The majority of students from the Business school who come to the Schwartz Institute to rehearse their company or industry analysis powerpoint presentations seem to look at the rehearsal process as an opportunity to improve a necessary skill. This has been one of the most rewarding aspects for me of my work as a Communication Fellow: the students are always grateful for the help in improving their public-speaking skills. They are motivated by the idea that they are helping themselves. I like that I do not have to grade their work for them to see it as important.
The institution of grading students on an A through F scale has done a horrible disservice to education. It has falsely given the impression to generations of students that the teacher or the professor has some ultimate authority over the value of their work, as if their own assessment of what they were doing was somehow secondary. The result of this institution is a division among most students into two groups — a group motivated by competition and the drive for the teacher’s approval, and a group lacking in motivation with little interest in the teacher’s assessment. What is missing all too often among students in both of these groups is the sense that their education is their own.
I have found several methods of correcting this problem that work within the extant system. By far the best of these methods is to ask students to write self-evaluations. All teachers who have ever taught a graded course know that students approach them to apologize for not having completed an assignment — the proverbial “my dog ate my homework” moment. The self-evaluation taps into the students’ innate authority over their work which is too often evident only in their apologies. If you ask students to write about how they have approached the assignments of the class and you ask them to write about their own perceptions of their strengths and weaknesses, they very quickly begin to realize their own agency in the learning process and to begin take responsibility for their own education.
Of course the best thing, I think, would simply be to do away with grades and grading altogether. I know that for many people this suggestion amounts to advocating “mere anarchy.” Without the carrot and stick, there would be no motivation anywhere among students, no assessment, no accountability. It’s true that in all likelihood, the students who come to me to rehearse their powerpoint presentation are not motivated purely by their own desire to improve. Their presentations are graded and they want to get a good grade. Well, perhaps this is true. But in a time when the movement for standards has taken over every level of education, I find some comfort in recollecting a different ideal.
Hear! Hear!
Michael,
I am not sure about going as far as doing away with grades altogether, but I do relate to your positive feeling about working with students in rehearsals. Knock on wood, the great majority of the students I have encountered so far in rehearsals have been really eager to improve their presentation skills and truly grateful for any valuable input I was able to give them. And you are right, I could sense that at some point it was not even about their grade so much, after all, the presentations tend to be a small percentage of their overall grade, but about the group-spirit, the desire to perform well in front of the others, and the wish to preserve or improve a self-image that was being put to test.
I think the “What grade would you give yourself for this course, and why?” essay question at the end of the year, if done in earnest, generates interesting responses from students. It’s also useful to collaborate with them on grading standards, earlier in the semester. Since I teach literature and give out way more essay assignments than exams, sometimes I allow students to design their own grading rubrics. Their grades seem less arbitrary that way, both to them and to me. Plus it allows for advanced students to hold themselves to higher standards. Anyway, I think you’re right that collaborative grading is the happy medium here, so we can give students some agency and some due trust, but avoid getting fired for abolishing grades.
This is an important topic that I wish would get more mainstream debate. Thanks for raising it.
There has been a fair amount of research on the effect of grades in various literatures, especially motivation research in psychology. However, I find it most interesting to talk to students who are products of schools w/out grades. The usual examples are Reed College and Evergreen State College (see, for example, http://encarta.msn.com/college_article_GoingWithoutGrades/Going_Without_Grades.html), but there are a number of schools at all levels in the US. These students *always* tell me the same thing — and it agrees with the research on motivation — students in ungraded systems are more likely to be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated, or in plain ol’ English, they experience joy in learning unlike those learning in the graded classes, and learn the material deeper and retain it longer.
A natural question is how do we motivate students w/out grades? The usual two answers are faculty evaluations and academic standards. Here in NYC, consider Fordham’s Business School’s Deming Scholars MBA program (http://tinyurl.com/ylyxang) which was modeled on the teachings of statistician and quality consultant W. Edwards Deming. Deming was opposed to individual merit-based pay because he felt it often fluctuated due to elements beyond the control of the employee. So in the MBA program, students are graded to a standard that is within their control. And such a grading system was accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
While many organizational behavior scholars in the US disagree with Deming’s views on merit pay, it’s interesting that Ken Bain, author of the book “What the Best College Teachers Do,” cites studies that have shown that students learn most in grading systems where they are graded to a standard (not to a curve against their piers). The challenge to educators, according to Bain, is to clearly define what the standard is for an A, B, C, etc. (e.g., “An A student in my discipline is one who can demonstrate X, Y and Z.” I’ve found this easier to define in an A, B, C, D, F system, not Baruch’s A, A-, B+, B, B-, … system.)
P.S. Everyone should read Robert Pirsig’s views on grades (and why they should be abolished) in his 1974 classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values”.
Michael,
Nice post. I couldn’t agree more. I am teaching two composition courses this semester and I am not assigning grades in either one. I find that getting rid of grades not only encourages students to think of their writing as a process rather than a product (an important step in becoming a good writer), but also allows me the freedom and the space to make more substantive comments on their work. When I don’t have to worry about giving them a grade, and all of the anxiety and norming that goes along with that process, I find it is easier to focus on giving them the feedback they need to make their work better. On the other hand, when we put too much emphasis on grades I think the natural response is to use our comments as a justification for the grade.