Thursday, October 15, 2009

Do We Need Point Grading: Should Colleges Switch To A System In Which Grades Are Based on Progress


By: Ryan Dettmann


Like in high school, most people worry about grades in college and many teachers have many different scales like a 15 point or weight specific items like tests and quizzes. But not many people have considered dropping grades altogether or almost dropping grades, because once an individual gets out of college there are not grades in the working world and the closest thing to a grade is progress reports. Some individual teachers have gone to a system that bridges the grading world to the working world.
Though most colleges rely on the classic grade point scale that has been used for most since middle school and possibly elementary school, some teachers and colleges have dared to be different in there way of grading. One of these colleges is
Duke at which Professor Cathy Davidson has taking a grading system based on a system in which if an individual does all the work they get an An and if they can only do most of it they can shoot for a B. But that leaves determining what work is satisfactory and unsatisfactory which she leaves to two students who lead the class on whether blogs are satisfactory or not. Though she admits that many professors could not do this, because she has tenure and is at a noted academic school. Also another that was of note is that even a system similar to could not work like the one in Buffalo in which students were able to bypass the teachers system. Also at a workshop for Association of American Colleges and Universities many administrators considered that they should drop grades altogether, because it is sometimes hard to gauge students learning and progress. Some have even suggested using progress reports, learning rubrics, and learning goals. These are several ideas that are good ways to bridge the grade point aimed classroom to the the quality of work done in the working world.

There should be a system in colleges in which a students success is based on how they accomplish work in which they are also based on cooperation. These teachers are rebels and revolutionaries in their field and many teachers should take note of bettering their teaching skills and methods to better prepare their students for the harsh working world
.

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