Comments on: Grading 2.0: Evaluation in the Digital Age

By: Marj Kibby

Marj Kibby — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:30:05 +0000

Having just attended a govt funded workshop on how to grade student assisnments that use Web 2.0 applications, I’m reminded that neither should men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish …

Getting students to blog, to encourage them to express opinions on the issues of importance to them, and then giving them a grade that signifies that their blog was better or worse than their fellow students ….??!!

By: Lea of Private Schools Palm Beach

Lea of Private Schools Palm Beach — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:37:28 +0000

I agree with Jose said that we should have been moving in the direction you point a while ago, and still most people in education and elsewhere seem to be fascinated with grading and measuring everything and anything they can concerning learning. Private Schools Palm Beach

By: Tony Gonzalez

Tony Gonzalez — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:02:45 +0000

I’ve recently been doing a lot of thinking about if “the system” can really be changed from the inside, or if the inertia of its immense size will prevent that from happening, and force the development of alternate external systems. Grades are an inherent part of schools today because schools are very different beasts from what they were pre-Farish, and getting rid of them will mean getting rid of our current mass-production style system of education. Maybe the shift would be possible in small colleges with an ideal teacher-to-student ratio, but I can’t see it happening in large research universities like the one that I’m at…

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:45:20 +0000

In a world where education is a voluntary endeavor undertaken by the willing and able, then yes, grading is unnecessary. But the mass education of the lethargic and disinterested requires us to grade, in order to coerce “students” into expending at least some minimal effort.

By: Rachel Jones

Rachel Jones — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:48:29 +0000

It’s worth looking at Dylan Wiliam’s work on assessment, grading and feedback. His meta review of research in the mid 1990s (Inside the Black Box) found that grading work can actually detract from performance rather than improve it focuses on the performance ‘outcome’ rather than rresponse to developmental advice. See http://www.dylanwiliam.net/ for this and the next decade or so of fascinating work on assessment.

By: José Mota

José Mota — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:30:37 +0000

“Grading is a waste of time. We only do it in schools and universities. (…) Iterative and formative feedback is what’s really required for learning”

Well, thanks for saying it out loud and clearly. We should have been moving in the direction you point a while ago, and still most people in education and elsewhere seem to be fascinated with grading and measuring everything and anything they can concerning learning.