Examining Traditional Grading and its Impact on Teaching - E138

In this episode, we delve back into our discussion about the book 'Grading for Equity' by Joe Feldman. The third chapter which we are exploring is titled 'How Traditional Grading Stifles Risk Taking and Supports the Commodity of Grades' and opens up the conversation about belief systems and the prevailing view on student achievement. We discuss the stark differences between the Industrial Revolution beliefs and 21st-century beliefs regarding education, and raise questions about how grading methods should shift in light of these changes. We particularly focus on the harm that a heavy focus on extrinsic motivation can cause and the negative implications of traditional grading practices on the trust and relationship between teachers and students. Furthermore, we scrutinize how grades have become a commodity leading to competition rather than collaboration and debate whether traditional grading serves the purpose of preparing students for post-secondary education or not. Towards the end, we suggest potential solutions that look beyond punitive grading policies and value both the learning process and the students' individual expressions of learning.

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Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/138**

• 00:00 Introduction to Grading for Equity
• 00:37 Exploring Belief Systems in Education
• 01:42 The Shift in Education Systems and Beliefs
• 04:56 The Impact of Traditional Grading on Risk Taking and Trust
• 07:09 The Negative Consequences of Traditional Grading
• 13:48 The Commodity of Grades and Extrinsic Motivation
• 24:16 The Illusion of Engagement and Motivation
• 25:11 Conclusion and Future Discussions

Transcript

Rachel: 0:41

In this episode, we're going to begin to talk about the case for changing traditional grading and how traditional grading impacts effective and equitable teaching and learning.

Katie: 0:52

We are returning to Chapter 3 of Joe Feldman's Grading for Equity, and we are looking at how traditional grading stifles risk taking and supports the commodity of grades in the classroom.

Rachel: 1:04

Let's get started. This week, Katie and I are back to get back into this book, Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman, and get into the third chapter, which is called How Traditional Grading Stifles Risk Taking and Supports the Commodity of Grades. And I love that title.

Katie: 1:31

Oh, yes, it's great, and um, it's also the beginning of part two of the book, and so we talked about the history more, now we're looking into the case for change, so motivations behind it, and I think this first chapter here, chapter three, is a great conversation starter, when we think about that. So, joe Feldman opens up this chapter with belief systems, essentially. So taking a look at the industrial, industrial revolution beliefs and kind of, during that time, what we believed when this education system came to be. And then the 21st century beliefs in terms of learning and students and expectations of school. And it's, it's very stark, the differences. And so I think it's worth mentioning these three kind of key points that he brings up. So, the first one is, student achievement occurs on a curve, and only a subset of students uh, is capable of meeting academic standards.

Rachel: 2:27

Doesn't that just give you shivers? Like in a bad way. Not in a good way.

Katie: 2:32

it makes me very uncomfortable to even read it.

Rachel: 2:34

Yes,

Katie: 2:35

could not imagine being a teacher during that time and believing that. And then this one, now, 21st century believes, all students are capable of meeting academic standards.

Rachel: 2:44

Which I totally agree with.

Katie: 2:45

I do. Now, do I think it's across the system believed? I don't know. I think that we could have a whole episode talking about that. but this shift in education systems and this belief that all students can meet academic uh, standards, that's a huge shift from the past. And so what are we doing with our grading practices to recognize that shift?

Rachel: 3:07

that's a great question.

Katie: 3:08

yes. That's kind of the meat and potatoes that we need to be talking about. Because if we are recognizing this, what are we doing to ensure they can demonstrate that? Because we still kind of mark on this curve, so to speak.

Rachel: 3:19

So the next one. Oh, I don't even want to read this. Okay. Industrial Revolution belief is that schools are expected to sort students 21st century belief is that schools should not be in the business of sorting students.

Katie: 3:35

Mm hmm. And I like this, because we are de streaming here in Ontario, and it is a fabulous thing.

Rachel: 3:41

I agree. And even after de streaming, like when students are going into grade 10 and beyond, it's not our place to tell students what stream to go into. Like, they have the right, if they want to try the academic stream, even if we have reservations about how successful they're going to be. One, I mean, the first belief says that they, they're, all students are capable of meeting those academic standards, so. And then two is like, we're not in the, we're not in the business of sorting students, we, we have no right to tell them that they can't try.

Katie: 4:14

No, we have to respect their aspirations and goals. And maybe it's going to be hard for them, but maybe that's an opportunity where they can expand their learning strategies and discover how they learn better and how to kind of take advantage of their strengths to get there. It might be a very difficult journey, but it's their journey. It's not ours. And we should not be telling them what they should and should not do.

Rachel: 4:39

And what can we as educators do to support that journey?

Katie: 4:43

hmm. The last one. Extrinsic motivation is the most effective means of influencing behaviors, which include behaviors associated with learning. That is the Industrial Revolution belief. 21st century. Extrinsic motivation is not the most effective means of influencing behaviors associated with learning and higher order thinking. Intrinsic motivation is superior. And this is another one where, you know, I say, I believe that, but what are we doing differently? Because this is, to me, something that still happens on a regular basis.

Rachel: 5:14

Yeah, and like we have to think about, okay, if an intrinsic motivation is superior, What are we doing to promote a classroom environment where students are going to feel intrinsically motivated?

Katie: 5:28

And that's just it. So how are we doing that? And how are we removing the pressures of extrinsic motivation? Because that exists in all of our classrooms, in one form or another. I'm sure it even is in my classroom. Let's be honest. Because we do these things without even thinking. Like, they've just become part of the system. And we need to acknowledge the ways of our students. That we are using, you know, carrot sticks, or attendance, or, maybe earning something in the classroom as that final reward.

Rachel: 5:58

Like grades.

Katie: 5:59

Well, yeah,

Rachel: 5:59

Grades are one of the biggest extrinsic motivators that we use with students, and they're not effective.

Katie: 6:07

They're not. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Mm hmm.

Rachel: 6:08

So, uh, sort of, sort of the next section, and I think this is going to kind of form the premise of the next few episodes where we're talking about this book, is that he talks about four sort of ways in which traditional grading practices are going to not only contradict, but even undermine effective and equitable teaching and learning. So we'll talk about the couple here today, which we've already mentioned. So that traditional grading can stifle risk taking and trust between teacher and student and supports the commodity of grades. And then the other ones we'll get into in other episodes is that traditional grading can hide information. invite biases, provide misleading information, and then it can also demotivate and disempower students.

Katie: 6:56

Those are very powerful topics. I'm excited.

Rachel: 6:58

They're very insanely powerful topics and they're, they're ones that are going to make you feel pretty darn uncomfortable talking about.

Katie: 7:07

Yeah,

Rachel: 7:07

So let's make ourselves uncomfortable and talk about them.

Katie: 7:10

let's do it. And so we're going to start off with risk taking trust and the teacher student relationship, which, I mean, the past few years, particularly with the pandemic, Community building, right? That, that's where we're building these relationships and these trust relationships with students and with their whole classroom community. So we know it's important, we see the value, but the question is, are we taking a look at how some of this, these tradi traditional grading practices impact that?

Rachel: 7:38

I think if you asked any educator out there, the first thing they would, like, if you said, what's the most important thing in your classroom or in your school, without a doubt, I would say the majority of people are going to say relationships.

Katie: 7:52

Mm hmm. Yes.

Rachel: 7:53

even research shows, like John Hattie's research, if you dive into any of it, and he does kind of mention this in the book too, is that when there are positive relationships between teacher and student, students are more motivated, they have higher achievement and they're way more engaged in your classroom, i. e. intrinsic motivation goes up.

Katie: 8:14

Yes, so you need to build that trust with that student. The student needs to know you care. You can't just be the sage on the stage.

Rachel: 8:21

Now the problem with traditional grading now is that it actually sends the opposite message and it actually degrades that positive relationship that you build with students.

Katie: 8:33

Yes, because you have this relationship where you're showing you care about them, but then you're still grading on a scale that kind of punishes them for making mistakes, or for not meeting a certain standard that you defined.

Rachel: 8:47

Yeah, we all know that we learn through mistakes. And you have to make mistakes in order to learn something. But when we use traditional grading and when we punish those mistakes over and over and over again it's going to a, you know, students are not going to trust you as much anymore because they're not going to then be able to show their vulnerability as they're learning new content and they're not going to take any risks. They're going to do as much as they can to minimize. how much they are being punished by taking points or percentages away from them.

Katie: 9:26

Let's talk about late marks with respect to that. Right? Many teachers take off 5% per day, or up to 5% per day that an assignment is late. You're not marking their learning when you're taking off 5%. You are grading punctuality and, and meeting deadlines. That's, that's not their learning.

Rachel: 9:45

Not only that, but then it's also saying that what You value the most in your classroom is the behaviors that we wanted from the Industrial Revolution. We talked about that in our last sort of episode on this book study is that those behaviors of punctuality and being compliant are all the ones that were valued to create great factory workers, and we're still valuing those today.

Katie: 10:10

Yes. so you're building a relationship yet you're, you're totally annihilating that relationship in the same breath when you're taking off late marks.

Rachel: 10:19

Yeah, so it's very like contradictory on itself. Now I, I really like this one quote and I've highlighted it in my book because

Katie: 10:28

I want to know if it's the same one. Is it, is it skipping?

Rachel: 10:31

No, just, I, I kind of want to point out this one where it says, The problem is that our traditional grading practices send the opposite message. Mistakes are unwanted, unhelpful, and punished.

Katie: 10:43

And they are. I want to, I want to highlight another thing that stood out to me because it's something that I see often with some of my English language learners. And it's on page 31. So it says, for example, when students skip a class, they may be doing so because they are unprepared or not confident that they can perform mistake free. This decision to not attend a class, instead of being immature and irresponsible, may instead be rational. And self preserving. It's safer psychologically to fail for not showing up than to be penalized and feel shame for giving incorrect answers that reveal weakness and vulnerability.

Rachel: 11:20

Yeah, so many behaviors that we see from students are ones that we're like, oh, they're just being lazy, or they're being defiant, or, you know, we can come up with many different words for it. But a lot of the behaviors are avoidance behaviors, because they do not want to fail, like it's a fear of failure. So like you said, it's better that they don't show up at all and take that versus being as the quote says, like punished for not knowing what they need to know.

Katie: 11:54

Yes. So it's like these late marks that you're doing, it's because a student is too afraid. They don't want to have mistakes in it. And so they're, they're trying to make it perfect. So that when they hand it to you, it's the best product they have. Or maybe there's things going on that they know have impacted the quality of that assignment. And they want to make sure they have time to actually do it well. They're, they're trying to present the best version of themselves. And yet, we penalize them for doing that. And we penalize them for not showing up for a test. Maybe we assign a zero instead. But this whole, like... Students are humans that have a wide range of emotions and they are vulnerable. And sometimes it's easier for them to get that zero than to make mistakes because you haven't created a space where mistakes are learning opportunities. And that's what mistakes need to be. Learning opportunities.

Rachel: 12:43

Absolutely. And so some of the other behaviors are things like cheating, Cheating is one copying off of someone else, plagiarism.

Katie: 12:53

Chat

Rachel: 12:53

of those behaviors, yeah, chat GPT and the use of chat

Katie: 12:56

Uh huh. like that's all part of this. You are putting so much pressure because you're using this traditional grading system where it has to be perfect. Where are we embedding opportunities for improvement? Why aren't we doing, hey, here's some areas I want you to look at and resubmit. Where's the feedback cycles? Multiple attempts. Mm

Rachel: 13:15

And even things like, if you consider with traditional grading, like just adding in completion grades, like they don't help either. Basically, again, there you're saying, hey, I value your compliance. But now you're not kind of getting that feedback on where mistakes are and where the learning needs to happen. And so like, They don't help either. Basically, completion grades are just another form of intrinsic motivation, and it doesn't work.

Katie: 13:46

Yes.

Rachel: 13:47

I think sort of the key kind of piece from that uh, this section on like stifling risk taking and degrading trust between teacher and student there's, there's a really sort of nice passage on page 32 that uh, he talks about where he says, the message when everything included in the grade is clear. You're always being judged and must show your absolute best performance in every respect, academic and non academic, every day. If you make a mistake or even are just having a bad day, it's going to count against you. There's no room for error, no safe place to make mistakes. Death or an academic death of an F by a thousand cuts.

Katie: 14:25

And as adults, we have bad days. But, but we're not failing. So why aren't we giving the same space for students to have bad days? Or for them to feel like they can't be at their best every day. Nobody's at their best every day. Let's be honest. Yeah.

Rachel: 14:41

I laugh at that because yeah, even like there, there are periods. In teaching where I struggle and I know I'm not the best teacher, but it's okay.

Katie: 14:49

Yes. Because life happens. And there are things that people are walking into that building with every day. That is going on outside, and they are doing their best. And that's all we can ask. We're all human.

Rachel: 15:00

so let's talk about the commodity of grades and extrinsic, extrinsic motivation a little bit more, because it's really interesting if you kind of take a look at the journey of a student through the K through 12 system, when they start out in kindergarten, grade one, it's all about play and learning and making mistakes. And there's no grades. Nothing's about points. And then And I can see this in my son as he's going through school, where the points start getting introduced, like maybe I don't know, like middle school kind of age, where they start getting levels on things. And then now he's in grade seven. He's getting um, he came home with his math test. He got an A which he was so excited about, and it was, he got 20 out of 20, which he was super proud about. But like, now it's points grades. And that continues right then into high school, where it becomes even more and more prominent. So we kind of go from this You know, let's, let's learn and, and learn from our mistakes and pretty much at least the students don't see any kind of grades to a system where it's all points and percentages.

Katie: 16:12

and, how we motivate students to get there. So, like stickers. I remember in elementary school, if I didn't get a sticker on an assignment, and my friends did, I was like, oh, I didn't do very well. Or earning privileges, or like prizes and things like that, that still happens. In fact, I think it happens more in elementary than it does in secondary, but I know instances where that is happening in secondary as well. So like, like point systems and earning of items or privileges, like We're valuing behavior there. And I, I don't know, like, extrinsic motivation is not what's going to drive our students to be motivated to learn. If anything, it's going to shut down some of the intrinsic motivation because it doesn't feel accessible or attainable. Because you don't value me as a person, and perhaps the way that I express my learning and Approach. School. I don't play the game of school well, I'm not gonna earn those privileges, why bother trying?

Rachel: 17:12

If I can be really honest and vulnerable here, I used to stick stickers on tests. And I would do it for kids who only got, like, over a certain score.

Katie: 17:22

I know.

Rachel: 17:23

me cringe now when I think about what I, some of the grading practices I used to do. Because, you know, I've learned so much over the past several years that, that there's no way I would do that anymore. But yeah, I, I used to do that. And just to think of, I don't know if it's, yeah, maybe it is harm that I was doing without knowing it.

Katie: 17:43

but I think here's what you need to focus on. You said used to. It's still learning. We were all raised in a system that did this. So, we do what we know. We do these practices because that's what we experienced as well. But as you learn better. And you learn better approaches and research, etc. You should do better. And so is what are we doing with this learning? Are we continuing these, these antiquated practices that we know aren't very effective and actually have the opposite effect on some of our students? Or, are we changing?

Rachel: 18:15

It's that Maya Angelou quote, right? Where it says uh, when you know better, do better. And it's a great quote.

Katie: 18:22

Yeah, so, I mean, don't be... Like, don't, don't feel vulnerable or guilty or anything because you didn't know at that time. Right? We're on a learning journey. We all do things and have done things. Like, when I started out teaching, I was such a hard marker and I was so strict. And I looked at behavior as part of that too. but I've learned and so I've changed.

Rachel: 18:43

Now there's a really interesting sort of discussion on extrinsic motivation and like, I know that extrinsic motivation doesn't work. I've known that for quite some time. But, um, he talks about a bit in this book about that extrinsic motivation can be beneficial for tasks that are just like menial or repetitive. So like, who can stuff the most envelopes in this amount of time, then? Yeah, sure. You get a prize for that. Cool. Cool. Cool. So, that works. But when you try and use extrinsic motivation for any kind of task that's higher order thinking or requires creativity, that's where it doesn't work.

Katie: 19:22

hundred percent, because who's defining creativity?

Rachel: 19:25

Yeah. Yeah.

Katie: 19:26

Who's defining that one answer is better than another with higher order thinking? Like, we think differently, we approach problems differently, and so we're going to have different answers, and different expressions.

Rachel: 19:37

And so when we use traditional grading uh, we kind of, and we put this emphasis on points, then basically the learning Like anything you do within the classroom, the focus becomes on the points and how can I get this many points? And it takes away from the learning itself. I think we've all been there where you've had a student ask you, is this going to be graded? How much is this worth? Uh, What percentage is this worth of my final grade? How many points is it out of? What's on the test, right? Like, we've, we've had all of those questions, and those questions are coming from the fact that using points does create that commodity of grades.

Katie: 20:21

And it also creates competition, versus collaboration, because students know who you are. The people are getting the points. They know the teacher favorites, so to speak. And so, you have less of an environment where students feel like they can work with others and support one another when you are motivating them with these point systems. And that's, I think, the opposite of what I want in my classroom. I want students to be talking and sharing and supporting one another in their language learning on a daily basis. I don't think it should be an individual kind of task. I think it's something that we can help each other with and we all benefit.

Rachel: 20:58

Another sort of unintended negative consequence that he talks about with points grades in this section here is that, Using points will make the student more dependent on the teacher and less independent learners.

Katie: 21:12

Yeah, makes sense though. Like if you know the game of school and you can play to this point system you're just going to be looking for the teacher cues as to what gets me the most points. It's a game.

Rachel: 21:24

Yeah, so then they lose those strategies of like, okay, how do I truly learn this? Like, how do I fully understand what's going on here?

Katie: 21:32

It took me, and this is kind of embarrassing, but I was really good at the game of school until university. It was university where I was like, well, damn it. This is different. My classes are like, 250 to 500 students at times. And I was so used to these point systems and using the teacher as my guide in terms of what, what I should value the most and where I should spend my energy that now I don't have the learning skills and strategies in place to figure out how I learn on my own.

Rachel: 22:03

So I guess that begs the question then, and this is, I often hear this remark. In work rooms, in schools, like anywhere, is that, well, we can't get rid of the points, we can't get rid of the percentages, we can't get rid of the tests, because we are preparing students for university or college, that post secondary pathway.

Katie: 22:22

I was not prepared.

Rachel: 22:23

knowing that, And knowing what this book says, that points grades make them less independent learners, are we really preparing them for post secondary education using systems of traditional grading?

Katie: 22:36

No. I would say for me, absolutely not, because I never really had to work hard to figure out how I learn. It came very naturally, because it was so, I don't know. But I didn't, I also didn't value collaboration, because it was this competitive atmosphere. Whereas in university, I had to learn, wait, we're not actually competing against one another. We can support one another and do study groups, and, and help each other. And that took me a while to kind of figure out and learn how to do because it was not a system I was used to.

Rachel: 23:07

I think, for me, I was, I was, I was great at the game of school, too. I was very good and attuned into how I got points and, and where my grades were coming from. I don't think I really noticed. The fact that I was, I, I didn't really know good strategies on how to learn on my own until I got to grad school

Katie: 23:30

Ah,

Rachel: 23:30

where I'm just thrown into a research environment. Right. And it's like, okay, here's a project, but like you take it and you take it and you figure out where you're going with it. It's that to me was a huge shift and, and one that took me a while to like really figure out I was, I don't know. I was so overwhelmed when I first started grad school.

Katie: 23:53

And so it does catch up. So if we're not teaching a lot of these I don't know, I guess they're kind of learning skills really and different, and knowing who we are as learners. I think that's key. And within our content areas, we need students to figure out. How to discover answers, and how to kind of build that content, and problem solving skills, and, and all of these different things. Note taking even. Like there's so many skills that we should be teaching throughout K 12, so that all students are prepared. And some, some students don't play the game of school well, and end up developing these skills because they have to. And, and those are the students that I think are going to do the best long term because they have this, this, this toolbox of skills that everybody needs to know how to use and they were forced to learn them sooner.

Rachel: 24:42

Well, I think even if you like there, there are many stories I've heard over the years where Some of the best teachers are the ones who really struggled in high school and, and didn't do well in terms of grades through high school, university, and had to kind of figure out their, like you said, their learning strategies as they went. And now they're phenomenal teachers because of those struggles and because they had to figure things out as they went.

Katie: 25:09

that makes so much sense because that means the way they teach it, they're going to say, hey, if you're finding this hard, try this approach or try this. And if somebody didn't have to struggle or just kind of they see it and it makes sense and they don't even think of another approach, they're not going to think to even look at what another approach is for students to try. It's fascinating. The game of

Rachel: 25:29

very, so I think kind of one sort of point that I want to leave on and towards the end of this chapter is he says that With points, it's it's a tempting incentive strategy to use points to manage behavior but points really only create the illusion of engagement and motivation and I thought that was just really powerful because they do in a way You know, students want to be compliant. They want the points. So it's going to create that illusion of, yeah, they're engaged, they're motivated, but they're motivated not for the right reasons.

Katie: 26:06

No, it's gonna silence them. They're going to be afraid to ask questions. They're going to be afraid to engage and, and discuss things if they are not understanding. And I think that's a great point to leave at because that's, I think that's something we need to think about as educators and in our school systems.

Rachel: 26:23

Now, we've talked about these issues with traditional grading. We will get into other episodes as we get further into this book about, well, what can we do? Because, you know, it's all great and dandy to know what some of the issues are with traditional grading, but we need some strategies to really kind of Take our grading forward and, and use it as a tool to support student learning.

Katie: 26:47

Yeah, we're not just going to say, this is terrible. Look at all the bad things we're doing and end it there.

Rachel: 26:53

heh. So it's coming.

Katie: 26:55

Yes, it is coming, but it's important to think about the bad things because then we understand more why we need to change.

Rachel: 27:02

And so I think on that note, then we're going to wrap up our conversation here today. We'll include any of the links or resources we talked about here today in our show notes. You can access our show notes for this episode at edugals. com slash 138. That's edugals. com slash 138.

Katie: 27:22

And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend. podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content.

Rachel: 27:31

And as always, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what we've talked about here today with points and percentages and how it can affect trust and, and build that commodity of grades in your classroom. So if you have any thoughts to share with us, we'd love to hear them. You can go onto our flip at edugals. com slash Flipgrid and leave us a video message there, or you can go onto our website at edugals. com and leave us a written reply.

Katie: 27:59

Thanks for listening and see you next week.