Technolandy

Day 18 (of SOL 2025) Summer of Learning… Dear Dr  @chrkennedy  grading +/-

In his annual year end blog, Chris had some good questions… here is question 

18. Is grading helping or hurting learning?

Grading sucks – feedback is what matters – and can generate holistic grading (I was taught this way back in the mid-90s by a professor who had been using portfolios and holistic marking for decades). I have articles my dad used when doing his masters in the 1970s talking about the farce of grading and the unreliability seen in that format. 

My -s include:

• Grading ends learning. It’s a report on what was done. 
• Grading measures the “best moment” rather than depth of knowledge / much like the meat industry the grade gets less reliable each day… especially after the “best before date”…
• Grading can be good for competition elements (which likewise should be a choice – a get to – rather than a “have to”)

+ves. 

So much easier than communicating with descriptive feedback about learning. “B good work this term try harder next time “ is so soothing and deflects a lot of discussions about what was going on around learning. People think they know what letter grades and %s mean, but I know the more hours I spend on this (well beyond 10 000 Mr Pink) the less confident I am on any of their accuracy and relevance for the learner except for extrinsic rewards (not motivation)