. Test No. 3
Grading practices should nourish classroom
(and school) cultures that reflect our “21st
century” needs and values.
37. Conflict No. 1
In keeping with the shift toward post-industrial
education, we need classroom cultures that emphasize
deep, meaningful learning and the development of new
skills.
These valued new outcomes are difficult to assess—and
especially difficult to quantify.
38. Conflict No. 2
In a smaller, increasingly connected world, we need
classroom cultures that emphasize ethical decision-making
and the interdependent nature of a global society.
Grades have the potential to make students more self-
centered, manipulative, and unethical in their pursuit of
success.
39. The Tail That Wags the Dog
“A school’s use of letter or number grades may
encourage a fact- and skill-based approach to
instruction because that sort of learning is easier to
score. The tail of assessment thus comes to wag the
educational dog.”
- Alfie Kohn
40. Keeping What Works
There might be good reasons not to abandon what has
worked for us in the past—tests and quizzes, traditional
essays, etc.—but we should be sure that we’re not
keeping those things around simply because we’ve
figured out how to grade them more easily.
41. Grades and the
Student-Teacher Relationship
Sorting our students might be part of the job, but the
fact is that grades tend to put teachers and students in
an adversarial relationship. That makes it more difficult
to help them learn and grow, which is a more important
part of the job.
42. Grades and the
Student-Teacher Relationship
As classrooms become more active, more collaborative,
more differentiated places, teachers will necessarily
function more as coaches than as disseminators of
information. Thus, it naturally follows that student-
teacher relationships will become even more important
than they always have been.
43. Grades, Peer Relationships,
and Collaboration: Two Dangers
Comparison Competition
Students: Lower self-esteem Sends the wrong message about
the purpose of education
Teachers: Lower standards Provides an incentive to sabotage
the sometimes messy process of
collaboration
44. Grades and Unethical Behavior
“Again, we can continue to blame
and punish all the students who
cheat -- or we can look for the
structural reasons this keeps
happening. Researchers have
found that the more students are
led to focus on getting good
grades, the more likely they are
to cheat, even if they themselves
regard cheating as wrong.”
- Alfie Kohn
45. Conclusion
“The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are
real. But the key question is whether those difficulties
are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for
perpetuating the status quo.”
- Alfie Kohn
46. Feedback or More Information?
No grades, please.
Matt Edmonds
mcedmonds@sms.edu
47. Some Questions for Discussion
How might we give our students autonomy and still
maintain high standards?
How might we make the pain of mastery more bearable?
How might we move students from the fixed mindset to
the growth mindset?
How might we grade in a way that values the process as
much as the product?
How might we promote healthier classroom and school
cultures by rethinking grading practices?
