Thoughts on Evaluating Students

As someone in the education biz, reports like this really frustrate me:

Whether the grade is good or bad, you’re taking the student away from focusing on intrinsic interest and tying their experience to grades, Immordino-Yang explained. Under such circumstances, genuine interest in learning for its own sake wilts. Grades can be an impetus to work, and can be really satisfying, she said. But when emotions about the grade swamp students emotions about a subject, that’s a problem.

It’s not like schools LIKE running assessments for its own sake, but in NY State, for example, you have to produce something that looks like a grade on a 100 point spectrum where 70+ means pass. As a means to express “we care and are iterating on your learning success,” schools want to get a certification, but research cited suggests that the rules to pass state cert might undermine the value of the education itself! Ultimately, and sadly, I think we all lose because of this.

Source: https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/10/13/the-emotional-weight-of-being-graded-for-better-or-worse/