Learning Journey -- Week Two's Class

As it stands, I very much enjoyed tonight's class.  I'm not really all that good at class discussions, especially when I'm with a group that I don't really know, and even though I wasn't making comments to everyone, I was able to chat a bit with my table group.  There were a few things I wanted to comment on -- mostly based on grading.

Grading:

In class, we had a big discussion on grading and whether or not we should put letter grades or numbers, whether or not we should change the letters that are used, and if we should keep where grades fall a secret.  When it comes to the letter/percentage grades on assignments, it's hard to really make a non-biased statement on them.  That system is what I grew up on, and I was always on "top" of it -- meaning I was a student who received good grades.  Because of that, I see the benefits of this kind of grading, as in, you can see that your work does need improvement, and if you're provided with feedback, you can work on it.  That being said, once you start thinking about how these grades create a hierarchical structure of intelligence and this shoves students into thinking they're not good enough for school and just deflates them.  

If the province adopted a new grading system that hasn't been used before, straying away from percentages, straying away from the A, B, C, ect, I could see the use of quantifiable grading becoming a thing, it just has to be well through out.  

There was also a discussion on not using the Assessment for and Assessment as learning not going towards the final grade of the class.  The dynamic of students not doing work that doesn't go to their grade came up.  My table discussed that if you had a section for classwork or participation, it would encourage students to do their work, but also not evaluate them based on the quality of the work done, simply the completion.