Recently, I have begun to develop an appreciation for Louis Schmier's thinking:
his is such a unique perspective that I constantly feel pushed to question my
own assumptions about teaching (always a worthwhile endeavor). In response to a
post by Don Allen, Louis questioned the relativity of grading and raised the
possibility that a teacher who gives a large number of A's may simply be a
better teacher who gets his/her students to learn course material more
thoroughly. My reply to this is that examining a single set of grades in a
single course in a single semester cannot give us much information. On the
other hand, when a particular teacher gives out a much larger number of A's
overall than other teachers, over time and over courses, I want to look closely
at the situation. Why? Because my experiences with students have taught me that
a large number are undermotivated and underprepared for college. Thus, I would
not expect most students to get A's in any particular course. It could be that
the teacher has extraordinary acumen in the classroom and, thus, is able to
find unconventional ways of motivating his/her students to exert the enormous
effort required to learn difficult material and to make up for prior
educational deficits. But it also may be that the teacher is making few demands
on his/her students or grading leniently. A closer examination should lead to
an answer.
But such problems do not seem to be the real issue for Louis. Instead, if I am
understanding him correctly, he questions the very ability of grades to measure
the most important aspects of learning:
> [From looking at a grade on a transcript,] I don't know if the
> student learned the material or learned how to get a good
> grade.
Here, Louis is separating the grade obtained from what is learned. He is
asserting that a student generally can get a good grade without learning the
course material. What is the argument supporting such a fundamental indictment
of the practice of grading? He gives none. Instead, he again states what is
already obvious: student assessments involve various measures, some of which
are more valid than others (that is, they are better able to measure the amount
of learning):
> I don't know in what manner the grade was achieved,
> that is, by memory or guessing or by that often suggested,
> "process of elimination," and taking short-answer questions,
> by research paper writing, by analytical essay writing, by
> hands-on projects, by some or all or none of the above. I
> don't know why the grade was assigned, that is, the standards
> used, whether the student challenged the professor's views,
> submitted to the professor's views....
This, of course, was the point of my original post. If the course is well
designed and the assessment devices are valid (two big "ifs," as Louis and I
are both suggesting), a good grade should indicate that a student learned the
course material and thereby achieved satisfactorily the course goals.
As I continued to read his responses to Don Allen, it finally became apparent
to me what Louis was really criticizing about grading. He is arguing (I think)
that an overall course grade cannot evaluate how well the student has achieved
what he believes to be the most important goal of a course:
> I don't know if the student graduated with
> a Bachelor of Grades or a Bachelor of Experiences. I don't
> know anything about the moral, ethical fiber of that person,
> whether he will cheat, steal, lie. And finally, how I can use
> the grade to predict how valuable student A's services will
> be worth to me, that is, just how much the grade will
> predict future ability, adaptability, flexibility, growth,
> change--his or her potential.
If I am understanding Louis correctly, he is saying that, in addition to
developing the abilities of students (which, actually, grades are meant to
estimate, at least with respect to the abilities taught in the courses taken by
a student), we should include in our course goals the following: improving the
moral character of students and facilitating their self-actualization (I infer
this from his talk of potential, growth, and flexibility). Ultimately, then, as
a teacher, Louis wants to help students to find themselves--to learn to express
what they are on the inside. Of course, assuming that self-actualizing is a
valid and desirable teaching goal, a course grade cannot evaluate the degree to
which this has occurred.
But course grades were never meant to tell us everything we might want to know
about a person. They have meaning, but this meaning is limited. For example,
much information is lost by pooling information and calculating a single grade
(e.g., the student might have learned a lot about the brain but very little
about personality). In a similar manner, a student's cumulative GPA tells us
little about how well the student has done in any single course. Nevertheless,
it does tell us something about how much overall the student applied
him-/herself to learning course material as well as something about his/her
overall intellectual ability. If I were going to hire this person, I would want
to know much more than how well he/she did in intro psych or how high his/her
cumulative GPA was as an undergrad. I would want to know some of the things
Louis is wondering about. But the point is this: a single grade in a single
course or the cumulative grade-point average was never meant to assess anything
as complex as the "personhood" of students. Grades are meant to estimate the
ability of the student to accomplish certain course goals--not perfectly (no
measure can do this), but to a reasonable degree. Thus, grades are important.
My course goals are much more mundane than Louis'. For such goals, grades are
very useful indicators of student achievement. For example, in my intro-psych
course, I have the following four goals:
(1) the learning of a specified set of course competencies (such as basic
research methodology, a historical outline of the discipline, and the major
theoretical perspectives of the discipline);
(2) the facilitation of students' motivation to study the material by trying to
relate it to topics in which they are interested;
(3) the facilitation of students' ability to critically examine theoretical
explanations of psychological phenomena;
(4) the improvement of study skills.
I constantly am trying to assess whether or not these goals are being achieved.
But it is always a struggle to find adequate measures (this, I think, is my
most important weakness as a teacher), and I will be working at developing
better measures until the day my cold, lifeless body is carried out of the
classroom (which might be any day, now, the way things are going). I certainly
do hope that the learning of the course material and the skills I emphasize
will help my students to realize major life goals, make their lives more
fulfilling, and even perhaps give their lives more meaning. I know that,
overall, my educational experiences have helped me in these ways. But course
grades cannot predict such outcomes and I am not interested in assessing them
with grades.
Thus, to get back to my original concern: if a teacher gives a large number of
A's (or a large number of F's) in his/her course, I want to know why. There
needs to be some consensus on grading standards, across teachers within a
single discipline and across disciplines at a single school.
I didn't start out to write a book, but it seemed to turn into one. I'll stop
now.
Jeff
--
Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213
9000 E. Chaparral Rd. FAX Number: (480) 423-6298
Psychology Department [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626
"The truth is rare and never simple."
Oscar Wilde
"Instead of having 'answers' on a test, they should just call
them 'impressions'. And, if you got a different 'impression',
so what? Can't we all be brothers?"
Jack Handey
