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From the moment they start school, grades are pretty much a constant in any student’s life, but there is a growing realization among teachers and school leaders that throwing out grades is good for learning.

Grades are meant to measure progress, to tell us how much students know. The use of grades is fundamental to the way we rate not just how well students are doing, but also the performance of schools and individual teachers.

The only problem is that grading is not very good for learning.

Grades tell us how well a student does on a particular test, but they do not tell us what they know. More importantly, grades are a particularly poor form of feedback. They shed little light on where students are going wrong and how they can improve.

Disquiet at the use of grades has led to the formation of a grassroots movement. Teachers Throwing Out Grades, largely operating through social media, is leading the charge against grading.

One of its foremost advocates is Mark Barnes, a 20-year classroom veteran and now an author, consultant and TEDx speaker. He argues that grades are a barrier to learning and to the sort of conversations teachers should be having with their students.

“I realised that when you throw out that old model and you engage kids in a conversation about learning, they get more enthusiastic because they don’t feel they’re being punished by numbers and letters, and they love the opportunity to talk about what they know,” he says in a recent Talks with Teachers podcast.

In conversation with presenter Brian Sztabnik, Barnes says that grades do not work for students of any ability.

“Some kids are very good about playing the game and getting their points and getting their good grades, but even for them you don’t get a real good picture of what they know,” he says. “Then you have your reluctant learners, who really don’t do well at all.”

A crucial drawback of a grading system is the poor quality of the feedback. A grade and a comment is not a good way to help students improve, Barnes argues. Far better to have a discussion with students about what they know and what they need to do.

“We have got to get away from the grade because then it becomes something that is punitive and something that kids hate,” he says.

These sentiments strike a chord with many teachers.  It is also an approach, as Barnes acknowledges, that some been practising for a long time. Given the role of grades in education this is often necessarily under the radar, but the anti-grades movement is gaining in confidence.

It is even getting official approval. In the U.K., the Department for Education this week announced a commission to look into this approach, known as Assessment without Levels on this side of the Atlantic.

The principles behind throwing out grades have been accepted in adult education for some time.

These include a recognition that adult learners are less interested in grades than in what they are learning, that learning requires feedback and discussion, and that formative assessment is more useful than summative.

Even though adult learners often have a different motivation to high school students, this approach can still pay dividends for younger learners.

In particular, it puts a value on learning for its own sake rather than to pass a test, it allows students to pursue their interests whether or not they are being measured, and it puts a much greater emphasis on the role of feedback in learning.

There are significant challenges, however. One is that grades are so embedded in our education system that students – and their parents – rely on them. We also have a system that demands learning is quantified, both to measure the schools themselves and for entry into higher education and employment.

Moving away from grades will require a major shift in both culture and mindset on the part of many educators, but it could have a transformative effect, making learning less of an obstacle course and more a voyage of discovery.

 

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