A forum for discussing what's working -- and what isn't -- in standards and assessments.
Pass or Fail instead of "traditional" grades?
What if the rules of assessment changed? What if, instead of giving final grades, your students either passed or failed?
I’ve thought about how I would teach differently if pass or fail was the only thing that showed up on my students’ report cards. The rules of assessment would change in many ways, a few of which I’d like to talk about here.
1. The onus is on the student to take initiative for his or her own education. I think students actually have to work harder in a pass/fail situation. They don’t want to leave any doubt in the educator’s mind that they have passed. The student, motivated to pass, will want to pass with a capital “P.” Pass/fail is probably more difficult than receiving a letter grade or a number. There is no gray area in pass/fail. They will do extra work extra well so there’s no question as to the status of their final grade.
2. There is more room for project based assessment. Daily busy work makes sense in a letter grade system. It can help or harm a student’s grade, so it behooves the student to complete it no matter how ridiculous it may seem or how little he or she learns. Since you as the educator do not have to grade daily busy work in a pass/fail system, students can work instead on long-term projects. Complete the project according to the rubric and beyond? Pass. Don’t complete the project or fall extremely short of basic learning outcomes? Fail.
3. Student progress can be tracked through a ning or private blog. You can track the progress of the project (group or solo) through a ning or a private blog or some other update-able medium. Students can share a brief report of their progress and post some of their work for feedback from classmates or from you. In this way, you can see early on who’s on track and who’s not. You’ll be able to catch the ones who are behind early on.
These are just a few of the ways assessment would change if students didn’t have to work for letter or number grades. In what other ways would assessment changed if you had to grade your students pass/fail?
Comments (22)
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The biggest hiccups in
The biggest hiccups in assessment come with the fact that we have to answer to students, parents, administators, and community. If teachers were revered and trusted as competent professionals, then so be the "met the standard," etc. "grading" system. As a high school teacher, the fact of the matter is that students and parents want black and white. They want to see the numbers. They would ascertain that the student either got the answer right or wrong, and they should receive points accordingly. A scenario in which my opinion is used to deem whether or not the student should (or more importantly, should not) receive a passing mark is unimaginable to them. Based on my experience with parents and their disbelief when their child doesn't pass the class based on their child's earned assessment scores (those which have nothing to do with my opinion), I can't imagine trying to justify a grade based on my perception of their ability/inability.
Also, if it's true that not all students are equal, then wouldn't it be true that not all students should receive the same grade of "pass"? How high do you set the bar? If we don't set it high enough, we're giving up on some of our highest achievers. If we set high enough to keep our students reaching for excellence, then we leave many others behind. So, where do we set the bar? Here for him, there for her? That doesn't seem right either. Ay, ay, ay.
What if instead of students
What if instead of students passing/failing the course, they were given a pass/fail for each of the learning standards for the course?