When Joshua Eyler was researching a book about what neuroscience can tell us about how to improve education, he found that a fundamental problem was the way schools and universities assessed student work. Problems that were inconsistent with education came up one after another.
Science shows that kids should be willing to try things and fail, Eiler said, and that the deepest learning comes when mistakes happen and students find ways to get back on track. But with our grading system and focus on maintaining a high GPA to win educational opportunities such as scholarships and spots at the best universities, moments of failure are thwarted. Masu. And he argues that the negative aspects of grading are exacerbated by online report cards that immediately alert families to low grades.
“It’s always felt like the elephant in the room. It’s hard to talk about, because grading is part of the foundation of everything we do in education, so it’s hard to tackle at first. It felt like it was too big,” Eyler says. He oversees the University of Mississippi’s Education Center.
In fact, many schools that have tried to reform their grading systems have faced passionate opposition from parents. Parents are concerned that their children will miss out on opportunities and be discouraged from submitting work if they don’t strive for high scores. In a traditional scoring game.
Eyler is the author of his latest book, scheduled for release this summer.Our future failures: How grades harm students and what we can do about it.” He said he hopes to start a national conversation about reforming grading in schools and universities that includes not just teachers but also parents, students and policy leaders.
“Because what I’ve noticed is that most of this conversation is happening in clear corners,” he says. “And if we want to make change, we all need to come together and talk about it. That means being on the same page about where we are in the conversation. Masu.”
He promotes alternatives to written grading, such as standards-based grading, which gives students who may not be ready to revise work and learn what they know. It says it has been proven to be more fair because it gives more time to show that it’s true.
However, the track record of these reforms has been mixed. “It was an unmitigated disaster in Maine,” Eyler acknowledged. 2012 state law Required schools to move to “proficiency-based” grading (a type of standards-based grading).That law is later abolishedvoted to give schools local control over how they handle grading after complaints about the new system and later news reports found an uneven rollout of the new practice.
Meanwhile, some schools have successfully made the switch. santa fe public schools.
Reforming grading requires a major shift in the perception of the purpose of assessing students, moving from the idea of ranking abilities to instead helping as many students as possible master key concepts. Success, he argues, therefore requires extensive efforts to educate parents and students.
Edsage sat down with Eyler to talk about his new book and how he deals with parents and students who are skeptical about ignoring grading.
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Correction: This article originally misstated the title of Joshua Eyler.
