What Is the Purpose of Grading?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that grades serve an essential accountability function beyond just communicating learning levels.
Key Takeaways
- Grades aren't just communication - They also motivate students to do the work that produces learning
- Accountability is a legitimate purpose - Grades that include completion, effort, and deadlines serve the accountability function
- Don't strip grades of their power - Making grades purely about mastery removes their ability to drive student engagement
Transcript
What is the purpose of grading?
I'm reading a book on grading reform right now, and it's pretty good so far.
I'm not going to say which one it is yet.
But one of the questions that it raises early on is, what is the purpose of grading?
And in all the discussions I've read, all the different books, all the different arguments that different authors and grading reform experts make, there's an insistence, a consistent insistence that the primary purpose of grading is to communicate.
And there's a downplaying of the obvious purpose of grades in holding students accountable, right?
The idea that you have to do certain things to get a grade that ultimately at the high school level gets you course credit.
And for some reason, grading reform experts love to emphasize communication.
They love to emphasize things like accuracy and, you know, what scale do we use?
Do we use standards based grading?
There's a lot on communication, but there's not much on accountability.
And I think if we're going to change grading in any way, if we're going to implement any kind of reform, we have to understand what job grading is doing, right?
It's the idea that If you're going to replace something, you need to understand what you're replacing because the new thing is probably not going to do the same jobs in the same way.
And when it comes to standards-based grading, when it comes to policies around zeros that may be different than what we've done historically as a profession, we have to recognize that we're potentially messing with accountability.
And I'm not saying we should just leave grading completely alone.
I think there's probably room for improvement.
But we have to be very, very careful when we're messing with the foundations and with how some of the fundamental things work.
So let me know if you're doing any new grading stuff in your district.
I just heard from somebody who had just been through a three-day workshop.
Let me know what you're hearing about grading and perhaps I'll talk about this more.
But welcome back.
Hope you've had a great summer.
Hope you're still having a great summer and just let me know how things are going.