Why Grade When We Can Learn? School is more about grading than learning and enjoying. Hearing the term test or quiz gives students, including me Goosebumps, and it also brings nothing but stress and anxiety to students and destroys their confidence because of the grading system. What’s more important, learning or grades? Do you think people would commit more to school or slack off if there was any grading? My opinion is that students and professors would appreciate academics more if there wasn’t any grading. People are affected by the grading because it limits the potential of success; meanwhile, some students and teachers believe that there should be grading. Consequently, failure results in students to lose their confidence and leads …show more content…
One of the many negative impacts on grading is causing students to cheat so they can please their parents’ wishes. Cheating leads to severe consequences such as: zeroes on tests, suspensions, ruining your reputation, and expulsions in some cases. Students also fear failing upcoming exams; for that reason, this gives students nervous breakdowns and anxiety while taking the exam. As a result, students care more about getting an A rather than learning the material. Failing grades cause parents to set restrictions on their children; moreover, it causes frustration in the student’s action. Grading can also lead to competition, on account of hatred throughout students, and it can even cause jealousy. Grading also causes students to focus on getting a high score so that their parents can be happy with them. Schools should be lenient against students who don’t pass the curriculum. Finally, students that are not used to foreign languages should not be graded on those subjects because it should be more about learning, however, than memorizing for a satisfying grade. To summarize, students would enjoy school a lot more if there was no grading; furthermore, they would be more comfortable with the school because it would be less difficult for …show more content…
We can have broader grading systems despite having specific grading numbers; for example, we can have a passing and non-passing system. An indication of a Yale student that was posted on the school’s website “Yale allows you to make your education truly yours without worrying about grade competition”. The numbering system allocates a number to each student and turns it into a ranking. This ranking, verdures students with lower grades that are still passing, feeling less educated; hence, causing the students to lose confidence. The fail pass grading system means that student’s grades will not be on their GPA. This avoids students from having the burden of getting high letter grades. Instead, students can learn more in spite of t worrying about what their grades stands as. This system also provides students with an advantage to pay more attention in the class instead of focusing on the details that are on the assessment to get a higher grade. Another way to fix the grading system is to allow students to retake an exam if they do terrible. This helps kids with test anxiety and allows them to retake an exam in case if they have had an anxiety attack on the first test. These are my opinions to change the grading systems by improving
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.
The author was a freshman at Princeton University when this article was written. He seems to have enough drive and determination in order to embrace grade deflation compared to his peers, who complained and disagreed with the grading system, which is what started this essay.
According the three leading effects of grading outlined in Kohn’s paper, the number one effect of grading is “grades tend to reduce students' interest in being taught.” I would agree with his argument grading and testing puts pressure on getting excellent grades and takes the focus off understanding and on “performing” acceptably. When I was younger, I was ferocious reading lately the only reading I accomplish is required for a class or studying a textbook. It was enjoyable since I loved reading; I was not required to read all the books I read due to my genuine love for reading and words. Because of that, I excelled in English.
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability.
In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
Colleges in America grade students academically for successful careers. For years students grades were calculate by an alphabetic/numeric grade scale. Today colleges are questioning whether grades should be determined by continuing to use a grade scale or switch to a pass/fail scale. Although, there were numerous of factors both positive and negative about a pass/fail system to take into consideration before making a decision. I feel that colleges in America should continue to use a grade scale to convey to students that grades have consequences, open doors to opportunity, and alleviates perturbation.
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...
What happens when students hear this new mode of grading and stop trying? What is the challenge of going to school and working hard, if they do not have to make sure they get all of their school work done to pass? Teachers will not need to try so hard to get their lecture through to their audience. Although allowing the no zero rule helps children in many ways, it hurts them in more ways. In society there are no grading scales, no one is going to give these young students an easy pass. If they cannot do what they are supposed to do in their career, then they will fail. These students need to understand the meaning of working hard to achieve in school, so they understand what it will be like with a job, or family. Most jobs run on a pass or fail scale. It is easy to think that changing the grading scale is what the students need, and that this will give parents what they are looking for to stop the children from dropping out of
Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.
Academic knowledge is the basis on which future prosperity, and financial security has been determined. As a consequence, students feel inclined to perform above average in school. Now, as students perform less and less, they sink to obtain good grades by cheating. This method to acquire the desired grades will only harm the student, instead of the imagined result. Prompted by a child’s inability to perform basic tasks throughout his education , academic cheating spawns numerous negative consequences.
It is a teacher’s responsibility to properly prepare and educate their students. In some cases this can prove to be difficult for an educator. As a student, you may find that your teacher may not be giving you enough attention or specific one-on-one time. This is where student grading could come in handy. Many educators might fear negative feedback because they often do the best that they can with the abundance of responsibilities they already have; but others strongly believe that teachers shouldn’t be above criticism, and should ask their students for this constructive feedback on their performance. This could help improve the nation’s educational system if conducted properly. It would also help the students and the teachers to sort out their true priorities in the classroom. According to an article written by Atanu Kashyap Adhikari, he agrees and claims “They will now be concerned more about the comprehe...
When students have easier grading criteria, it increases their ability to learn the material instead of focusing on earning better grades without understanding the material. Students sometimes need grading criteria that will allow them to focus on their studying more than focusing on how they will be able to pass their classes with good grades that will not affect their GPA’s. For example, I have taken many classes throughout my college career such as Psychology, Philosophy, and Statistics, some of them I need as major requirements. I took the classes and I have no idea until this moment what I have learned in those classes. As said, I have learned the material for these classes to pass the exams, and forget what I have learned the day after the exam. In this case, I do not blame myself that I have not learned the material as I have to, because I learned it to pass the class with a good grade instead of passing the class with the
One change institutions should make to the grading system is to eliminate all factors that have noting to do with learning outcomes from affecting the students’ grade. According to the article, “Assessment of Learning Outcomes: What’s the difference?” written by Carnegie Mellon University, grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors usually include factors unrelated to learning outcomes such as attendance to class, participation, improvement and in some cases, grades are boosted a bit due to how hard the student is working.” These factors are
Its time to change the school system to save future students from becoming stress crazed and to let them know that there is more to this world than a grade card and in the long run it is a very small fraction of life.