Entrance Slip: Marks in School

Before I entered the B.Ed program, I was very accustomed to getting assigned percentage grades for every assignment, exam, and course. Because this program mostly operates on a pass/fail system, for the first time I am being exposed to what it is like to be a student without being graded. On the one hand, I feel much less stressed about school while still feeling motivated to work hard and do well. There is less competition and less pressure to be perfect. On the other hand, sometimes I feel uncertain about whether or not the work I am turning in is actually good or just good enough to pass. Even when I receive qualitative feedback, it is much harder to interpret than quantitative feedback. I suppose my discomfort with not knowing exactly how well I am doing stems from growing up in a system focused on grades and competition. Maybe if I was more accustomed to an educational environment in which the focus was more on learning, I would feel less of a need to have my performance thoroughly evaluated.

From a teacher's perspective, I like the idea of focusing more on learning and less on quantitative assessment although I would worry about abandoning grading entirely. I'm sure some students would experience the same kind of uncertainty I feel about not knowing exactly how well you are doing. Many parents probably would feel uncomfortable not knowing this information as well. I would also worry about how I would convince kids they need to work harder without the evidence of a grade to back me up. Additionally, I think grading is seen as a fairly objective system, especially in math, and that this allows for more transparency between teacher and students. It is possible that without them, some students may see a teacher's feedback and critiques as biased.

I think that the way schools are currently structured puts too heavy of an emphasis on grading. It has come to the point where that's all many students and their parents really care about. I think grading is fine as an assessment of learning but problems arise when students begin to feel like these grades somehow define them or their possibilities for the future. Grades also fail to fully represent the learning experience and value certain kinds of success over others. This is clearly an issue, especially for students who experience success in ways that grades may not reflect. I think grading may work better as a system if we could find ways to make grades better reflect the different kinds of learning that take place in the classroom.