7 Reasons Why the Conditions are Right for a Learning Beyond Letter Grades Revolution – Etale – Mission-Minded Innovation
9815. At that time that I started writing this article, that is the number of people who were part of a Facebook group called “Teachers Throwing Out Grades.” It is a group of mostly K-12 educators who are personally committed to implementing something better than the traditional letter grade system, they are already part of a school that moved beyond grades, or they are keenly interested in exploring the possibilities. Scan the past conversations in this group and you will find a range of viewpoints and experiences. Many are focused upon standards-based grading as a replacement for the traditional letter grade system, but there are certainly other perspectives as well.
While this Facebook group has only been around for a few years, critiques of the letter grade system go back to its mass adoption starting near the end of the 19th century. Yet, there have been periods of heightened debate and concern about the letter grade system throughout its relatively short history, leading to any number of K12 schools and colleges that were launched in the early 20th century without letter grades.
[Shameless plug: I’m currently President of one of them, Goddard College, and if you are looking for an undergraduate or graduate degree that blends the best of remote learning with deep mentoring and action-packed, inspiring, 10-day in-person visits to Seattle or Vermont, check us out at www.Goddard.edu].
While there are similarities between the debates of the past and present about letter grades, there are some important differences about what is happening today. Consider the following.
Competency-based Educatin and Standards-Based Education
I am not one to argue that CBE or SBE are perfect solutions to most education problems, but both movements put new pressures on the letter grade system. While there are parallel movements in history, there is certainly something distinct about the fact that there are entire colleges, degree programs, and K12 schools that have fully embraced competency-based education or standards-based education. These newer practices challenge the traditional structures and systems of education. As such, grading gets renewed scrutiny as well. While some CBE and SBE programs continue with grades, it doesn’t take much analysis to see that it is an anachronistic misfit. Grades were just not designed to effectively fit into such contexts. It is a bit like trying to drive your car with wagon wheels on it.
Books and Depth of the Conversation
There have been more books written about the letter grade system in the last ten years than the prior 100 [I’m working on adding another one to that list in the near future called Learning Beyond Letter Grades…due to the publisher by the end of 2019]. These books offer a depth of critique and analysis that provide compelling and carefully-considered arguments about the limitations of the traditional letter grade system, but they don’t stop there. They also offer practical and relevant alternatives, and that is a key to the growth of the learning beyond letter grades movement.
The Compelling Why
With a growing discourse about access, opportunity, and equity in education today; grades are being examines through this lens. There is an important and fundamental question that has not been given significant attention in most schools in the past. Does the letter grade system amplify or muzzle our most deeply held beliefs and values about education access and opportunity? Or, are we just using it because that is what people did in the past? Is the use of grades in our school an act of compliance and conformity…a persistent and largely unchallenged acceptance of the status quo, or is our approach to feedback and assessment a conscious expression of our collective character? Yes, people have ventured into this conversation at times in the past, but it is a much broader discussion today, one that is garnering renewed and significant attention.
The Values of Structures & Systems
Also, amid this technological age, a growing number of people see that technologies are not neutral. Biases and values are embedded into their designs. There will be affordances and limitations (yes, my regular readers, I know that I have to fit that phrase into just about every other article that I write) in every technology, and the letter grade system is a technology. It amplifies the voices of some while muzzling the voices of others. It creates winners and losers. It benefits certain people more than others, and many of us are deeply invested in trying to create, at a minimum, a diverse enough education ecosystem so as to serve and support a wide array of people. Some might flourish or do fine in a letter-grade-shaped learning community, but that construct is a barrier to others. We can blame the student for not conforming, or we can at least consider alternative models that create greater opportunity for such students to flourish in ways that some never thought possible.
Learning vs Teaching
Over the last 40 years, there has been an increased focus upon learning science, distinguished from the art of teaching. This focuses our concern upon the conditions under which one is able to flourish the most as a learner. It includes attention to motivation, relevance, discipline, positive character traits, mastery, and efforts to track and identify when and how learning takes place. While there are affordances and limitations to this shift as well, the modern science of learning, when followed to its logical conclusion, also begins to surface the cracks in the letter grade system. We begin to see how it is disconnected from actual learning in many instances. We notice how the design of a grading plan can drastically change the grade that a learner receives without any change in what was actually learned by that student. This adds a new and important insight into questions and conversations about grading, feedback, and assessment.
Rating and Ranking
School is still one of the most striking organizational proponents of persistently rating and ranking people. And yet, when put that bluntly, many today don’t resonate with such a perspective. Why does rating and ranking have the be so central? Yes, there is a measure of rating and ranking that seems to be embedded into the collective human experience, but again, that doesn’t align with the values of many in education who believe that the goal should not be comparing, rating, and ranking; sorting the good from the bad. Rather, it can be a place where each person comes and our focus is upon the relative growth of that person. How do we help each person grow as much as possible, helping them achieve personal goals and setting even higher goals for their future?
Yes, Technology
The other change today is that there are any number of educational technology advancements that are helping people imagine new possibilities for how to approach feedback, assessment, and even credentials (ala badges and miro-credentials). Adaptive learning tools are helping us see learning as an ongoing process and not necessarily just a race to the exam. Our ability to mine and make sense of narrative data is growing, and we are discovering how that mining can even allow for promising match-making opportunities that have potential to skip the entire need for traditional grading systems.
Even if one doesn’t value where such technologies seem to be leading us, the real power of these technologies is that, not unlike the invention of the telescope or microscope, they help us look at the world in a new way. This expands our sense of what is possible.
Collectively, these 7 aspects of the modern context make the conditions right for a learning beyond letter grades revolution. Are you ready for it?