I'm about to start reading "UNgrading" by Susan D Blum. The book is 15 educators making the case for going "gradeless" and exploring how ranking and rating students undermines learning.
Not sure how much of it I'll be able to incorporate, but as a writing professor I'd so much rather mentor and teach students to interact with critical feedback than say "your memoir piece was a 'B+.'"
I am eager to read others’ replies, as I, too, am interested in this. I just received my copy of this book (https://www.amazon.com/Ungrading-Students-Undermines-Learning-Education/dp/1949199827) and it seems like it will have lots of good ideas for what you’re interested in. Although I haven’t yet read it, perhaps you should check it out, too
There are a lot of studies arguing that assessment based schooling is actually less effective than just lecturing to an audience without tests.
What tests actually do is give the school board an excuse to fire teachers, and assign blame for poor education standards onto individual students or teachers.
Here's one reading option for you. This is just one out of thousands or books and articles.
https://www.amazon.ca/Ungrading-Students-Undermines-Learning-Instead/dp/1949199827
You care about evidence, right?
The problem is that it takes two minutes to write a comment on Reddit, and it takes an hour to dig through notes and databases to find the article I’m looking for. I can’t use my books because I’m visiting family for the holidays, and my books are on the other side of the country.
I’ll do that work when I’m writing articles, but I don’t do that work just because some stranger on Reddit asks me to do it.
I will give you a quick run-through of how I look for evidence here, just to show you my process. I start with books and literature reviews. For education, the book I usually start with is Visible Learning by John Hattie (Amazon). This book should be readily available at various libraries (including ebook versions) free of charge. The reason I start with this book is because it covers a broad range of education topics and has a ton of citations in the back.
Since I focus on CS education, there are some more specific journals that I like to search, like SIGCSE.
Well.... I can solve the "No-Zero" pollicy issue for you!
Read "Grading for Equity" by Jow Feldman. It's the book where admin gets their "No Zero" policy from and screws the rest of it up. It's a short read, and if you have to do No-Zeros anyway, this book will help you implement the REST of the philosophy. It will allow you to hold them accountable without running afoul of their policy!
I get your frustration. I was right there. I've talked about it a LOT. I've read articles, I've explored, and it finally clicked with that book. I really urge you to read it. I am not the one who conducted the studies, so I'm just secondhand information.
https://www.amazon.com/Grading-Equity-Matters-Transform-Classrooms/dp/1506391575
I'm going to try not to spam you, but that's also addressed in Grading for Equity. The thing is you CAN'T address all of the causes sometimes. Student doesn't have a quiet place to work? How do you fix that? Student works outside the home to support siblings? Can you fix THAT? Student is slow to process and needs more time, but can't complete everything because of that? The semester still ends...
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https://www.amazon.com/Grading-Equity-Matters-Transform-Classrooms/dp/1506391575
The push from admin to pass everyone is REAL. It's also not connected to the "no-zero" or 0-4 grading. That's just admin grabbing one line and running with it instead of actually learning the philosophy. I recommend you read "Grading for Equity" and see what you think. It's a pretty easy read, I finished it in a long day. It's where a lot of the 0-4 or "no-zero" concept comes from, but it ALSO expects changes in what is assessed and how.
https://www.amazon.com/Grading-Equity-Matters-Transform-Classrooms/dp/1506391575
Read Grading For Equity for a good, deep explanation (I'll link below).
Short answer, yes, it's a workaround for 0-4 scale to fit with programs that only accept 0-100%. I too really struggled with the concept until I read the book that champions it. The key is that you're NOT giving "points" really. That's changing the reporting system without the grading system. If you implement a "no-zero," 0-4, 50-100, etc. scale, then you also GRADE on that scale. If a student gets 30% of their math problems right, they don't get an 80%, they get a 1 or a "below expectations." If you need to translate that into a score for your computer, they get a 55%. Still failing, still better than not doing it, still not passing.
The KEY to this idea is that they have another opportunity to demonstrate learning. In Math, maybe Exam 2 has 3 of the 15 problems which are actually for skill 1. A student bombed Exam 1, but gets all 3 of these right? You update their Exam 1 score to whatever is appropriate because they demonstrated they learned that skill/concept. If a student does 10% of the work, but they get is all perfect, they might squeak by with a D or even a C. If most (the book advocates ALL) of your grades are summative, then they showed that they know enough of the content and skills. It's up to you to create assessments which YOU feel give an accurate measure of student achievement.
A "no-zeros" policy with 70% "completion" grades will do exactly what you fear. One with grades based nearly exclusively on students demonstrating achievement won't.
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https://www.amazon.com/Grading-Equity-Matters-Transform-Classrooms/dp/1506391575
This book breaks it down very well. There are a few concepts in the book I don't agree with, but the case against zeros is compelling.
Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms https://www.amazon.com/dp/1506391575/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_4F8TC2WBG2100YW1RTKH
yup. You are going in blind, during a pandemic with all the added stress on you, and all the added stress the kids are feeling. Try your best, but don't beat yourself up if a lesson doesn't go well. Just teach it again from a different approach. Kids will remember how they feel in your class more than what they learned. Focus on how you make them feel.
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I'm reading the below book now and loving it. Wish I had read it earlier. My school bought it for their teachers. I bet there is someone in your building who can buy professional development books so you don't need to pay for it.
https://www.amazon.ca/Onward-Cultivating-Emotional-Resilience-Educators/dp/1119364892
This is going to seem like a cop-out, but here goes.
All of your questions are important, but not limiting issues with respect to the ways we should consider reforming grading practices. Thomas Guskey does a much better job of answering them than I do. Here are the two books I would recommend:
On Your Mark: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Mark-Challenging-Conventions-assessment/dp/193554277X
Get Set, Go: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Set-Successful-Reporting-classrooms/dp/1949539458
>Do you have anything pertinent to add or are you just wanting to be spiteful and troll?
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I just did, did you not see the part about employee's who don't feel safe should be able to stay at home without pay? But if you are getting paid still, then you should have no say in the matter of opening the economy.
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>Does wanting a state gov't that works for the people,
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yes, I dont want that. I want a minimal government allowing for more individual freedom.
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>or wanting a safe work environment mean I'm not doing my job?
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do you want to still get paid? Are you under 80 with no underlying health issues, if so you are pretty safe.
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>The US has had some of the bloodiest labor struggles of any country. We're doing a disservice to our ancestors if we accept increasingly unsafe working conditions and increasingly eroded social safety nets.
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oh noes, muh labor unions.
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> Do you have any idea how many hours teachers put in, especially those of us who take pride in our work?
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Yes State law requires schools to hold class for a minimum of 1,080 hours or 180 school days per school year. You essentially have more days off then on.
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>Read a book.
Ok, point me in the direction and I will point you in one as well. we can compare notes. https://www.amazon.com/Market-Education-History-Studies-Philosophy/dp/1560004088
I used to think like this until I read On Your Mark but Guskey. Completely changed my outlook on grading and score reporting. Great book, and a quick read.
What faculty want is irrelevant in most cases concerning the operations of the University. Just how universities work. If "pressure" worked, we would have functioning systems of shared governance, but we do not. There have been countless books documenting this issue. See the Fall of the Faculty for a great intro about which powers faculty had, have, and have lost vs. the Administration, under the erosion of shared governance: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Faculty-Benjamin-Ginsberg/dp/0199975434
Faculty are rarely unionized either.
Whatever views faculty hold are generally irrelevant to most Administrators. In my case, we were never engaged in an any dialogue about whether to reopen or not. We were informed. And I work at a very high-up level compared with many faculty members, as a full Professor and former Department chair.
I am not clear how this is not being effectively conveyed, but certainly with the % of adjuncts alone in any given university, outside of a handful of Ivies and SLAC's, there is limited persuasion which "faculty" can enact.
Do faculty -- who are post-tenure and thus protected -- tell administration what we think? Sometimes, but it depends on the specific governance structure: most Academic Senates or similar bodies are famously "lip service" only.
We are not K-14 or K-18 here. We have such a different system, and each university also has a different funding structure which influences things, different sizes and types of institutions, on top of different state-level mandates, and then different levels of internal coherence and shared governance.
My point: Administration call the shots in the U.S. They turn the lights on. They schedule courses. They close campuses. The reopen them. No one else has that power.
I find it mind-boggling that TfA is seen as a good thing. All they've done is created prestige by limiting applicants - wasn't that on a recent EK episode? And it seems so clearly to me a model with awful assumptions about education at the core. I had a classmate who went through the very small teacher training program I took at an Ivy league undergrad, he got himself kicked out of TfA for refusing to stop loudly disagreeing with their crash course summer training. At the time I thought he was being his typical arrogant self but only took me a bit of reflection to see nope, he was probably right.
Side note - yes that's right, 6 undergrads at Harvard my year who took the courses needed and did student teaching to get a teaching license. 6/1600. I don't teach math but that's a small percentage.
Wanted to tell you I LOVE IT when I see new names in education I don't know. Thank you for the recs! One of my personal faves - who I don't think would make a great guest as she's too focused on education and not policy or society - is Elena Aguilar. Read Onward!
https://www.amazon.com/Onward-Cultivating-Emotional-Resilience-Educators/dp/1119364892
>but it's not like our government controls the means for food production and I hope they never do.
My main point is that government bureaucrats are faced with the same backwards incentives regardless if they are producing food or providing the service of education. Removing competition means no accountability and no pressure to increase quality or reduce costs.
>What is your stance, how would you like our educational system to operate?
I'd like it to operate with zero state involvement.
The admit rate reflects a national trend at nearly all selective colleges and has little to do with Zimmer running the show. There are several liberal arts colleges that have seen similar dips in admit rates during this same period. College rankings by newspapers are mostly just advertising and can't be taken too seriously. U of C's prestige has been unaffected throughout this period, as far as I can tell.
This guy is totally overpaid. Top CEOs in the US are even worse. U of C has seen bigger increases in revenue in past decades, and administrators were paid a lot less back then. The article in the OP gives specific examples that show he's doing a terrible job (debt downgrade, poor communication with faculty, deficits, etc.). U of C simply has not been immune to the national shift toward running universities more like businesses (as demonstrated by Benjamin Ginsberg (U of C alum) in The Fall of the Faculty) that led to absurd salaries for top administrators, more cheap adjuncts, higher tuition, etc.
If you're interested in quant stuff, there's a researcher here in Aus/NZ named John Hattie who published a compilation of meta-analyses (http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Learning-Synthesis-Meta-Analyses-Achievement/dp/0415476186) related to educational achievement. There are certain strategies (as well as factors outside the teacher's control, e.g. SES) that are shown with robust evidence to be more effective at advancing the student's learning. His website and supplementary resources also show you how to calculate effect sizes for your own classroom interventions.
I realise this isn't as touchy-feely as some of the other answers OP is getting, but I saw the words quantitative and "good teacher" and immediately thought some of you might be in to this.
I'm having a very similar experience with both my emotional state and the classroom environment.
Most people wouldn't say this, but perhaps your instincts about discipline/punishment are worth listening to. In the short term, for the sake of your sanity, you may need to set them aside, because in my experience, they don't lead to quick fixes, and as you said, a structured environment is important for your students. However, I would posit that structure does not REQUIRE punishment, though that's certainly one way to get there.
I highly recommend these two books: Beyond Discipline and Lost at School. I think you would find them quite validating. Even if you (or any others reading this) are not willing to entirely give up punishment, I believe there is ample evidence out there that there is another way.
Feel free to message me if you are interested in discussing. This is an issue I feel very deeply about, even if I am currently not skilled enough to create the kind of environment I'd like to see.
Best of luck with the rest of your school year!
Diane Ravitch's The Language Police covers this topic in fascinating detail. If you have a child or simply care about what is happening to our public schools, read this.
(It's non partisan. And both sides are screwing things up more than you could ever imagine.)