After viewing and commenting on the Taylor Mali video, I felt the need to post a separate entry regarding grading. Mali says he can make a C+ feel like a congressional medal of honor and an A- seem like a slap in the face. I feel like this is an area that most teachers are severely lacking, at least from my experiences. During my educational career I never used to exert much effort, I would coast through and still receive high grades. My teachers knew this but were pleased with my grades so they never commented on it, except for my 6th grade science teacher who told me, "I know you're not trying and I hope it comes back to bite you in the ass one day." This malicious statement made me chuckle at the time and severely lowered my opinion of her. I think trying to prompt student effort should take the form of constructive criticism and not hoping for student failure. My senior year in high school my English teacher was undoubtedly the most hated teacher in the school. He ran a strict classroom, graded harshly and pushed his students to their breaking point. Ironically, I enjoyed the class and tried harder in it than in my others. I believe that a balance must be found to push the students to perform but not pushing them to the point that they break. Furthermore, I found that teachers I like or respect and who push their students inspire me to try harder (clearly not my 6th grade science teacher). As a future teacher I will expect nothing but the best from my students, pushing them to try their best while maintaining a respectful attitude and a comfortable classroom setting.
3 comments:
"I believe that a balance must be found to push the students to perform but not pushing them to the point that they break."
So scaffolding in the classroom basically?
There's so many things to consider when thinking about grading. Grades can obviously be a really big motivator for students, like you experienced in your senior English class. I, like you, never felt that I was using much effort to get by in school. Things just kind of came to me, and I'd do very well without trying to hard. For me, grades were just another aspect of school. To other students, however, grades could be terrifying. We all know people like this, and we may very well be one of those people. Because students of all levels can be affected by the prospect of grades in many positive or negative ways, we as future teachers should make sure we focus on a way to use grades to motivate students without placing undue stress upon them. A grade should reflect the academic achievements of a student; it should never be the achievement itself.
Grading is a tricky subject. I definitely know what Mali means when he says he "can make a C+ feel like a congressional medal of honor and an A- seem like a slap in the face." How a teacher comments on an assignment they are grading really affects the impression on the student. I've had teachers grade my papers that I've gotten A's on, but the way they write their comments make it sound like I should have failed. On the same note, I've gotten B-'s on papers where the comments make it sound like the teacher is so proud of my work.
In grading, especially when it comes to papers, if a teacher makes the decision to write comments, I believe that they should always be encouraging and constructive, not critical and destructive. Teachers need to realize that the comments they write can absolutely crush a student's motivation if they're written and taken the wrong way. In this way, I agree with Eddie's comment that teachers need to "focus on a way to use grades to motivate students without placing undue stress on them."
I also agree with Eddie that "a grade should reflect the academic achievements of a student; it should never be the achievement itself." This comment reminds me of my LLED411 professor, who refuses to let us be "grade oriented." She told us at the beginning of the semester that she understands that we all want to earn A's, but she constructs her classroom in a way that doesn't allow us to do our work in order to earn a specific grade. At first, this really threw me off because I'm so used to organizing my work in order to earn a grade, but in the long run her classroom set up has relieved so much of the stress that goes along with trying to earn high grades. I believe that this is an excellent way for teachers to organize their classrooms, even if it may be a challenge.
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