

Grading systems are obviously broken.  Why isn't anyone fixing them? - algoshift

I am working on a series of educational apps for iOS and other mobile platforms.  Part of this is coming-up with a grading system that makes sense.  The objective isn't to simply provide a grade that corresponds to how a student tested.  That would simply reflect how someone did on that particular test.  The goal is to grade knowledge, not test results.<p>Having lived and studied in three different cultures in different parts of the world I can say that, from my experience, grading in the US and abroad is pretty much the same.  Other parts of the world might use a 0 to 10 scale while US schools like the A through F symbols.  In the end the result is the same:  You are grading test-taking performance, not knowledge.<p>Any entrepreneur knows full-well that test performance does not matter.  How many times have you failed before succeeding?  Failure is a part of learning.  Some might argue that failure is the start of learning.<p>Yet another example is that of a skilled athlete, say, a gymnast.  It might take weeks or months of failure to master one particular move that lasts barely past one second.  After hundreds of failures the gymnast gets it right and it is part of their skill set.  Countless other examples abound.<p>The problem with test-style grading is that it does not encode acquired knowledge.  It encodes isolated and aggregate test scores.  And, to add further insult to injury, you get to average test scores at the end of the year, semester or quarter to get your grade.  The resulting number is meaningless.<p>Imagine that we applied this to the aforementioned gymnast.  They would get grades below 5 or 6 most of the time due to constant failures while learning.  Then, once they figure it out they start getting 10's.  Well, if you average hundreds of scores at 5 or below with a few dozen 10's you'll get an average score that does not represent what this person can now actually do.  And therein lies the problem.<p>So, I've been looking at grading systems that allow one to place greater weight on success when compared to failure in order to encode acquired knowledge rather than average test scores.<p>I'd be interested to learn from others who may have traveled this road and what they may have learned in the process.<p>An even greater topic is how to go about changing the way schools grade for the benefit of all involved.<p>Thank you,<p>-Martin<p>PM: x@y.z
where x = martin
      y = algoshift
      z = com
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curt
In undergrad after your first year my college had an open book policy for all
engineering courses. Tests were usually 2-3 questions (~2hrs long) and you
could use any resource you wanted just like you would at a job. There was no
memorization, they only tested your ability to solve a problem.

Feel the same way that's why I really didn't care about 'grades' or 'majors'.
Sadly most people need the physiological motivation of the grading system. If
I wanted to learn something I took the class: engineering, comp sci, bio,
whatever I felt like. In grad school I never even opened a report card, they
just went right in the trash. You're there to learn, not to get grades. But
again most people cant work like that.

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_delirium
Most project-based university courses sort of use a system like that, at least
over the timeframe of the course. Often there will be intermediate
checkpoints, but they rarely count for a lot, and if you turn in a great final
project, that usually overrides anything else. So basically you have 14 weeks
to acquire and apply the knowledge. True in humanities courses to some extent
also; in many philosophy courses, for example, there are some short essays and
responses throughout the semester, but you could do badly on those and still
get an A if you turned in a top-quality final paper that showed the prof that,
by the end of the course, you had figured out how to develop and communicate a
good philosophy argument.

It's true that you might want to do this over a timeframe longer than 14
weeks, though.

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phaet0n
I think the fundamental issue is that no one asks the simple question, "What
is the goal of testing/grading?"

I think is in order for the _student_ to evaluate their mastery of the given
discipline.

Everything else, I feel, stems from a distortion of this process for other
purposes.

As for grading in schools, I cannot say anything reasonable because I got good
grades, although I hated school. However, I recall my art teacher in middle
school who would sit you down and ask you about your aim with your work and
what you thought you deserved, and then she'd settle on a grade. I found it
really strange, because I was too young to understand. I would often
overestimate my grade, but what she wanted of me was to figure out what I
expected of myself and to develop the ability to evaluate that.

It's profound that someone would want that of you at 12 years of age.

I'll never forget it, though I only understood it many, many years later.

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rabidonrails
After reading all the comments I find myself at the tipping point of a truly
great idea -- no doubt inspired by the questions brought forth by Martin.

If the end goal of schooling is to learn AND be able to apply knowledge, then
what can be used to show a child the benefit of understanding knowledge? That
is, could you construct a situation in which a child in, say, third grade
would want to repeat a course without outside pressure?

If we can assume that adults are willing to make this decision based on a
couple of key factors: e.g. 1. the need to provide for themselves (and family)
2. curiosity - the desire to innovate, is there a way to convey or reinterpret
these ideas to a child?

My thoughts anyway and kudos to logjam for quoting Pirsig...that's awesome.

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logjam
Robert Pirsig advocated the abolition of grading. From Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance:

"The student’s biggest problem was a slave mentality which had been built into
him by years of carrot-and -whip grading, a mule mentality which said, "If you
don’t whip me, I won’t work." He didn’t get whipped. He didn’t work. And the
cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just
going to have to creak along a little slower without him.

"This is a tragedy, however, only if you presume that the cart of
civilization, "the system", is pulled by mules. This is a common, vocational,
"location" point of view, but it’s not the [true learning]’s attitude. [True
learning]’s attitude is that civilization, or " the system ", or "society", or
whatever you want to call it, is best served not by mules but by free men. The
purpose of abolishing grades and degrees is not to punish mules or to get rid
of them but to provide an environment in which that mule can turn into a free
man."

"So he would come back to our degreeless and gradeless school, but with a
difference. He’d no longer be a grade-motivated person. He’d be a knowledge-
motivated person. He would need no external pushing to learn. His push would
come from inside. He’d be a free man. He wouldn’t need a lot of discipline to
shape him up. In fact, if the instructors were slacking on the job he would be
likely to shape them up by asking rude questions. He’d be there to learn
something, would be paying to learn something and they’d better come up with
it. "

"Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force, and in
the gradeless, degreeless institution where our student would find himself, he
wouldn’t stop with rote engineering information. Physics and mathematics were
going to come within his sphere of interest because he’d see he needed them.
Metallurgy and electrical engineering would come up for attention. And, in the
process of intellectual maturing that these abstract studies gave him, he
would be likely to branch out into other theoretical areas that weren’t
directly related to machines but had become a part of a newer larger goal.
This larger goal wouldn’t be the imitation of education in Universities today,
glossed over and concealed by grades and degrees that give the appearance of
something happening when, in fact, almost nothing is going on."

"It would be the real thing."

~~~
algoshift
I don't think that the abolition of grading is a good idea. You need some way
to communicate what someone has learned. Current grading systems are
meaningless. I can't hire someone with a perfect 4.0 and assume that they
really know their stuff.

The example I use all the time is from when I was in college taking subjects
like physics and calculus. A few of us were very much hands-on kind of guys
that grew up making things and generally connecting with the real world. Other
students had never done anything beyond high-school science class. Never a
splinter in their finger or trying to make balsa-wood contraption fly.

There was a stark contrast between testing in math and physics because of
this. There was a bunch of students that were test taking machines when it
came to calculus. Always got A's.

However, when it came time to apply that to a physics test they failed
--sometimes miserably-- because there was no real understanding or knowledge.

I find myself re-living some of that as I now help my kids learn science. Dad
is no famous for taking the algebra explanation to the garage and grabbing a
tape measure, some wood and a handsaw. The function y = x can have a myriad of
different domain values depending on what it is you happen to be talking
about. This is not what they teach in school and it certainly isn't what they
are testing for.

Anyhow, grades need to encode real knowledge. This is what I am striving for
in the apps I am working on and hope that some day schools figure it out as
well.

